Cycling is like life. Cycling with no goal is meaningless. What meaning is there cycling in circles? Or living aimlessly? Meaning comes from direction and destination. Join me in my life's journey on a mountain bike :)

Blogging since 2003. Thank you for reading :))

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Half a car is better than none

Jan distance: 226 km


Kranji, 49 km. Something has to be delivered by a certain day. The clock is ticking and is not negotiable. You have no car. Do you spend time looking for a car? Or is half a car better than none: get what you can and look for another half; and if you find a whole car in the meanntime, good for you. If it's wrong to get half a car, is it wrong to expect delivery without a car? What counts is whether the non-negotiable delivery is made, isn't it? And if the issue is hunger, would you turn down quarter of a loaf on account that it isn't half?

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Appearances and patches

Mandai, 53 km. The roadie overtakes me and I slip into his slipstream. His jersey is unzipped and a walkie talkie (or an ancient mobile phone) is in his pocket. He appears to be a pro as I struggle after him on my fat tyres. As we slow at a traffic light, he appears to intend a track stand but unclips his shoes from his pedals at the last moment. When he tries a few times (rather than in one fluid motion) to insert his bottle into his carbon bottle cage, I reckon he's not been riding that much. Back home, I inspect an inner tube with a hole at the base of its valve and the seal of special glue I'd applied. The "patch" appears to hold up but it remains to be seen if it'll hold up on the road.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

What's going on?

Kranji, 55 km. Situation 1: bike shop moves, a pet shop eventually takes its place. Bike shop moves again, another pet shop takes its place. Video shop closes ... and a pet shop takes its place. Coincidence? Situation 2: someone is afraid and to avoid the situation wants to go into a more fearful situation. But is the current situation so fearful when there is much data including first hand experience that says it isn't? Is the other situation less fearful when there is so little data, not even first hand experience? Situation 3: there's a strange sound after I cycle through some undergrowth. I look down and see nothing stuck on my drive train or frame, but still hear something. I'm tempted to ignore the sound but ignoring it doesn't make it go away. I stop for a closer look. A cable has somehow worked itself loose and is rubbing against a tyre. There no friction without sound, no smoke without fire. If it's not desirable or possible to avoid or to change a situation despite best effort, then the only thing left is to accept the situation and change ... me.

Sunday, January 04, 2009

Road sights

Kranji, 52 km. Seven elderly gents are out in their Sunday best on the road, one on a mountain bike, the others on road bikes with 1-inch tubing. They are dressed in bermudas, complete with belts. One of them has a silver thermos flask in his bottle cage. Six youths are out on their BMX, dressed in jeans on the pavement. Here and there, is a solitary roadie. It is a pleasant ride, until I'm a housing estate where a demented driver swerves into my lane multiple times within a few hundred metres. He looks back to glare at those he considers to have transgressed, oblivious to what he's doing. The last I see of him, he is gesticulating at a pedestrian crossing a driveway.

Friday, January 02, 2009

New year ride

Serangoon, 17 km. This is an orientation ride of sorts, to get used again to Singapore riding conditions. Somehow, it's easier to adjust to Cambodia compared to Singapore, though the former is right-hand drive. Over there, it is hot but not humid. And I don't have two pedestrians hurling themselves into my path or a woman pushing a baby in a pram to greet my front wheel. All these, on a short ride to get bikeshop man to true my front wheel. That costs me ten bucks, but he also gives me a practical session on how to true a wheel (which I didn't get from reading a book) and solves the failing cyclocomputer puzzle for me. As his business card says, he could be a (bike) doctor ... I reread the instructions (no kidding, the cyclocomputer is a computer) and he's so right.