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 :))

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Door gifts and near miss

Jun distance: 202 km

Changi, 68 km. I'm out to commemorate 2003 NPCC charity ride. Our last anniversary ride was in Jun 2007. We've grown fewer and older. Among the handful of us who show up tonight, one says I look younger. That's because the night is darker. We cycle then chat at a coffee shop, comparing injuries. The adventure racer who organised tonight's ride (and the 2007 one), being charming, has a charmed life. When I head into the toilet, a door slams into me. The assailant says sorry twice and turns on the tap for me. Back on the road, a passenger almost hits me with a car door. Wow, two door gifts in a night. Going home, I cycle just below my ventilation threshold. My speedometer reads 38 km/h for a while. My fat tyres whirl like the wind. My right foot feels funny. I struggle to unclip it then fail to clip in. The cleat is gone. I peer forlornly at the road. On a hunch, I look at the pedal. The cleat's there. I hobble towards home. At a junction, a driver shoots across my right of way. It's a near miss. I don't mean she nearly misses me. She's a near-sighted miss and if I didn't brake in time she would've given me a present of her van.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Electrified

Mandai, 40 km. Cycling in the late afternoon is less fuss. No sunblock, no poke in the eyes for contact lenses to wear sunglasses, no arm warmers to keep off the sun. I'm out to do Fartlek for fast legs. I've been labouring in expeditions thinking it is normal, but my reading tells me that need not be so. As I train, I see a bicycle ahead of me. It's too small for a motorbike, yet too fast to be a bicycle. I catch up with it at a traffic light and see that it's an electric bicycle. Fast pick up, fast speed. Soon it is out of sight, though I ride over 30 km/h uphill. I'm stunned. I used to overtake petrol-driven versions. Well, I know how to train better now, even when I'm not on a training ride. Knowledge is power and power makes bike go faster :)

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Almost a century

Changi, 94 km. It's been years since I've joined a group ride with strangers. I end up as the sweeper. I cycle with someone who slips twice and whose slippers drop twice. Four km into the ride, she graciously turns back and another joins her. I cycle with them to the start point. Then my "amazing race" starts as I twist and turn on the park connector trying to find the main group. The ride leader eventually finds me and life is back to "normal". It's quite fun as I ride to places I've not been before and usually avoid (because of the "brownian motion" risks of collision with pedestrians, cyclists and tots in such places). Such places usually raise my heart rate but not today, perhaps because of the company I'm in and my perspective today of going with the flow.