Going Home

@the carwash

I was supposed to meet the PadyakPinoy group and 'StairRider' Deck

at the exit of BF Trail. Instead I saw Dennis C at Zheng Hwa Park.

He saw some of the gang coming home at around 8+ in the morning!

It turned out they went for the night jamboree in Malaysia.

I called Deck and good thing he did not show up or else he won't have

anyone to ride with in BT and BF.

Anyway, I showed the BKE exit to Mandai to Dennis C.

On the way home, we met Mike the Mechanic with two new riders

in tow.

So here's the video clip of me going home from the trails.

See you this coming Friday (Deepavali). Brother Louie says

we're riding Two Hills (Mt. Faber and Vigilante Drive).

Tampines Trail

On Oct 23, 2010, a group of volunteers went to Tampines Trail to open

up the Jungle Section that has been clogged with fallen trees for a few

months now. Pictures of the volunteers' efforts were uploaded in

the Facebook page of Dirtraction.

This news has generated much interest in our office since a lot of

my friends reside in the East. A group ride was scheduled for today.

However, the ever unpredictable weather in Singapore decided

to dampen all the excitement by providing heavy rains from

last night up till morning today.

So, alone as usual, I went off to check out what has been done

in Tampines Trail.

First off, do not start your loop by the usual entrance of MoonScape.

The bridge that ends MoonScape is unpassable. It's going to go any time

soon. The other jungle trail that is near the MoonScape bridge is still

not passable as well.

The jungle trail is indeed passable now. But gone are all the twists

and turns. All the 'NorthShore' components are also gone. It is

now just an almost straight line from the entrance to the exit.

There even seems to be a swamp inside there now.

Also, for those dreaming of riding in the 'Rockies', I think when

the news reports said that the Rockines will be unavailable 'indefinitely',

they really mean it. It is still closed and people are still working  there.

Here's a short clip of the ride today

City Ride

Boat Quay

Victoria St, right side leads to ChinaTown

Tanglin St, leading to Orchard Road

Sunday was supposed to be a quiet trail ride. But I worked

in the morning and after that, the rains came down and drenched

the whole of Singapore.

However! These things are not enough to deter an

avid biker like me :-) ... and so, here's a not

so short clip of my City Ride yesterday.

See you next week !

Saturday Ride

@Sc Trail

Some guys went to Kent Ridge, some went to ECP and some had to

work this weekend ... So this Saturday, only me and one other rider went

to T15 and Sc. We were supposed to do one fast and furious lap and

straightaway go home. But 'NoLights' Louie ran out of breath after

Rifle Range and so the "fast and the furious" became not so fast and

and not furious lap but we still managed to get to the gasoline station

by 11:30am. A far cry from last Saturday.

Anyway, I uploaded a short clip of the ride in Vimeo as I normally

see Vimeo clips having nicer quality... but after uploading, I see it having

the same quality as a YouTube upload.

Also, here's the clip in black and white. Don't ask why. It's just me testing

out some arty-farty stuff.

Bali Lane

almost all the shops here are cool



one of the few places in Sg where you can do graffitis legally



back alley, not in Bali Lane but in the same area

fixies are a common sight in Bali Lane

You ask why the interest in this area?

Lots of reasons :

- this is one of the few places where you can vandalize to your hearts content

- hangout of fixie riders

- you want limited edition shirts, shoes, etc? this is the place to get them

- lots of middle eastern restaurants

- said middle eastern restaurants literally roll out their carpets

   in the streets at night and everybody lies down while smoking hooka,

   reminds you of a big 70's pot session

- source for cool local clothing brands

- those are what i can remember at the top of my head, there's a lot more

   going for this place. go and visit it some time.



'Zhu Chao' @Jalan Besar Stadium HC

Mongolian Chicken and Mushroom and vegetables

Ok, first things first, 'zhu chao', are two words that literally means 'cook' and 'fire'.

That is if I remember how my wife translated it. But what it really means is

you order something and the they will cook it for you.

Today being a Friday is swimming night. We went to Jalan Besar Stadium hawker

centre afterwards (as usual) and decided to try this 'zhu chao'. Coming from the

pool entrance/exit, this will be the first stall that you encounter.

