Upgrade Tire for OCBC Race

next week will be the OCBC Road Race. I will be participating the 40km race with my mountain bike. As my current tire is almost wore out particular the rear wheel (should have do a tire rotation similar to that of car) so I decided to upgrade my bike tire to a 1.5 instead of the current 1.95. this 1.5 will be better for road as it is slimmer. haha...

the bike looks a little not in proportion with this slicked wheel.

finally, my son ...

keith has been riding his small bike (14" wheels) for 2 years. we bought him a Giant 20" mountain bike when we were at Suzhou in March. he had try riding on it but because his leg is not touching the ground while stationary, he has no confidence to ride this 20" bike at all. He tried once when we were back in Singapore but still not able to ride on it.

today, we went to the void deck with both his bikes. He rode the small bike for a few rounds and i asked him to try the bigger bike but i will support him. he was ok with that arrangement and started riding. since he already can ride on the small bike, riding the big bike to him is not really a problem. i quickly release my hand that support him and he ride with ease. he also learnt how to start and stop with this bike. i am so happy that we can do it. soon, we (with my wife and son) shall be riding to some gardens or parks nearby our place. i hope that one day, he will ride to the tampinese mountain bike park with me as well.

Night Riding to Pasir Ris Park

Ride from SengKang to Pasir Ris with Hwee Seng. Hwee Seng ride my Dahon SP16 while I ride the Merida Duke Pro MTB. We started off from 9:30 and back about 12 midnight. Overall clock 26km. Was an easy ride for me but for Hwee Seng, he had to struggle a little bit. He had not been riding for long time and he was not fully gear (without the bike short) thus feeling butt aching after the ride. haha.

good ride anyway, hope to continue more of this ride.

Changes to oyama folding bike

As my wife is helping to send and pick keith from school, we have installed a soft seat at the back of the oyama folding bike.  this allows keith to sit comfortably…  more will comes as we intend to install a basket in the front.  For marketing purposes… haha.

 

Singapore, Pulau Ubin ride

i am currently at changi airport terminal 3, flying back to Shanghai, China in a short while. While waiting for the departure, i still have 2 hrs, thus update an entry on the ride that i went with 2 other friends in singapore.

On May 1st, it was a public holiday, so we head pulau ubin (an island at the east part of singapore) for a cycling trip. my friend HS pick me up at 8am from bedok and proceeded to Changi point ferry terminal where we took a bum boat at the cost of S$2.50 per trip per person. We waited another friend Wee to arrive. When reaching the island after a 15mins boat ride, we reached Pulau ubin. It had change a lot. The last time i visited this island was probably 5 years ago. the town is now very vibrant with at least 5 bicycle rental shops and each bike rent about from S$5 to S$15 depending on the condition as well as the class of the bike.

We approached a shop and tested out the bike to be used. As the terrain in pulau ubin is rather undulating as well as offtrack, a well maintain bike with proper gear shifting is important for a leisure and easy ride.

After which, we proceed to explore the island with our rented bicycle.

bum boat that we took, max 12 persons per boat and the boatman will not start the trip till he get 12 persons or if you are in a hurry, pay for 12 persons cost.

sign welcoming visitor to Pulau Ubin.

bike rental shop

nice typical tropical country with coconut trees. a nice leisure ride on the metal on road

we headed into the forest single track. no difficulty but just off road.

another nice single track

that day was CK Wee's day. he met different groups of friends, philipine as well as malay friends. a group picture with his friends when we met them in the forest.

pulau ubin is a place where people get away from the busy city life. even foreigners are enjoying it with their family with kids.

roungh terrain that Wee had to carry the bike
me and wee

at certain point, we got ourselves lost. we were trying to locate a path out of the swam area.

finally, we get out and reached a paradise where cold drink were sold. that day was a hot sunny day.

most of the visitors to the island would ended up taking a lunch or dinner meal at the local restaurant. they serves seafood as well as typical local food such as friend rice, fried noodle.

