.... the jackal rides and run....

Those who know me knows that I'm a firm supporter of electronic shifting. I was so excited when Di2 was announced 2 years ago...alas....the price point was way beyond what I was willing to put on at that point in time. Now, I have a good deal on a set and I've sort of gone bonkers on bike spending anyway, I took the plunge. Just couldn't wait for Ultegra (which by the way, IMHO, looks too bulky but I do acknowledge it should be better and DA7970 since its built with the experience of 7970!) and the DA7900 group just was not a mark up in performance enough compared to the 7800 series. It was still drizzling when I went out; a good chance to test out the water-resistance of Di2. It was initially a weird experience, clicking on mouse-like buttons instead of doing the the usual lever sweeps to shift gears. Fortunately, after a couple minutes, I got the hang of it and actually enjoyed the simplicity of it all! Granted its just my first time out (only 20km) but here's the

Got a sweet deal on a full (well semi-full, came with 7800 brakes iso 7900) lightly used Di2 set and got it installed yesterday at TEF (good guys over there!). Since the Z3 is not Di2 specific, wires and the cable guides look slightly out of place but not hideous. Had a bit of a problem in installing the battery though...due to the compact geometry and the extremely low water bottle location, the battery could not be mounted at the usual place without sacrificing the bottle cages.  This, I cannot accept and promptly suggested that they place the batt on the chainstay. Well I did one up as I got home, I put it BELOW the chainstay just like in most of the pro bikes! Some comments on shifting later. The 7970 shifters are much sleeker compared to 7900 and has snake-skin-like texture on the rubber grips. DIY Chainstay battery mount. The NDS chainstay now looks kinda busy with the speed/cadence and Di2 batt.. The FD makes a really nice whirring noise when it shifts.

Caught the flu, fever, sore throat bug on Friday and had to give all cycling activities over the weekend a miss. It was miserable but on the flip side, I got up early and took my kids out the KFC for breakfast....they absolutely loved it. Not possible if I cycled! Felt better on Sunday so I went for a short morning run. Intended to do 5km but at the 4.5km point, high tide! I had to detour to take a leak at Macs. Such a shame...I was doing like 5.53min/km average before the tide! Anyway, all that rest over the weekend was really to get myself in ok condition to ride Desaru with JM. Monday morning, felt much better at 5am. It was raining. Not too heavy. I rode to the jetty in the rain....was pretty much determined, rain or shine. Good thing was : JM was also game. I believe most would have chickened out at the sight of rain but not this guy. He's mad. Just like me. I could feel that my legs were not 100% and sore throat still bugging me (had strepsils with me! contains sugar

The watch, though used about a year old is in excellent condition. The strap is also still in good shape. I familiarized with the touch bezel control which is quite cool. On the 10km run however, I had a bit of problems using the bezel as in the presence of sweat and moisture, it doesn't really work very well! Worst still, it seems to have a mind of its own sometimes! I did a fair bit of search and it appears that its a common gripe on the 405. The recommendation is to put it into auto-scroll mode so the various data screens automatically switches without me having to even touch the bezel.

Hopped on the Ciocc Single Speed on Saturday morning and went out for the usual 112-115km route (clockwise Singapore loop). I did not mount the extra bottle cage so took along a small 500ml bottle of electrolyte water in my back pocket, on top of the 750ml bottle on the bike bottle cage. It was nice weather all the way. The SS just felt so smooth and comfortable as well. I really wanted to do a 'back by 9' ride so kicked off at 5am and started at a quite a high pace, achieving ave speed of 30km/h upon hitting Jalan Buroh. At Jalan Buroh however, tummy ache struck! I tried to 'ride it off' but could not hold my shorts on and just had to detour at the Shell station at the opposite side of the road to take a dump! Weirdest thing....there are no stations on the side moving north! anyway, this penalized my average speed and this dropped to 29+km/h. It was a huge relief to unload and I continued on with a lighter feeling! Very pleasant weather, many riders on the other side g

Since a couple of weeks back I find myself spending at least one of my cycling weekend days with a new cyclist OR returning cyclist. Felix, who's just got his road bike about 2 months ago (yes, I did cucuk him about how a road bike is so much better than a hybrid), JM, a budding ex-triathlete who's gotten back into cycling (no thanks to my rambling) and Ryo, my training partner or last year, returning to the saddle after a good 8 months hiatus on a personal mission. So normally, I will try to help out a bit to bring them back to their previous potential or upcoming potential by organizing one ride, and put them all in. Its difficult to maintain a standard pace as the level of fitness is varying between the guys. This week, both days I had the pleasure of doing a 'service' to my fellow cycling friends. On Saturday, JM joined me and KL on the clockwise 80km loop. We started out slow and steady and when we went up the viaduct at West Coast, I led through to the end, averag

Did a quick 5km run on Friday morning last week barefoot. Big mistake. Blister on right foot broke 3km on and had to run with a broken bloody blister for 2km....while it hurt not too bad while running, post running it was bad! Even then, timing was ok. So what happened later on that day was that I went out with my wife to Parkway and she got me to buy are 'barefoot shoe'. That's all the rage these days but I never subscribed to the term 'barefoot shoe'! You either run with out without shoes, that's it! So I got myself a pair of Puma H-Streets and what I would aptly term as minimalist running shoes. They are plenty light, very flexible and light padding for the soles. Can't wait to try them out (right foot still in the healing process). when the jackal can't run, he rides. Had a 100km ride with KL on Saturday, good speed averaging 30.5km/h for the route with only one short gel-stop. I must say KL looks strong these days and such a waste that he is n