Starting July with 181km over Fri/Sat/Sun

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July started in tired mode...just got back the previous day from a long drive to and fro KL for business. It was plenty tiring as my colleagues refused to drive (lots of excuses). I've missed quite a fair bit of riding from these back to back biz trips (China then KL) so I was determined to ride on Friday.

Woke up early on Friday (took leave, but ended up a working day from home!) and went for my 30km East Coast ride....tiring...somehow felt broken, the rhythm. Had high HR and could only manage 30km/h average which is slow!

Saturday, managed to ride with Ben and KL. I swapped out my HEDs for the trusty DA Handbuilts in preparation for Camerons and Ipoh Century. We made good speed tailing a group of ang-mos at the west coast via-duct...average speed was about 31+km/h when we u-turned at Jalan Buroh and headed for the hills. Did the NUS slope, then almost completed KR hill (Ben stopped at the base while KL but puffed out mid-way)...I was in the wrong gear for this one...followed by Tlk.Blangah Hill and Faber via Kg.Bahru. Very nice run with a good lead from KL at Nicoll and a sprintoff by Ben before reaching Geylang kopitiam.

Sunday, solo ride....this time I did the East West route with the added hills as spice, same ones as the previous day. Managed to get up KR hill this time (was on 34 x 23)...man, the gradient was something like 18% at one point! There were a lot of MTBs up there and I think there some sort of downhill event going on. All in all a tiring ride but made me love hills again.

On the wheels....the DA is more comfortable than the HEDs. I can also climb better on them compared to the HEDs. However on flats, the HEDs win flat out. I'll stick with the DAs for now, at least until the next climbing event.

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