we chose to get back to the main island and headed to the hawker centre for our lunch. here is cold mango ice kechang with a plate of hot friend hokkien prawn noodle. i always love singapore food.

for those who visit singapore and love cycling, a trip to pulau ubin is a must. you get to see the last village in singapore and the it is very convinience to rent bike, if not, on the island, there are taxi with meter and they charge reasonably.

that was it for now and i will need to catch my flight back to Shanghai... have fun reading and let ride if you can...

my new toy, Dahon SP16

maybe i am crazy maybe i am not... i just find that the price for this dahon sp16 is right and i could afford it. i had checked and knew that in singapore, the RRP is S$1400, thus, even with a discount, i may still need to pay S$1200. do you know how much i bought in china? make a guess... i will tell you at the end of the entry.

4 days old dahon. very sturdy comparing to the oyama that i have

another view of the dahon

a picture with the oyama SkyPro M900. most of the time ride by my wife. currently it is an 8 speed. i may upgrade to 16 speeds before going back to singapore.

i bought this bike at S$700. very good price.

环阳澄东湖 - Riding Round Yang Cheng East Lake

昨天和David约好今天去骑车，就是不知道要去哪儿骑。想要和XF去东山不过知道自己体力不可能骑完它,加上不想拖累其他骑手,就决定不去东山了.

今早9点我们从小区出发,在麦当劳吃早餐.我和大卫说不然我们去昆山走走,我们决定了.

我们过星湖街的大桥,骑在封亭大道,往东唯亭镇.天色非常好蓝天没云.骑着骑着,谈起金融危机,公司会不会关闭之类的事.时间很快过,骑到了沪宁高速桥下,看到312国道,不想走,以为往东可能有小路或土路可骑.骑了3公里,沿着铁路旁,最后看到了小河5米宽,怎么过啊.要怎么办呢?问了在工地的员工,只有往回走312... 呵呵... 没法了...

过了铁路桥下,上了312,再骑了4-5公里吧,看到了往巴城镇的告示.我们就决定不然环阳澄湖吧... 改了方向,往北骑.

骑到了阳澄东湖的蟹城,渔家灯火拍了些照.再往北骑.骑过了高档别墅小区,价格比苏州还好... 5500元/m2.
看到了一群穿着高贵的女士和男士,还有老外,相信是来投资的.

午饭时间到了,我们要找个饭店吃午饭... 骑呀骑... 怎么没有饭店开呀.我们要饿扁了.到了黄泥村,有家饭店停放了5辆车,这家有营业吧.问了老板,老板说没菜了...郁闷...老板说往东3公里到了巴城镇会有饭店的.我其实没力了.,看到了便利店,买了面包,就这样解决了午饭...呵呵

才骑了40公里路就不行了,看样子体力真的一落千仗,对自己太失望了.

午饭后,我们再往北.5公里处,看到了环湖路(往西边),以为可以到苏州,可惜我对告示不是太明白,就往北骑,要过大桥.桥下是苏州绕城高速,又想了一想,看了一看我打印的地图,不需要过高速吧.就和大卫往回骑到了十字路口,往西"环湖路"骑.没想到这环湖路是阳澄东湖的东环路...在没有力气的时候又骑了冤枉路...tmd郁闷.

最后问了路人往苏州怎么走,哪知道要过高速的...nnd, 今天好像不是我的日子... 哈哈.

最终以每小时15公里骑了30公里回到家.大卫还问要不要去麦当劳吃,我说不行了!再骑我要肯定当场倒下.

终结,我太烂了,骑了75公里就不行,要好好的训练训练.去年8月骑了阳澄西湖50公里以2小时骑完.这阳澄东湖75公里用了6小时.唉....