We ordered Mongolian Chicken and Mushroom and vegetables. What can

I say, either my standards are very low or I was lucky to find two good

stalls in the same hawker centre.

This is another 'must try' hawker stall if the Mongolian Chicken is

to be the criteria. The chicken tasted something like chicken barbecue

from Max's in the Philippines. As usual, no need to comment on the

mushroom and vegies as I think nobody would bungle cooking these.

Next time we'll try some of their more elaborate (and expensive) dishes.

Thai Ruk Cuisine

Store front of Thai Ruk cuisine @Jalan Besar Stadium Hawker Centre

Ground pork with Basil leaves, Seafood Tom Yum soup and Mixed Vegies

My wife has been bitten by the fitness bug for this past one month.

Her exercise of choice is swimming. Since she's still learning how to swim (with me and
 my son as her coach), she's so shy she does not want to go swimming
@Toa Payoh. She says there are many 'experts' there. We go to Jalan
Besar Stadium instead. After her swimming sessions we
go and have dinner at the hawker centre at the Jalan Besar Stadium.

While walking around there last Wednesday night, we decided to try this Thai food stall named

Thai Ruk. The employees of the stall (I don't know if they are the owners as well) are Thai.

There are Thai customers as well. Ergo, this must be good home cooked Thai fare!

Ok, the logic is flawed, but you know what I mean.

We ordered Ground pork with basil leaves, Seafood Tom Yum soup, Mixed Vegetables,

rice for the three of us and Tapioca with coconut milk for dessert.

My flawed logic did not dissappoint! This stall was a good find. The Ground Pork with

Basil leaves and the Tom Yum soup brings me back to the days when I was working for

a Credit Card Software vendor and I get assigned to Bangkok for implementations.

It was that authentic. The mixed vegetables, you say? Ok, it's good. But, how can

someone bungle mixed vegetables?

As for the tapioca... this is a bit of a letdown. The tapioca was a bit 'stringy'. It was

as if the tapioca was left in boiling water longer than it should have been. We've had more

'chewy' tapioca before. But, hey, I think that was nitpicking. For 19$ for everything,

how could you go wrong? This is a real "cheap and good" find!

Sunday Ride

Rainy Sunday Morning

Today's ride started with a very heavy downpour, thunder and lightning greeting me.

Good thing I met ReyToots and another rider on the road to BT. The ride to the trails

seem easier (and safer) when there are lots of you on the road. We saw all the other

Filipino riders camping at 7-11. They hollered at us to go and wait the rain out with them.

But we have to ignore them as we were riding with another person which will not be named :-)))

Anyway, the ride was quite fast as the rain really has banished all the effects

cycling in a tropical heat could bring. Every climb was easy and all the flat bits were

really taken very fast. Here's a really short clip of today's ride.

I went out of the house @8am and by 11:30am, I was already at our front door

with my wife looking at me disapprovingly because it looked like I played in the mud .... wellll ...

I did :-)

That brings the weekend to a close. See you next weekend !

Group Ride

Lunch in KFC @Mandai Zoo

Since the location of the past 2 weeks' Group Rides were all in the East, today's group ride

was done in BT area. 7 people had breakfast @ King Albert Park McDonald's and of course,

when we were jussttt about to go to the trails, the 8th member of the group showed up.

We cycled to Rifle Range Road and divided into 2 groups. The 1st group, led by

'StairRider' Deck, went to the entrance to BT carpark. I led the 2nd group.

We climbed Rifle Range and went in

the opposite direction of Belukar Track (I think that's the name).

We went to Zheng Hua and waited there for the 1st group. Once the 1st group came,

every one went to BF Trail. Well, that is every one minus two casualties (due to exhaustion).

I led the two casualties to the exit of BF Trail and I left them there so I can do a Reverse BF loop.

Once I met the 'leaders' of the 1st group inside BF, I took some videos, and headed back to the exit.

Once the group was complete, we then went to Sc Trail. 'Roadie' Rio decided that he has

had enough of Sc Trail and went home via Bukit Panjang Exit.

From Sc Trail, we continued cycling thru T15. It was there at T15 where 'SuperWoman' Dee

was stopped by a gang of monkeys which tried to take her bike away from her. 

