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

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 ex...

Missed one day of Saturday cycling and 2 of weekday ones due to this trip. 5 days of jam-packed customer meetings over 5 Provinces....Shanghai -> HangZhou -> Chengdu -> MianYang -> ShenZhen. Did not help that I pigged out while I was there. Food was nice but really oily. Have to burn it all off now. This year, June will be filled with only 2 events, all of which will be again with Ben! July 9th : the Cameron's climb - all the way to Equatorial. One of Ben's buddies, Yang will wait for us there and send us back down to our homes. Saturday will be a bum-out day in Ipoh ahead of Sunday's Ipoh Century event. It will be great fun! Problem is of course, the mountain climb really came up last minute so no training like last year. Just go!

Some nice rides before I go on energy sapping biz trip from Mon - Sat (yeah i know). Had a short weekend holiday at Desaru with the family and in-laws. My bro in law incidentally started to pick up cycling as well so we took our bikes along using his carrier. This is his first time riding in Malaysia. Desaru loop is notorious for its unpredictable winds and rather brutal rolling sections, especially for a first timer! I took my Steel SS and he, his hybrid Trek. We went for the 61km loop on Saturday morning . We were supposed to leave at 6.30am but it started to rain!! It was still raining when we left at 7am but it was subsiding at that point. The weather was great....cold-cooling. Stopped for breakfast at the Belungkor junction. Reached back at about 11.20am. Happily pedaling! On Sunday, I went at it on my own. Target : 30km/h ave speed for the distance. Best I could do was 29.5km/h average. The headwind slowed me down quite a fair bit on the way south and the rolling hills were chal...

Ok Monday felt horrible. Towards the end of the day (worked late), it felt a lot better after getting "into the swing of things". Anyway, the office is like a Marathon .... daily. Its gives me a good mental and blood pressure work out BUT it cannot be good in the long run for sure! Thankfully, I have my rides to look forward to. It was super tough to dig myself out of bed today. Alarm rang at 4.55am....woke up and thought, maybe I shouldn't wake up too early.....then it was 5.10am....maybe I should wake up at 6am....then it was 5.30am....damn! get up asshole! Got suited up and went on the Lee. A pleasant ride it was.....a quick first 25km and then slowed down for the last 5km enjoying the view at the park path. There was quite a lot of riders out this morning....joggers alike too. I guess its still the holidays and I'm out a tad later than usual, hence the increase sightings of human life indulging in various exercises. The handlebar position on the Lee is pretty comf...

Master Piu March 2009 - November 2010 Status : Frame Sold I got this frame from Ebay...cost me something like 900+SGD shipped from Italy. Its a 1991 frame and in good condition, considering its still original paint. Built it up with Ultegra SL which I bought from KL after he upgraded to Record 10's. The ride of this bike is very comfortable, its quite fast too but not as responsive as the Saronni (or my current Ciocc or Parlee, for that matter). I must say though its quite a good climber! Here it is before TOP, with compact crank and Carradice bag. I started upgrading the parts to Dura Ace one by one from mid 2009 onwards...the above pic is complete with Dura Ace 7800 setup (which I still have on the Parlee!) even with custom built Mavic OPs on DA7800 hubs. This bike was really a great ride and it was sad that I had to sell it. Not because I needed the money for sure.....but rather I just think its a waste to leave a frame lying about. I'm happy to report here that its giving a...

Saturday : Did a short 60km ride on my SS with KL. He wasn't feeling great so did not complete the intended 80km West Loop target for the day. Great weather though! Getting harder these days to pull myself out of bed....there's a constant struggle on "should I" or "shouldn't I" in my head. So far, I managed to pull myself out but it getting harder....no thanks to work! Sunday : Wanted to do 80km West Loop on my own but decided in the end to do something different for a change. First off, try to hit average speed of 30km/h from home to end of Jalan Buroh (did it!) then make a u-turn and on the way back hit the 3 hills....South Buona Vista, Teluk Blangah Hill and Faber via Kg.Bahru approach. It's been months since I did Faber and it shows. I struggled to stay above 10km/h at the steepest section (12-13% grade), I did have 2 cogs left on the 12-25 but as I recalled, I used to be able to do it comfortably, even with 3 cogs left. Wanted to do another roun...