Make a riding appointment with David yesterday but I do not know where to ride to. Initially thought of going to east mountain with XF but i know that i am not in good condition to complete the ride and also do not want to burden other, therefore decided not to go east mountain.

we set off in the morning 9am and we first head to the Mcdonald for a breakfast. while having our breakfast, i suggested to david why not we head to kunshan, it's only 40km away from where we are. we decided.

we pass the bridge across the shanghai/nanjing expressway and make a left into fengting avenue. we headed east toward weiting town centre. the sky was clear blue without any cloud. while riding we talk about how the financial crisis would affect our company and would the company be able to survive through the crisis. time flies and we reach the shanghai/nanjing expressway again. we saw the G312 but we though we could head straight and maybe take a shortcut through some dirt track to reach our destination. after another 3km ride, beside the railway, we found ourselves an obstacle. it is a waterway of about 5m wide and how could we cross this? what shoud we do? we asked a worker at the construction site and we were told that the only way to get the kunshan from where we are is to use G312. so... we make an u-turn and head back to G312.

passing through the railway bridge, riding on another 4 to 5km, we reached an junction with a sign stating Ba Cheng, i discussed with david, maybe we could go round the Yan Cheng East Lake instead of going to kunshan. thus, we changed our plan, headed north.

we rode and reached the hairy crab market cum restaurants, took a few pictures and rode north again. passby some very high end villas but selling at much better price comparing to suzhou... 5500/m2... we oso saw a group of well dress ladies and gentlemen including some foreigns. believe they are here for investment.

by now, it was time for lunch, so while riding north, we were looking for restaurant to serve our lunch... we pass by many restaurants but many were closed due to the chinese new year holiday. finally, we saw many cars parked outside a restaurant and we headed to there. who knows the boss told us that sold out, nothing left... and recommended us to head east for another 3km to the Ba Cheng town where there will be restaurants opened. i was telling myself, i am pretty tired now and i need food. we found a nearby convinient store and bought some muffin and soda, this was our lunch. the lady boss was pretty helpful. we were sitting outside the shop and she invited us to sit in the shop whereby there are chair for us. without hesitation, we went in. she wanted to treat us some cake but we politely refused. such a nice lady.

after lunch, we headed north for about 5km and saw a road sign "Round Lake Road" and rode for some unnecessary road. to cut it short, at this tired state we wasted probably 5km. this is really killing me. finally, we asked someone and was told to head north and cross the expressway.

with that, we rode for another 30km with the speed of 15km or less and finally by about 4pm, we reached home. at the junction nearby our place, david asked if i want to go to mcdonald, i told him not since i am very very tire.

To summarize, i am in a very very bad state. only 75km and i was in bad condition, need to train more. remember that last year august time frame, i could finish 50km round yang cheng west lake in 2 hrs and this time i took 6 hrs to complete this 75km...

绿和红是冤枉路 - road map

沿着铁路旁的土路 - rode beside the rail road

卖蟹的酒店 - hairy crab market/restaurant

渔家灯火附近的养蟹场 - hairy crab

误导我的环湖路 - misleading road sign

1st ride in 2009

temperature was low at 2C but there were plenty of sunshine today. got change and head out to ride. rode 21km in total for the first day. this is part of the keep healthy resolution that i would make. last year this time, i went for a 5km walk and i was telling myself to keep healthy. i have kept my promise.

by the way, i have clocked 2059km since May 2008 on my merida duke pro mountain bike.

五峰山+烧烤

today went with david and a group of 40 riders to 5 Peaks Mountain and BBQ organized by the Suzhou Merida. the overall ride is shorter than last week ride but we still clock 84km in total. we left early in the morning at 7:15am and meet up with other riders at the mudu merida shop. as usual, the morning ride is cold at about 5 degree celsius to begin with although the temperature pick up later in the day but probably still at about low 10 instead of 17-18 as forecast.


a picture before moving out from the shop. everyone was excited about the ride plus the bbq.


top left. Start of the dirt track. Not that easy as the road center is at least 20cm higher than the wheel track. Need lot of focus while riding. top right, the first slope with a gradient of 60degrees. Pushed up. bottom left, 2nd slope, less steep and shorter, still push up. bottom right, rode down. pretty challenging. after this downhill, there is a 20cm wide 2m long bridge, so some skill is required.

