Back again...

As a major happening for the year ended, I breath a sigh of relief and can finally start blogging again. Ha...

Had 2 rides since the Sedili ride but don't think I would document them here as they were both midnight rides to our usual eating places. However, the thing is that I am now clocking rides that are usually 100km or longer. That's a good sign. Hope to keep that up to build base for longer rides. Planning to do Cameron Highlands this coming Jan 08. Hope the hotel rates and weather turn favourable.

Anyway, I'm slowly building a pack list of items that I would needing for touring and the latest items collected were

1.) Zebra brand stainless steel pot cum lunch box $18.50/-.
2.) maple fire stove that has an interesting adapter for steamboat stove gas canisters.

Canister gas that adapts to the standard threaded Lindel screw head of camping butane canisters by means of a custom made adapter(bottom left grey object)

Bottom end attaches to canister butane gas common used in steamboat stoves. These canisters are readily available all over the world and are cheap.

Original threaded Lindel screw top for standard screw top gas canisters.

Adapter attached to the hose.

Anyway, given the adapter, you have a choice of using either standard threaded Lindel Screw top canisters or the more commonly available canister butane fuels. As a side note, you will not be able to find the Lindel headed canisters in Singapore. Travellers from abroad, please note!

Wanted to test it out straight away so I did what anybody could do. I tested both items out on a simple meal of Cream of Chicken Penne.

Recipe:
150g of 14min cook penne.
1 packet of instant cream of chicken from campbell
water

Once setup, the stove looks like the MSR Whisper Lite!

A very even flame roars away as the water in the pot heats up.

Aha, the deed is done and my supper ready... The best part, total cooking time, was exactly 3min for boiling the water and 14min for cooking the pasta!

Nothing fantastic seated at home in the comfort of my armchair and hi-fi, but on a tour, this is something to die for, especially when you are cold and hungry! Well, that just about sums up about the stove and Pot.

A good thing about the lunch box is that the pot has a handle built in and the whole thing is self locking!!!

ps - the stove fits into the pot!!!

Next item on the list, bike overhaul!!!

Man you should have seen the crap on my bike after riding in the rain and using Finish Lines Ceremic Lube. My bike does not like it. The lube is great for rainy days as it stays on the chain, but after a wet ride, you find that it not only has stayed on your chian, it has also flicked off onto your chainstay, downtube and also your bike shorts. Damn!!! Your derailler turns from silver to black. My jockey cage turned black and even my shiny cassette turned the most deathly of colours, not to mention my drive side crank arm also turned black from the lube. I must say, the price of lube lasting in the rain is really really a pain in the ass...

I took it as a chance to get my hands really dirty. I did a complete overhaul of my bike. I took out everything from my bike and gave it a complete cleaning. All that was left were my cranks and headset short of me having the tools to remove them. It took me 7hours to finally clean and tune up the bike. Now my baby looks as bright as before and rides like the wind and I will stick to White Lightning for most part of the riding.

Save the ceramic lube for epics I guess.

New toys and more crazy riding

So its back to Viki's or some new toys. Bought a Garmin GPS 60 to better plot my cycling routes for future references. Got too tired of visually plotting the route using Google Earth . Now, I just upload it via USB directly into Google Earth PLUS after paying the US$20/- yearly subscription. In my opinion, it's worth it! Saves you a lot of eye-strain hunting blurred, clouded, not updated satellite images of google maps. You can also use MotionedBased to do the job. Haven't tried though but I'll do a full write-up once I have tested it out with the unit thoroughly, but in the meantime, here are some comments I have for the unit.

Quite bulky but it is very visible while travelling as it sports a larger than average display as compared to other handheld GPSs. The waypoint recording is highly accurate as referenced with the picture on google maps and physical location, subjected to full 3D capturing of waypoints. Try not to stand just outside the shop to take waypoint as you are usually partially sheltered by the building. This has resulted in one of my waypoints being 500m off-course which I later traced to it being that I did not have a full 3D lock on the location.

[Tip! That extra 2mins you spend acquiring a full signal would save you miles later on the way back. More, if you are elevated/climbing!]

Sexy design sporting user friendly water-proof buttons for easy single-handed use and rubber studded side-grips for those slippery and wet moments... hee :p


Route taken was half-manually plotted. As you can see from the pic, the light green line was plotted by me and the cyan one by the GPS.

Highlight of the day happened just as we started riding. I went tree-hugging just 20 mins into the ride... I was very lucky to only sustain minor abrasions and bruises on my left shoulder and thigh considering that I was going very very fast. Flipping my stem over really made a difference to the profile of my riding, not to mention the handling of the bike too. Check out the vid.

All in all, this ride was an interesting one as we located new bike shops and makan places. Had chunky grass jelly and soya bean curd along Upp Serangoon Road, also managed to find 1 of the 3 Scott distributors in Singapore called Swiss Valley along River Valley Road and we found a little bikers haven for cool drinks and chillin out. Go check out Ambrosia. It's a Mediterranean restaurant that has the coolest slushes and refreshing drinks. Didn't have a camera then so will write more and post more pics there when we visit again.

Till then....


Trip Details:
Distance : 103.51km
Avg Spd : 20.3km/h
Ride Time : 5hrs 5min
Crash speed : 60.7km/h