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

The Masher group was assembled ready to do this route on Saturday crazy hour morning but this was not be. It rained the whole Saturday, literally. For me it was mostly a sleepy Saturday. So I just made myself wake up at 4.30am the following morning and hit the road by 5.05am from my place. Target is to complete the 112km Singapore Loop...my personal 'back by 9am' route. This is the first long ride with the Fulcrum Zero and just installed Specialized Romin saddle. 2 firsts on a single ride. For the saddle, I was a bit too ambitious to bring this out for such a long ride....as I discovered in the shower after the ride. Anyway, started out decent. The saddle felt very firm and I had the niggling feeling that it was not well setup. Felt that I should have perhaps not lowered the saddle that much and should have move the fore aft a bit to the rear. The tilt also could do some adjusting. I was determined to complete the ride anyway and did not make these changes while on the road...

Saturday : 112km Ride I was tad under-confident for this one. 112km Singapore Clockwise non-stop is no easy loop though I've done more than 14 times (most of it solo) and the last time I did this was with Ryo, one of our last rides prior to TDB2011. I had not been riding much since Bike Rally last month....just put in 30km on my SS since then. The cycling legs have degraded a bit! But I'm much lighter than before though. Started out at 9am and was quietly trying my best to do a "back by nine ride" which was a last year favourite whenever I did this route. Started off quite well....hitting 29km/h average speed upon entering the West Coast viaduct. Reached my top 31km/h average speed after Jalan Buroh. This promptly became increasingly difficult to keep at Boon Lay but managed to get back to form at LCK straight which is really a slight downslope. Legs still good at 50km after Kranji but quickly deteriorated from then on. Did respectably at Mandai (did not lose spee...

This ride was a little bit of a worry; I was still a bit tired from the meds and MR run. To compound this, I only managed 4.5hrs of sleep! No, thanks to Paranormal Activity 3 which made me sleep waste past bedtime (so-so show by the way, wouldn't waste my time on it). Got up, did my rounds and met with JM below my block. Reaching Nicoll, I could already sort of know that this was not gonna be a fast ride at all. I just could not push. Energy levels were moderate and body felt lethargic. So I decided that I will just enjoy this ride. In fact, we didn't even take the viaduct towards Jalan Buroh. Did some sprints at LCK and Mandai (downslope) but thats about the 2 pushes I made the whole time. I was tired at Punggol and laboured all the way back home after JM   left at Downtown east. Good thing is, no pain or sores, just general tiredness and lots of calories burnt!

Unlike last week, today was a partial Masher ride. JM joined us as well and we started off at 5.30am. Did very well and hitting average speed of 32+km/h upon at Jalan Buroh. Pure work between the 4 of us (KL, Ryo, JM and me) drafting no one else. JM, as usual was in his track shoes...and he did well...even pulled the group a couple of times more notably at Jalan Boon Lay at 35km/h average. Couple of sprints between us to keep the fun up. Ryo managed to take a video of my butt....as analysis to see if I was wiggling in my pedalling motion (as claimed by Gary last week). Here are some sexy videos of my fat butt. At least the saddle could still be seen! Comments? I think I have a nice pedalling motion in fact!