Cycling Route Distance
Should be comfortably between 30-40km to and from East Coast to Changi Village and back
Or more since we have season riders for the first ride… maybe can do a simple round island…. biggrin.gif

Attendance

Description of the ride..

It was a nice and cooling weather, started off from Hougang for me, supposed to meet Vicky (xIaoviiCk) but was informed by her earlier that she’ll be meeting her friend Johnathan so I set off alone to meet Jayme (iamtired) at Jln Eunos before heading off to East Coast to meet perly.

Less than 1KM from my place, my rear tube went bonkers, luckily the nearest LBS Kian Seng Heng is not closed yet at 9.15pm so I pushed my bike to them for immediate fast replacement so I did not have to utilize my own spare tube. After changing my tube, I tried my best to speed to meeting location at Jln Eunos averaging at 35-45km/hr… Less than 15 Mins I reached and continued the journey to East Coast after a short introduction of myself to Jayme.

We took a breezy ride straight down from Still Road and perly was waiting for us at Mac Donalds patiently so the three of us had a good time chatting with Jayme while waiting for the rest to arrive.

At about 11.30pm, Vicky and Johnathan called me and as usual, we briefly introduced to each other before heading down to our pre-planned location – Changi Village. Johnathan was having a bad rear tire as well but it didn’t seemed to be punctured situation so my portable hand pump came into usefulness. :D

After refilling air for his rear tire, the five of us started our 17-18km route from East Coast towards Changi Village riding at a comfy speed of 15-20km/hr. Along the way, we were having some nice intermediate chit chatting and took a short pit break at just outside Safra East Coast Resort, top up our water bottles and replenished ourselves with H2O. It wa 7.7Km from Mac to the resort water point and we estimated approximate 10km ride to reach Changi Village.

We continued the route with the same previous casual slow ride, non pressurized and easy riding condition as we were riding on PCN paths most of time. It didn’t take us too long to reach the Changi Village hawker center and guess what? Haha… there were some very beautiful and sexy “Ah Guas” (Transvestites) “doing business” at the public carpark area. We rode past them before taking our long pit break at the coffeeshop which was jam packed with soccer fans.. Match on this happening was: Manchester United vs Tottenham Hotspur. It was just the beginning of half-time when Man U was behind Tottenham at a shocking score of 0-2. Not long after we were having our round of drinks, Man U got their first goal with a penalty scored by C. Ronaldo at 57 Minutes. The 2 coffeeshops’ soccer fans cheered like thunder and we joined in the cheering fun and shouted the first “GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL” with them… ROFL!

Astonishingly, when we happily chatting about how lucky we were to ride on night with such an exciting match going-on, W. Rooney pumped in the 2nd goal in just less than 10 minutes after the first goal… Again, the goal cheering was super fun! Haha… That was NOT ALL… just a minute away from the 2nd goal, the super hero C. Ronaldo scored the 3nd goal of the night!!! Can you imagine how hyper the massive crowd was having when all these flying goals started to roll in one by one by the offensive Man-U players! It was totally AWESOME!!! Well, it appeared that Mr. fast acting W. Rooney didn’t want C. Ronlado to steal away all the limelight, he contributed his 2nd goal at 71 minutes!!!(3rd goal 68 minutes)

It must a terrible night for the Tottenham players as they were leading 0-2 at first half but at 71 minutes the score was at their huge disadvantage of 4-2. We were comtemplating that 4-2 should be final score and that would really be finalized. Lol… Soccer ball is round, we didn’t see D. Berbatov was the final goal scorer as he made the 5th goal for the night that truly finalized the score at 5-2. What a glorious victory by Man-U, good job!!!

Shortly after very exciting soccer match, most of the crowd from the coffeeshop started leaving and I took sometime out to take a look Vicky’s bike which was making constant unpleasant noises when cycling. I came to realized it was her lengthened chain was causing all the noises and advised her to replaced it to shut the noise up… Vick & Johnathan took a trial ride on Jayme’s Wheeler… In fact, I tried the Wheeler too! It came to our surprise that the Wheeler was in extremely good condition except the rear brakes but other than that, it is definitely one of those good bikes that should not take you long to fall in love with it…. Lol! Ok, I’m exaggerating… hehe…

We had rested enough and calling it a “night” since Vicky & Johnathan’s bikes weren’t too appropriate to travel further so we rode down towards Pasir Ris via the “Loyang TPG” temple and headed towards Downtown East where we parted with perly. We gradually traveled towards Elias, IKEA/GIANT, cut across the Chartered route, Old Tampines Rd and all the way till we say goodbye with Jayme (towards Jln Eunos via Defu Lane, Ubi, Jln Eunos) and Johnathan towards Kovan. Jayme and I turned in separate ways at Hougang Ave 7 and was given the honor to send back her… (less than 800 meters from my place)

Yeah, that we called it a night, I’m pretty looking forward for the next ride on May Day 2009 Friday night. :)

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Being Visible and Predictable

Proper bicycle lighting is important for two reasons:

1. It makes you visible and predictable to other road users

2. It can help you see well enough to avoid hazards and navigate your way

Many cyclists ride in urban environments where they feel that they can see well enough to navigate, so they don’t bother with headlamps. This is terribly dangerous, because without a headlamp, motorists often do not see them, even under street lamps. Reflectors provide good visibility for overtaking traffic, but most dangers of car-bike collisions come from the front or side of the cyclist.

Tail Lamps

Inexpensive tail lamps, typically employing red, energy-efficient light emitting diodes (LEDs), don’t rely on a motorist’s headlamps to be visible, and can be seen clearly from the side as well. These lamps will last many hours on a pair of disposable batteries. However, they often glow dimly long before they fail; it’s important to inspect them before each ride and change the batteries regularly especially before you set out for a cycling trip.

I bought this reasonably cheap and useful LED tail lights from Carrefour today, only at SG$15.50. The LED tail lights set has not much of difference from those you can find from most cycling shops except that it has a an extra switching device where you can secure it to the rear brakes wire. This little gadget runs on 2 x AAA battery and has a rubber lining around the cover hence made it weatherproof. For its price, it has served its purposes well and you can watch the following video to see the braking LEDs in action…

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• NUS Bike Quest: Cycledelic 2010 (0)
• My first century ride – a tale of blood, sweat n drama =p (0)