Sunday Ride (West Loop + West Hills)

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Started out at 5.50am from my place with Ben and met with KL at usual AML meetup ard 6am. It was leisurely pace up till amk ave 1 where I kicked up the pace a little bit. Both followed suit very well and we kept a good pace till right before the hills (from AML, >30km/h average speed).

It is great to the distance with a few buddies and of course, really nice to have someone to draft once in a while. At Jalan Buroh, I had a short duel with a TREK bike. He overtook us after the 2nd flyover at 40km/h and I gave chase. I pushed at 40km/h and he drafted me all the way till the last flyover....by then we were only about 35km/h as there were some headwinds at that point. At the base, he attacked and overtook me, I just kicked the pace up to stick to his tail. As expected, halfway through the short slope, he ran out of juice and I sprinted pass him. He did not give chase. I stopped at the traffic lights turn-off into west coast highway to wait for the guys and as TREK guys passed we both exchanged friendly thank you smiles. So that was nice.

Admittedly after that bout, I was pretty much drained and KL/Ben basically pulled all through west coast...right before the Alexandra road junction, I heard a loud crashing sound and I feared the worse. Ben and I stopped and I was relieved to see there was no crash. KL broke a rear spoke...wow what sound! No choice he had to retire to catch a cab back while me and ben headed for Telok Blangah hill and then Faber via Kg. Bahru approach.

Those slopes sure feel a lot different after 70km of riding and sprinting! We both made it home in decent time. For the ride, my HR was at least 10bpm higher....must be all those 'good food' I took in China....greasy fried stuff! I better go for another 2 rides over the weekday period to clear the system a bit.


For this ride and in preparation for the Cameron ascent to 1600m on July 15th, I swapped out my DA7800 cranks for my FC-R700 Compact Crank and 12-27 cassette; the very same stuff used last year. These cranks and cassette I think added at least 200g to the total drivetrain weight......

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