#227 - Sunday Ride

Some members of MTB Brothers congratulating me on my new purchase :)

Ken-san and Brother John taking a rest before their rescue mission

Brother Rey's Magic Link equipped Kona

Brother Rico's NEW Ellsworth Moment

Mike the (ex) Mechanic's racing machine

Sunday and the last day of  'testing' my new Reign.

Today is the day when all of the small stuff that needed

changing on my bike were finally done. Bash Guard,

check! Change Switch-R to Thomson seatpost, check!

Change to original tires, check! Install straight handlebar,

check!

... and so while spinning like an uncle on an old Pigeon

bike along Bukit Timah, I heard someone behind me

say 'good morning!' and when I looked, it was Brother

John from Hup Leong and Ken-san the gracious host for

the MTB Brothers X'mas Party. I got hassled a bit by

brother John for being sooo quiet the past few weeks and

then suddenly showing up with a new bike ;-)

John told me that there's only the two of them since

the rest of the MTB Brothers peloton has been

bitten by the 'wake up early and cycle' bug. Apparently,

everyone went to Casuarina and will be entering the

trail from that side at 7AM!

Anyway, the three of us decided to go straight to

Rooty Trail. Along the way, we met another member

of MTB Bros, Christian. ... and so four of us went in

Rooty Trail ... BUT only three of us went out. It turned

out Christian's RD went into his wheelset. John and

Ken-san went back into Rooty Trail on a mission

of mercy. Me? I took the easy way out and went

to T15.

The thing that I learned from using this AM bike

is that I need to get stronger before I can go around

like I do on my XC bike (duhhh). I mean everything

is possible : short, steep climbs / long climbs / running

over roots, rocks, drops ... but you better be sure that

you have enough gas in your tank ... did that come out right?

Ok, it's like this, on an XC bike, there are some roots

in Rooty Trail that I can not clear. The roots just stops

my bike. You may say that I need to lift my wheels,

yes, that's true, BUT on an AM bike, I just run

over the same roots... it's just that it takes a lot

out of me in terms of energy.

Anyway, I wanted to go and do Reverse Flowy

Trail and maybe roll over the bumps at Gangsa

but it started raining heavily... and so I cut the trail

ride short and went to Esso.

Once, I got to Esso, the rest of the MTB Brothers

came! Hehehehe in the end, the 7AM ride did not

happen. After taking a few pictures, Ken-san and

John came with their rescued rider, Christian in tow.