She showed them that she can fly and land on her right shoulder unharmed.

When the monkeys saw that, they immediately proclaimed her as their deity and offered

her bananas to appease her. This is a true story. She has the battle wounds to prove it plus

there's the fact that monkeys didn't get her bike.

By the way, 'StairRider' Deck has prophesized that one day some thing like
 this will happen at the exact same spot!

After 'SuperWoman' Dee showed us the battle wounds she got, we then took the BKE exit to Mandai.

I think it was already 1PM by this time and everybody unanimously voted the KFC

at the Zoo as the place to have lunch.

After lunch, 'Superwoman' Dee said she's had enough of mountain biking in general
and monkeys in particular. So she decided to call a cab :-(

We awarded her the Purple Heart, made sure she got a cab and then all of us sprinted home.

Here's a short clip of the group ride.

Till next week !

Sunday Ride



stream at T15



I just realised that ever since I did the initial review of my Inbred, I have not talked about it again.

For my F1RST fork, I had to feel something wrong before I did the review.

So for this relaxed Sunday Ride, I decided to do a short video clip of how the On-One Inbred and the F1RST copes with the trails I frequent.

From watching the clip, I realised that I might have put too much air on my fork. It has 90PSI now,

maybe I'll make it 85 or 80PSI next time. Also, the GoPro Hero wide angle camera has this way of making all trails flat. In cases where the trails are not that flat, I slowed down the video.

XT BB



SLX CrankSet & XT BBs



I bought my SLX groupset 2 years back. I knew that the day will come when I have to change my chain, cassette, chain rings, etc. However, I never thought the day will come when I had to change my BBs.

After the Saturday Tampines Trail ride, on the ride home, I asked my friend to ride my bike for a few pedal strokes as I feel something wrong with it. Well, for one, my chain keep dropping from the biggest chainring to the middle chainring.

Just a few meters riding, was all it took. My friend has diagnosed the problem. My crankset is moving diagonally by around 2mm! This means my BB is dead.

After going home, I explained to my wife that such things happen and I have to have my BB replaced as I won't have a full-sus for group trail rides and I might end up endoing again. The mere mention of the word endo was enough :-) So, I pedalled my way to Hup Leong and had my BB replaced.

The picture above is of the new BB. I didn't bother showing the previous BB as it looks exactly the same. Also, as always, if you go to HL with a broken something and you are not replacing parts just for the bling factor, you get a very good discount.

So, problem solved and when I went home I took the scenic route back. I went via Boat Quay, then (very lucky) on that afternoon, the road in front of the grandstand overlooking the Floating Platform was open, so I cycled there, then went to the SG Flyer, F1 pitlane, all the way to the PCNs of Kallang. Nice!

By the way, pictures below were taken on the way home.

@kallang



latest addition to SG's skyline





SG skyline at dusk



Tampines Trail

the bridge is missing some planks



tampines trail has been newly cleared of mimosas

Mountain Bikers are normally a patient lot when it comes to sharing the trail with hikers and trail runners who are not even supposed to be in the biking trail. However, today is The NorthFace 100km trail marathon. So, no choice, we had to go elsewhere. Kent Ridge is out. Everybody who's joining the MTB race tomorrow is practicing there today. Besides I think I'll be doing more bike pushing there than riding. Ketam was the venue for last week's ride. So, we're left with Tampines Trail.

The part of Tampines Trail that was used for YOG is still closed. There are lots of guessing going on in the online forums but here is the real story. So, off we went to cycle in MoonScape and the Kidneys (Upper and Lower).

Lucky for us that the powers that be have finally realised that human skin is not impervious to mimosa thorns! Hurray! The dreaded mimosas are gone. The grass and the mimosas have been cut and you can now see the trail. The bridge that signifies the end of MoonScape is missing some planks ... there are even a few nails sticking out ... the Kidneys are still muddy... there is no jungle canopy .... but apart from those, everything is fine. As I said the grass and the mimosas are gone (for now) and I think the trails were somewhat 'smoothed out' (trail maintenance?). Hopefully, the authorities open up the Rockies soon! ... and do maintenance in the jungle section ... and don't charge too much for entry fee ... and add bike cleaning equipment ... and...

