Hi from Shanlung

Hi folks.

I enjoyed the ride with all of you this morning 2 Dec 2012.
I had been biking very much on my own in Singapore before.

So I could be about as lazy as I liked. Little or no slopes for me. And at my pace, a slow pace.

Sorry I never managed to talk to most of you. But I thought I write a little intro here and try to talk with more of you later on.

This is an intro I wrote at other bike forums in SIngapore when I started to discover them in Oct this year, and I felt I should post this here too.
The sweeper today knew the truth of the intro. As they so nicely swept and escorted me from way way back.

I also have been taking MRT to Pasir Ris and hiring bike there to do Eastern loops. Pity Jurong PCN not really connected to the East and other places.

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to SMBF 10 Nov 2012

This was the first MB forum I joined, in about mid Oct this year.

I then joined togoparts where I wrote an intro of myself.

I thought I should do that intro here too. Especially as it was through SMB that I found and bought my replacement Lycra shorts from Owen's place at Whampoa Drive. Very satisfied with what I bought.

Hi folks,

I like cycling. Being over weight jogging hurt my knees and my body build up heat very fast because I am overweight.

I guess you can classify me as a newbie. Experts learned it all, and I am still learning even as a 60++ Ahpek. Even if I had cycled far and fast before. That was when I was working and living in Taiwan. And I was younger and more crazy then.

I can tell you it was a lot easier to cycle down YangMingShan & Lishan or any high mountains than to cycle up. I normally avoided cycling up mountian by getting a car or bus to take us up 2000++ meters high and then pray like crazy while coming down. The stretch of road can be anything up to 40 km ++ long. And squeezing and squeezing on the brakes. The strange part was that I did not know how fast I was going. I was too busy praying and squeezing on the brakes and dared not take my eyes from the road even for a quick glance on the speedometer.

But I can tell you that was very fast.

I am a self professed wimp, and quite proud of that.

Now in Singapore with no high mountains to ride down from, I managed 25 kph or so on my MTB(only if road slope downwards). Normally I do a lot less. As a retiree, what is the hurry?

I did not have the best of MTB. A good MTB, Giant Iguana, I brought back from Taiwan was stolen this year in Feb when I rode that to Boon Lay MRT. With that bike, a lot of wonderful memories were stolen as well.

An even better MTB was stolen when I left it nicely locked up in Taipei. Cannot remember the make, but that cost me about USD2000 in 2001.

Those curious as to life in Taiwan can read a bit of that in my
Fragments of earlier memories of Taiwan
(you need to google that as no URL allowed)

I decided since Singapore did not have the mountains of Taiwan and the crazy trails of Taiwan, and as I am a lot more cowardly now then before, I need not get myself a good MTB.

I bought a cheapo 135 Sing$ MTB Andes Spider (that was the most expensive bike in the shop to replace my Giant Iguana and with hope of finding my Giant back. Needless to say, the feel of a Sin$135 bike was very different from the Giant.

Then a couple of weeks ago, that cheapo Andes Spider got stolen when I was having a swim at Jurong West Swimming pool.

I went to my old bike shop who went upmarket and his most expensive bike was now twice the price at Sin$ 315 , a Raleigh M20.

I liked that so much that I wish that Andes Spider got stolen a lot earlier.

I live now in Jurong West. Retired until some company might want to have me again.

So I cycle largely in the day time, on pavements and PCNs. I happily go at 13-15kph. So those doing 25-30 kph, go find some one else to bully. I promise those doing 10-13 kph will not be bullied by me. I will happily ride even slower for the company.

I do about 40-60 km, about 3 times a week. A few days back, I was thinking of trying to reach Changi. I turned back at Kallang Stadium. I did about 70km on this day.

If I started earlier that morning instead of 1030am, I might have enough time to get to changi and back, or at least reach East Coast Park Hawker center to have my bak kut teh and get back.

So that is the long and the short of me and my cycling.

And maybe if got yuen feng, we might meet over a cup of coffee.
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Shanlung
山 龍
Mountain Dragon

glad u like the ride.. hope to see you again