We reached a quarry after couple of uphill and downhill, this is the place that we will bbq our food.

setting up the fire took us awhile as many do not have experience with it and no one brought any fire starter. haha... anyway, we managed to start the fire for the bbq and we had a good bbq lunch. i took 10 half chicken wings, 5 sticks of the meat skewers and 2 cups of soda. although i do not think it worth the 30rmb that we paid for but it is the fun with the local guys. this is really something local local.

david and myself left the bbq at 1pm and we reached home at 3:30pm with a 40km distance on the return trip.

more pictures can be located at SZR web.

another 100km ride

wanted to join some SZR (Suzhou Rider) yesterday to tian pin shan for a ride but there are some family matters need to take care of so did not join them. so, today meet up with another group of SZR at Giant and rode to Yu Yang Shan. the ride was tough due to weather as well as lack of long distance riding. 2 weeks back I rode to the same place with the same group. my fitness did not really improve. today, got a few cramps on both leg while going up the mountain on the metal road. butt still pain after the long ride, could be due to the saddle that i changed it sometime back.

a group photo from the SZR website. i am third from the right.

tian ping shan riding

went to tian ping shan with a group of merida guys. the ride was not long but tough... lot of slopes and of course i push up and down the slopes.

here are the videos.

finally

traced back my pictures, it been 2 months that i had not been riding for more that 50km per trip. very shameful about this. finally, today woke up early and head to yu yang shan with a group of ten. the sky was clear and sunny. let cut the talkking and here are some pictures for your viewing.

in sumary, my fitness has drop tremenously, the whole trip was 95km and i was having butt pain, ankle pain. look like i have to restart the whole riding but the temperature is getting real low of 2 to 10 this week. it will get down further to 0 to 5 in the next few weeks. i wonder how can i do the riding. maybe wait till spring.

plan did not happen

www.szriders.com is organizing for a leisure cum mountain riding to suzhou east mountain this saturday. during the weekday i was planning and making sure that i do not have any event crash with this not so leisure ride since i would like to make another trip there. my first trip to the place was a torture but i believe this time, the total of 150km will not be a problem to me and i am going to enjoy it. i even push back my nanjing trip with my family to sunday so that i could join the ride but...

it rained two full days on thursday and friday, the organizer fill that due to that, the event is postphone to sunday, so... i am not able to make it this time round... just my luck... sigh...

hate myself

i hate myself.

why? i had not been riding for long distance or mountain riding for at least 4 weeks or 28 days or 672 hrs, . my physical is dropping... blame it to the weather or maybe just my laziness... knn... don't know what i have been doing the past 4 weekends... nb...

someone help me please...

The Rack on Oyama Skyline Pro

added a goods rack to my oyama skyline pro. this aluminium rack is very light weight and cost 50rmb including installation at the beatle down at suzhou city. with this rack, my dear can ferry keith to/fro the nearby mcdonald. good value for the money spent.

very nice and sturdy rack

Another upgrade

I usually will feel butt pain with my current saddle when I ride long distance like 100km, so as I was at the Trek store, I browse their saddle and purchase one. This saddle costs 188rmb.

The old Merida saddle. I had use it for 1700km.

Mountian Riding - 穹隆山

Went mountain riding yesterday. This route is my first time. Very challenging with an dirt track of 8km. A total of 17 of various physical standard went to the ride. I would love to do this again since it is physical demanding with an height of 300m.

Meeting at Mu Du overhead bridge

Ready to climb

Long dirt track ahead

Almost reaching the hill top, there is an airport runway down the foot of the mountain.

At the top of the mountain

Enjoying a good meal after the hard work. I perspired more during the meal than the ride.

Mileage from home to the bottom of the mountain. I had to ride almost 40km before I ride up the mountain.
Mileage at top of the mountain, a 8km dirt track to reach mountain top.
A 4.7km downhill on the metal road.
With a max speed of 57km/h... shiock
Total trip distance 90km. Yet another good ride