I did a speedy ride today, aiming for a 32+kmh ave for coastal route. The first half looked promising....upon reaching the u-turn point I was around 31.7kmh. Then it felt laggy and soon after kinda noisy and harsh. It felt all too familiar....I stooped at the middle of coastal road and my fears confirmed. Yet another puncture. Luckily though it could hold air for quite a while so I pumped it up and headed home. Had to pump again at the sailing club and that took me home just fine. I'm starting to lose faith fast on these evo corsas. Gonna try gatorskins tubular from now on. Probably much cheaper too! Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.9

SARONNI Aug 2008 - March 2009 Status : Frame in Storage! The entire bike was purchased for around SGD700. It had a mix of old components (105 and Sante, wheelset was ). Size is 53.5 C-C ST. I bought this steel bike as I hated my current aluminum GT bike...plus also Ben was promoting it to me how his 'steel' Pinarello Banesto was so wonderful (he found out that it was made of Alu after a year of owning it!) I got the frame painted to Pearl White. It cost me quite a lot to do it (I think I was seriously overcharged!). The wheels are R540 Shimanos from the GT setup....Basically transferred the entire Ultegra groupset from the GT as well. This remains to me the most beautifully simple bike I ever had. The wheels are custom Mavic Open Pros laced to Ultegra hubs. The frame itself is a tad too short for me. The TT length is correct (about 55cm C-C) but the short ST and HT meant that I had a lot of Saddle-Handlebar height to deal with! Still, a nice bike and since I still have the fram...

Finally had a ride with Ben ad KL ....started out pleasant enough until we saw the dark clouds over Loyang area. Decided to just do the straight road and u-turn back. We went pretty speedy on that stretch about 40+km/h but before even reaching the mid point, the rain started. We made a u-turn at the mid point lights. We headed towards Siglap at a leisurely pace. At the kopitiam, KL discovered he has a front flat. No problem. Swapped the tube and still flat! The spare tube had a leak at the valve joint to the rubber. Then it started to really pour! One of the worst I've seen whilst on a cycle outing....luckily we were well sheltered. The rain did not seem to subside even after an hour. At last we could not wait any longer...we left KL and rode the COLD back home. Now to think of it, lucky I did not go for me long distance ride this morning! Apparently this short couple of hours caused floods all over the island nation. Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.9

Couldn't get anyone to go with me so yet again, a solo ride. Got about 5+hrs sleep last night so it wasn't soooo bad. Started with good speed but headwinds started right about west coast area. Did not gain speed at LCK as I was hit with headwind there as well. Along the way got to chase down couple of small groups and lone caucasian rders but promptly lost them as they ran through a couple of red lights! I'd rather limit on such risks. I was really tired at coastal road and it was a real challenge to keep above 30kmh. Relieved as I reached the underpass! Managed to complete with ave speed of 29.4km/h and crazy ave hr of 162bpmm The front lights worked really well (buggers are BRIGHT!) and the additional bottle mount is a good investment for those longer lonely rides on the SS. Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.9

I'm setting some trips for the Single Speed this year, personal ones. Quite a waste to just leave it for Singapore roads.....well at least it has gone through a pleasure-able double century last year achieving average speed in excess of 28km/h (could have been better!). Cycling Kaki's are scarce these days so I guess I'll just have to make up my own fun but seriously, cycling in Singapore is really getting dull. Same old sights, some old sounds, not too mention the immense danger that exists on the roads here.... Here's the touring edition SS Mokkie.....the bright Giant lights up front, to the Fibre Flare and Sigma Cube lights at rear for safety (very important IMO since I'm almost always on my own for those long rides...also added a Topeak Cagemount which works perfectly as the Mokkie has only mounting for one cage. I hate stopping on solo rides to top up so this is excellent for long-ish rides of up to 120-140km (in reasonable morning weather). The SS doesn't ...

This is the first day after a ciggy-less year. It has been a tough while especially in the first few hours, days, weeks, months but I'm really proud of myself over this one for having pull through for a year! Now the second goal is to remain smoke free for another year, and another, and another. To be real honest, I still do dream of smoking once in a while. In those dreams, I light and puff on a cigarette and then always after that, I feel guilty about it, even in the dream! Amazing. Sometimes it was a nightmare as I thought I had failed....until I woke up, of course. I guess this is the part and parcel of dealing with post-nicotine-addiction. Ok, todays ride; on my single speed did the ECP - Siglap speed challenge. Did average of 31.6km/h, very decent considering my personal solo best on the Z3 was 32.1km/h. Average HR, indicative of effort is about the same and as far as I could remember, the wind conditions are quite similar as well. So, there is a 0.5km/h delta (faster) on my ...