Pics brought to you by 'AirTime' Mark

F1RST Fork

30+ mm of stanchion sticking out even without air ???

showing the whole fork without air

120+mm of stanchion after pumping 90PSI of air

I bought this fork for 280SGD. There, I've said it. But that fact is in no way an apology for this fork's shortcomings. I just want you to keep this in mind when you read this review.

Ok, on to the review. This fork has been with my On-One Inbred since the beginning. At that time, my RockShox Recon was on my full-sus. So I went to a bikeshop that I frequent in Kallang and asked around for a cheap, 100mm air fork. So those are the three criteria for this fork : cheap, 100mm and air fork.

After having the fork fixed on my bike, I went home with it and 'parked' it beside my full-sus that has a 100mm Recon. Once side by side with a known 100mm fork, I realised this F1RST fork is 120mm!

I was very happy when I thought I got an unexpected windfall. I only paid for a 100mm fork but I got a 120mm fork. So I pumped this fork with 80PSI of air and started using it. I have been using this fork on rides at T15 setup like this and I was very satisfied. In all honesty, I can't find any difference between the F1RST and my Recon.

So, after a few weeks I thought to myself maybe I could make this fork more flush by decreasing the pressure to 50PSI since I have 120mm of travel anyway, right? WRONG! After decreasing the pressure, I find that there is something wrong with the way it rides. I just can't put my finger on it....

I then started looking closely at the fork. There was a sticker on the left, inner leg of the fork that says this fork is 100mm. So I decided to release all the air from the fork and start from an empty chamber.... To my surprise, when all the air has gone, there was still around 30mm of stanchion sticking out! I have released all air from my Recon before and there was no stanchion sticking out. I pumped 90PSI into the fork. I then measured the stanchion and got around 120mm or 123mm! So 123mm - 30mm = 93mm!

This brought back memories of the Exustar shoes that I bought :-( At first I was happy that I paid for a 100mm fork but got 120mm when in reality I only got a 93mm fork !!!

Ok, enough with the stanchions. This fork has a lock out at the top of the right leg which sees a lot of usage since this is the bike I use for trainings at Mt. Faber. Said lock out also serves as a pedal platform. In between fully open and full lock, you can set the amount of pedal platfrom. Using pedal platform (which also exists on my Recon) really works. This can not be said for my Recon which is double the price of the F1RST. It also has a rebound knob on the bottom of the right leg. Let's just say that the pedal platform knob works a lot better than the rebound bottom. Having said that, I am still able to find the right rebound setting (for me) without any problems.

Summary : the fork is cheap, it is light, it is reasonably stiff but I don't know what to say about the 120mm long stanchion that provides 93mm of travel.... at any rate, I ride simple trails and I don't think I will reach the limits of this fork. In fact, even with the funny stanchions, I would still recommend this fork to someone who is on a tight budget but wants an air fork for the adjustability it offers.

MotorBike



unknown guy who owns the bike



Saw this motorbike on the way home. Cool bike.

Don't know why but it kind of reminds me of those futuristic bikes

in the Japanese Manga / Anime - Akira



from Akira



Another Exit to Mandai

Continuation of yesterday's wet ride. This link is for the video clip of an alternative

exit to Mandai from T15. So if you are getting bored of the usual exit, you may try this route

once in a while... just beware because this is where we got chased by dogs in one

of our night rides.

Sunday Ride

It rained heavily at dawn today. This ensured that today's ride will be cool (opposite of yesterday @Ubin).

-

I went to Sc trail and took a video of my ride :-)

I also took a video of an alternative exit to Mandai from T15 .... but that is still being processed.

-

By the way, I am very surprised at what became of my clip once it got uploaded to YouTube. I mean from the original AVI, converted to MP4, there was already some loss of quality. But from MP4, uploaded to YouTube, the quality became hideous. I have no idea how to remedy this...

The thing is, if I upload an AVI file, it will take a lot of time since it is almost 5 times bigger than the MP4 version...

-

Anyway, I'll see what can be done for the next video clip upload.

Open Sesame !

The barrier's gone! I didn't go in to see if there were any changes though.