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

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

Managed to squeeze some time in the afternoon to do this....couple of steps involved. 1. Find the Leak To find the leak, first inflate the tires up and slowly rotate it into a small bucket of water. In my case I it was a pinhole puncture at the tire itself. I marked it up and wipe the tire dry. 2. Opening up the Sucker Now I'm not sure why it seems so easy in those videos and forums but I found this a bitch to do! The toughest part by far is the removal of the mounting strip (which cover the stitches). It must have taken me like 15mins just to open up just enough for me to slit the stitches. From where I marked, I must have opened 1.5 inch in length. Remove the threads around the intended area. 3. Disemboweling the Tubular Ok, now pull out the tube from the hole just made. I was inspecting the latex tube for a hole but could not find any...so I pumped it up a little and placed the tube in the tub of water to locate the leak. It was a really tiny pin hole! I marked it. 4. Patch it ...

On Saturday, I repeated the same ride from last weekend and hope that this time it won't rain. Well the heavens heard me. It didn't. However, it did not make me any faster....fatigue perhaps or the bad headwinds from Pasir Ris onwards? Anyway, it was tough enough for me just to try to attain >30km/h doing this route solo. At Changi coastal/CV, I cooperated with 2 rather strong malay rider (in Zipp uniform), they were kind enough to allow me to. They were training or some sort I think...going 37-38km/h into direct headwind. Together, we did well in maintaining the speed above 38km/h. I was spent upon reaching home. Luckily this time I did not have a post-cyclocross situation with my bike. Ah yes guess what? Front tire puncture at ECP! It did not give way but gradually when I felt the front wheel was making some weird noises (later to find out its the rim hitting the road when the tire bottomed out, though it was not completely out of air). I managed to get home safely, no iss...

I did not get to cycle long distance last weekend due to my return home to Ipoh for Ching Ming so this ride was more like 'make up for lost time' ride. I was looking forward to this all week and knew no one would come with me and I did not bother to ask.... Had an early start around 5.10am and the skies looked grey (even at night!) but I said hey, maybe it would rain but likely only for a while or in certain stretches...still good to go and so I did. All was good until I hit the Esplanade when it suddenly started to pour...I could see a blanket of rain approaching me at the opposite direction. Got hit a bit and found shelter at the bus stop right outside the Esplanade...waited for about 10mins before it look subsided and I went off again in the 'medium' drizzle. As soon as I hit the via duct at West Coast Highway, it again poured! I just told myself to go on, no point to stop now, just need to be more careful. After about 10mins in the rain, somewhere along Jalan Buroh,...