Weekend Rides

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Had a good weekend of rides over the Labour Day long weekend. Covered 140km over 3 days. Incidentally, April was a good month in terms of distance covered. Covered 502km in April, the furthest so far this year, thanks to the Fixed Gear Desaru ride and JMFR2010.

Introducing Ryo, Ben's colleague. He joined us for Saturday ECP ride and Sunday 80km ride. 3 Colnagos on Sunday hugged the 80km route. Ryo has a Colnago Extreme Power (in Saronni Red!) with Zipp 303 and full complement of Campy Record 10s (UT version). What a sweet ride and the man rides fast too!

Finally, I have a full DA 7800 complement on the Haze. Shifting is sweet. Weight however, not much difference. Changed my old Ultegra chain to the KMC X10L GOLD chain, this made the drivetrain much quieter than before....sure sign that my old chain was stretched. It served me a good 8000km I think! Also received my orders from CRC, who sent me the wrong handlebar (I ordered 135mm and they sent me a 144mm version) and that's resolved as they've just shipped the correct one to me. I guess I'm keeping the 144 too! I finally received the month long package from Evans Cycles - nice nice nice Carradice Nelson Long flap bag for short tours to come!






On Sunday, along Mandai, for the first time I managed to hit an average speed of 48.5km/h over 1km (slight downhill I think!). By no means an easy feat as my HR shot up quickly to 190+ in a jiffy. I was chasing down a fast MTB on slicks that ran away from the traffic lights. As I passed him at high speed he exclaimed 'woah!'. Along Nicoll highway, had a short sprint up the flyover with Ryo, who passed me suddenly from no where but I gave chase and spurred him on. Ryo managed to shoot some pretty nifty pictures of me and KL on his Iphone, what steady hands he has!





In preparation for 10x Fixed Gear Faber challenge, I cheated a little by swapping to an 18T cog (was 16T). It should not be a problem for Morse Road approach I'm sure but for Kg.Bahru it will be a huge challenge to get up! That same route stopped me dead, at its steepest point when I was using the 53x17 on the Haze. Hopefully I can clear this goal next week. With this new ratio, I find it difficult to keep up with Road Bike speeds......at 35km/h, I'd be spinning mad at 110rpm which is not favorable to me. Normally, 80-90 is the my sweet spot on a geared bike.


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