Ouch!!!!

I wonder if it was because someone bumped me off a particular slope at Track 15 that left me haunted of the crash. You see, what happened was I crashed again at that particular slope. This time it was bad....

Thank goodness for gloves... These babies, saved my palms from pain.

Minor scratches on my right arm.

A blood clot on my left thumb...


Huge abrasions on my left thigh...

Abrasions on my right thigh....

And to top it of, a "Holey" t-shirt for landing smack on my chest and sliding downhill for a metre... Ouch!!!


Anyway, I guess that's what makes MTB fun man...
I am gonna own that slope the next time...


Till next time....

Discovery Route

It's back to Changi for Nasi Lemak again but this time using a different route and having many new discoveries along the way. We set of as usual and used Mandai toward Bondary Road vai AMK ave 6. Making a left on Boundary Road, you hit Tampines Road then Old Tampines Road, in my opinion was one of the more interesting roads that night. It spans 6.17km and is mostly flat, runs behind a runway and you can see the Tampines skyline from the uphill climb at the end of Old Tampines Road. After that, as we proceeded right to Bedok Reservoir Road we saw a very bad accident where a taxi crashed into the middle of the road divider destroying the steel barricade. Wonder how was the driver? As typical Singaporeans, I overheard a man on the phone at the crash screen telling his friend about the crash and to buy 4D of the car no. plate! BTW, it 4549. Further up, where you will find a 7-11 that sells MARS ice-cream!!! Best Energy Bar in the world!!! Instead of turning right to Simei Road, we should have just continued on Tampines Ave 2 and would have hit Loyang Ave. instead of doing the extra mileage. Following Loyang Ave, we used the usual route towards Changi Village for our breakfast!

Coming back from Changi Village, we discovered a new road that leads to an Aviation Hub with a 1.6 mile runway and huge hanger. Excellent cycling road; long and straight but has strong headwind at times. Riding along the Changi-East Coast Park Connector, we saw the remnants of a lorry accident along Coastal Road. The driver was dead when we saw him. The lorry crashed into a tree on the oncoming side of the road and swerved 180 degrees, shattering the windscreen and throwing its carriage onto the middle of the road. That driver must have been going very very fast for something like that to happen. Would have posted a pic if I had a camera with me. Talk about road kill! 2 accidents, 2 rats, 1 toad, 1 bloated dog and 1 man(if the taxi driver wasok). Bad night...

Well, that only goes to remind us that road safety is just so important. Doesn't mean that at night, there are less cars it is safer. In fact, it is just as dangerous if not more as people drive faster/race and are already sleepy and don't see you as well.

We also found a way of coming back from East Coast without hitting much traffic during peak hours that we thought was well appropriate for the morning as we were tired and were late in a sense that the peak hour traffic had started. We took the usual route to Orchard and made our way along the pavements towards Botanic Gardens and entered Tyersall Avenue. It leads to Cluny Park Road where you emerge from Bukit Timah Road. Making a right at 6th Avenue, we went up Swiss Club Road, Swiss Club Link then Binjai Park where Ben tried to Sabo me by ordering a $4 plate of wanton mee for lunch just before a major climb at Hua Guan Avenue. There is a back road that leads to BT nature reserve's Senapang Trail where you come out from the main entrance of BT hill. Beware, if you are going there after a rain and you have slick tyres.

From there it was all the way back home before I started work at 5pm. I reached home at 2pm, cleaned up my bike and discovered that one of the spokes of the drive-side of the rear wheel was broken. Damn!!! I just had it repaired not long ago. Now I have to go to Peter Chew's place to get it fixed again. And since I'm riding 120km again tonight, I guess it's back to my semi-slicks again. I think I'm going to smell smoke from Ben tonight... :~(

We'll see.....



Ride Details:
Distance : 116.26km
Avg Spd : 20.1
Ride Time : 5hrs 45min

The Great Murtabak Hunt!

After the crash at Jalan Kampong Chantek, I decided I had to re-visit the site and document the crash site. I headed out to Ben's late at night about 2am and we made our way there the reverse direction to take pictures of the damaged kerb and steep slope. You can see the video in my previous post on the full story. I shall not go into details here and will focus on something of greater importance... my hunger...

I was famished by the time I finished taking the pictures and was craving for a good murtabak thinking back on the one at Telok Blangah, thus began the quest for murtabak. Since we were at BT, I thought that the coffee shop at 6th avenue would be open. We rode there only to find that it was closed...it should have been opened if I remembered correctly..... anyway, further up was Adam Road food centre, I thought,"This time sure got one....". We reached, parked our bikes and I approached the indian prata shop in the food centre only to discover to my demise, "Solly boss, vee are crozing...". I could not believe it! It was as though it was a conspiracy. Ben even suggested a network of indian prata houses that would phone ahead to tell the other stalls to beware of a murtabak monster riding towards them.... 2nd last resort, Mr Prata just along the road by the old SMU, current NUS.

Typical of Ben when he said, "Ay, Hon Shin, later you reach there they say closed for cleaning". Now this was something that was highly possible as we ride past there quite often and we always observe that they are usually cleaning the place... Mr Prata was kind to me; they were open. I went in there and ordered a mutton cheese murtabak and a teh tarik, Ben being afraid that he would end up Jolly like a mutual friend of ours, decided to just have a teh tarik. The murtabak came very quickly and disappeared very quickly too... For second helpings, Ben ordered a cheese roti tissue and another round or drinks. That disappeared pretty fast too and we were on our way again.

Heading back this time along BT was the best ride of all nights as we were so early that there was no traffic to beat. Brilliant, till Ben suggested we take a right up the hill towards upp BT road from the main junction at BT plaza. After having a full murtabak and half a roti tissue climbing up a long long climb as like trying to squeeze out all that I had stomached. Now, South Bouna Vista doesn't sound that bad after all...

I was tired by then and decided to head back home to sleep and that concludes our short documenting, recovery and makan ride for the night.


Ride details:
Distance : 28.79km
Avg Spd : 16.9km/h
Ride Time : 1hr 42min