The past few weeks it has been raining every afternoon
or early evening. Due to this our weeknight rides to
Changi Village and Mt. Faber were limited ... well
limited is putting it mildly. The weeknight rides stopped
totally! ... and of course, once you stop riding, your
endurance goes down the drain.
I have decided to put a stop to my endurance' downward
slide and so this Saturday I went to T15 thinking of doing
2 or 3 laps of just fireroads ... but a flat has put a stop to
my plans! Not just that, since I was on tubeless tires, I don't
bring inner tubes and a pump thinking that the latex in my
tires will seal the puncture. The thing is, it has been more
than a year since the bike shop mechanic put the latex in there.
Sigh... good thing I had enough money for an early
taxi ride home :-(
I knew the qualifying for both the Mettle Games Urban DH
and River Regatta DragonBoat Race was on Saturday but
having had a flat, I was not in the mood to go anywhere else.
My son and I picked up my wife from work ... and my
wife works literally just a few doors away from Bike Stop
in Upper Thomson Road. So I went in to the Bike Stop
shop and browsed their wares.
I haven't had a flat for more than 1 year but now I have
had 2 flats in 2 months .. not a good record. Also, I have
this phobia of flatting in the trails because I haven't seen
a mini pump that could actually do the job properly.
... and then ... I saw this ultra bling Lezyne Micro Floor
Pump in all its shiny aluminum glory in the cupboard
at Bike Stop. I asked how much was it and was quoted 60$.
I looked behind me to my wife and I saw a barely
perceptible nod meaning 'ok, you can buy that' ...
but not so fast! I went online and checked the
reviews for this particular pump. BikeRadar said
'The best middle-sized mini pump we've tested yet".
That was it! I purchased Bike Stop's last piece of
Lezyne Micro Floor Pump.
This is the group ride that I had to miss so that I can
take pictures of the 1st Urban DH at Singapore Flyer
in conjunction with the 2011 installment of the
Mettle Games and the 2011 version of the River
Regatta DragonBoat Race at Boat Quay.
I woke up early and reached T15 at around 8:15am !
I have to make up for the lost trail time yesterday.
I knew there will be a big group ride this Sunday but I
can't join since I wanted to watch some Urban DH action
and say hi to my ex-teammates in dragonboat.
I just did one lap of T15 and then I reached Zheng Hua
Park at 9:30am. I was hoping to catch the peloton
and say a few hi's and hello's but it seems the peloton
was slow in reaching Zheng Hua ... and so I left
to go to Singapore Flyer and Boat Quay hehehe.
I took a picture of this building on the way to SG Flyer
... but I don't know what this building is.
Ahhh SG's first Urban DH. Lots of guys (and there were
girls too, I think) having the urge to throw themselves together
with their thousand dollar bikes off the 2nd floor of the
Singapore Flyer for no apparent reason but to see who can
do it with style. Hehehehe just sourgraping. First, I don't have
the money to buy those bikes. Second, in the very unlikely
event that I scrounged enough money to get myself a bike,
no way would I grow balls big enough to throw myself
out of the 2nd floor of Sg Flyer. So kudos to all these
very skilled boys and girls for making history.
Singapore River Regatta DragonBoat Race at
Boat Quay. This is the race that signals the 'end'
of the Dragonboat racing season. This is an exciting
race because there will surely be boats that will
veer off the lane, ram other boats, or just plain capsize.
I walked into the pitlane and found my ex-teammates
and I heard that everybody is bitching because it
seems any team lucky enough to be in Lane 4 will win!
Something to do with the way the water flows
or something. Anyway, after this race, the dragonboat
community stops worrying about their sixpacks
and generally do nothing until Chinese New year
is over. Last time, the first race of the year has
always been MR500 on March. But it seems next
year there is a new race on February which will
kick off the DB Season.
Fallen tree at T15 leading to the vegetable gardens
at Bukit Panjang.
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