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

The Fulcrum Racing Zeroes arrived yesterday morning. Looks to be of good build quality. Each wheel actually has a 'builders cert'. I installed the wheels, tyres, brake pads and got about packing up the HEDs properly (still remain my absolute favourite wheel!) last night. No problems with the Di2 - no adjustments required. On this morning's short 17km ride on wet roads, I guess they felt ok. Could just be my imagination, but its seemingly bumpier than the HEDs but it also could be because I filled up the 25C with 110PSI (!). Its not as light as the tubulars but by only a tad. The look of course, does not satisfy as much as a deep section wheel would. Anyway, looks ok, feels ok, rides quite good (but need more testing) based on today's short spin.

CNY has come and gone! Lots of great food and high calorie intake over the short period. Fortunately, I was committed to exercise during this period! I only had one rest day, which was Monday. I needed the energy to move the family here and there for visiting so I refrained from any further energy sapping activity in the morning. Woke up early instead and took the kids to KFC AM....always a treat and the waffles are to die for. Monday : REST for BIKE and RUN Woke up early took the kids to KFC AM for breakfast, went out visiting until evening dinner time. Thats at least 1500 calories I think! Tuesday : 80km Ride to Tuas and Back, SOLO Nice ride solo ride. There was little traffic being the 2nd day of CNY. Surprisingly some activity still at Tuas area but right at end : completely empty wide road. It was very pleasant indeed so I took a 4km round around Tuas industrial area. Speedwise, I went for it from Keppel onwards and managed to hit 30km/h ave prior to descending the viadu...

A satisfying weekend of workouts albeit announcement from a dear friend that he won't be cycling with me for a while! Saturday Met up with KL and JM for an extended Eastern Loop. A good 78km or so. Started off pretty slow we pumped up the pace eventually. We managed to hit 30+km/h average speed around Pasir Ris prior to dropping JM off. KL was not at his usual pace that day after having missed a weekend of cycling. This ride also marks the return of my HED Stinger 6. All trued and mounted with Evo CX 25C tubulars. This time, I got it glued at TEF. Boy, that tubular loving feeling that I missed is back. I chose 25C in the hope that this will be more puncture resistant than its smaller counterpart. No tape this time, GLUE is the best. The Evos are some of the best tires I ever rode on.....sure the tape and conti gatorskins were bulletproof and convenient but I was missing that great ride when I first got the wheels : glued with evos 23C. The roll was excellent. Weight increase ...

Finally, managed to complete a 10km run one weekday morning under an hour (58min 52s) at ECP! Forgot to take my HR strap along so I'm not sure how intensive it was but I'm guessing average about 160bpm or slightly under. Felt ok and best of all, legs were ok...no pains thank god. I think this barefoot running thing is great! For the weekend I resumed cycling and went for a lone 80km West Loop early Saturday morning. The alloys feels good and seemingly more comfortable as well bu no less stiff. Hit 30.5km/h right after Manday and thereafter managed to pull it up to 31.0 km/h after LCK road. There was quite a fair bit of traffic so it was a tad slow at Jalan Bahar/Boon Lay where I lost speed. Did well at Jalan Buroh and led a fast group to 38+km/h after the 2nd flyover.....I was spent after the 3rd and 2 guys sprinted off at the final slope. I decided to let them go at the lights as I did not want to draft anyone for this ride. From thereafter headwinds started and only managed...

I thought I had enough of riding and wanted to retire for a while after the tough TdB weekend. Well, guess what, I was out on my saddle again on Wednesday morning. Did the usual 30km on the Z3 on Wednesday, with my DA handbuilts....decent ave of 32+km/h achieved and wasn't pushing much too. A strange phenomenon these past 2-3 weeks was that my HR seems to have gone down. Its getting tougher to hit the 180's these days. I did 2 short 5km runs as well on Tuesday and Friday morning. As agreed with JM, we went out for a 100km ride on Saturday morning, sporting our new Lezyne Super Drive light. The buggers are bright and cost about half of what CRC is offering online at Gee Hin Chan. The guys there were kind enough to inform me that the stocks have arrived.....apparently this is a new line of products from Lezyne. Impressive lights, and equally impressive build quality as well....I just hope they last! They are rechargeable via USB. 450 lumens of brightness! JM, as usual, was...