So I write a lot of drafts for my blog, and sometimes I forget they were there and they get paginated to page 2 and 3! Found this jewel of a post from June 2007! Oh how I miss my mountain bike.

I wrote an entry on the pre-race setup, but somehow didn’t post this one for the actual race.

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We were awake before dawn to set up registration, get the prizes dressed and ice into the eskies.

After getting all set up, the crowd started streaming in, and soon there were close to 200 people at Echo Valley. My stomach was starting to churn, and I could feel my throat closing up. I just had to keep telling myself to keep calm, start the race, and enjoy it.

While waiting for the horn to blow, I took a quick glance around, trying to spot him. Ah.. there he was, camera in hand, and smiling at me. He was my #1 fan.

Race started, I tried to speed ahead of the rest of the girls, knowing there was this climb ahead, and the worse thing would be getting caught behind them all. The trail loop was approximately 7km, so we had to do two laps of that.

I felt pretty okay throughout the ride, and didn’t feel like i was going to keel over and die. I paced myself

Crossing the finish line.

With Janice & Rebecca.

2nd place in the Women’s Open.

Nick and Luke.

Best shot of the day taken by Rohan on the 200m.

In the video:
application on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X8, an Android phone which I’ve been trying out. Wanted to try a new platform and see how the apps were on this baby.

Was trying out the Endomo application which can be downloaded from the Android Marketplace. There’s a cycling mode which has real-time GPS tracking of time, distance, speed & calories. It works with the Polar Wearlink® + transmitter with Bluetooth®. Haven’t used all the functions but it looks cool.

Above taken from Sony Ericsson Website

Key highlights of the Phone
- Lightweight
- Very Social (i.e. Facebook, Twitter widgets)
- Touchscreen controls
- 3.2mp camera
- PlayNow™ to download music and games
- They have a similar app to soundhound but free
- including all the other bell and whistles you’d get with a normal phone

I reckon the biggest pull for this phone is the apps in the Android Market place. Keep you posted if I find anything else cool about this phone.

Just a couple of clips and a good tune.

Great to be cycling again after the back sprain and knee pains. Am slowly easing back into my exercise routine.

Went on a Vesak day ride with Andrew and Janice in the afternoon just to find our legs again. Ja hasn’t ridden in awhile too, so we both felt completely n00b and uncertain. After a couple of climbs and downhills, we definitely got back into the groove. Had a great time chatting and reminiscing our old-er cycling days.

Will have to cycle this route more often these few months. Soon I’ll be moving out of the hood, ,and Bukit Timah won’t be as close as it is now.

Am looking forward to another ride this Sunday! Who’s in?

Lizard count is back below. Did see another baby snake on the trail, but a dead one. Black body with a red/orange head. Anyone know what species that is?

Still loads of past blog posts which are now starting to resurface. Realise I have lots from Hong Kong still sitting in drafts! And after clicking through a few pages, I found this one back from early 2009 at the Eneloop Mountain Bike Carnival.

The Bike Carnival was held on 28 February 2009 at the Tampines Mountain Bike trail organised by DirTraction. The highlight of the carnival was the inaugural 100km night race. Besides the main event, there were additional categories such as Super Downhill and Dirty Duathlon.

I put down my name for the Super Downhill only to find out that I was the only girl who signed up?! So no category for girls

After looking at the Super Downhill track conditions, I’m kinda glad I wasn’t taking part. Right at the bottom of the route was a massive pool of mud which was almost impossible to avoid. Look at the photo above to see what I mean!

The main race was the 100km inaugural night race, aimed at pushing body to its limits, cycling 10 laps of the 10km loop of the Tampines trail…at NIGHT!

You can either go solo or as a team of 4, and with my fitness at a all time low then, I opted to join Ming, Josh and Ben as a 3 person team.

Overall the race was Okay. Transition areas were chaotic with lanes being narrow and many mud clogged bikes taking up space at team tents. In the end, no one finished the 100km because we got rained out really bad at around 10pm. Race officials made the call because the lightning posed too much of a danger for the riders.

We were absolutely drenched.

Was good to see familiar faces, including my cousin Eureka who came down from KL Malaysia for this race.

Here are two videos with footage from the actual race I found on YouTube (done by someone else) to give you an idea of what went down.

Race Date: This Sunday, 24 January 2010

Safra AVventura is an adventure race consisting of multiple disciplines ranging from trail biking, running, kayaking, rope ascend, abseiling, navigation and mystery tests all rolled into one exhilarating race to fully challenge those with a passion for adventure.

My last adventure race was the Penang Eco-Challenge a couple of years back. We did some training prior, but this time round, a BIG FAT ZERO. Read the post HERE to read how it all goes down in an adventure race.

EgaD! This Sunday!!! Wish me luck! Hope I’m still standing for The Killers later that evening!

From left: Janice & Grace.

It’s wonderful to see familiar faces at the finishing line cheering you on! Pain and suffering replaced with joy, gladness and sense of accomplishment.

It’s that time of the year where we make our yearly pilgrimage up Penang Hill for the Kayuh Lasak Penang Jamboree. Last year, the organisers took a break. So we were all pretty psyched when we heard it’d be back this year.

Day 1 was spent doing the necessary such as race registration, breakfast shopping and preparing for the big ride on Sunday. It was Jo & Grace’s first time to Penang, so we made sure to cover the famous makan spots around town on Saturday too. That is a separate blog post all together.

Day 2 – Race Day!
5:45am: Wake up, shower, wiggle into cycling shorts, get water bag out of freezer, breakfast, pump tyres, check bike, spray lube, check I have all supplies in bag: spare tubes, tool kit, hand pump, energy gels, happy food.

And we’re all set to go!

We stayed quite close to race central, so it was a 15min warm up cycle to the start point. Met up with the rest of the crew and before you knew it, start horn begun our several hours of torture.

This is the first year I was doing the Penang Jamboree without Wayne, and I did feel anxious knowing there was no one but myself to rely on. For the past couple of Jamborees, it was always comforting to know that he was just a phone call away. This year, I spent most of the ride solo.

It was Me Vs Penang Hill.

As usual, if you don’t manage to get in the front pack, you quickly get bottle-necked at the climbs. What you will see are hundreds of people pushing their bike up 30 degree tarmac climbs with the hope that every hairpin turn would reveal a flatter gradient or downhill section.

Here’s an elevation map from Ming’s bike computer.

At every checkpoint, marshals will give you a little sticker on your race plate to indicate completion of that section. And only if you complete the whole route do you get to be entitled for the grand lucky draw.

A few picturesque highlights of the ride would be at the top of Tiger Hill. There was one point of the ride I just stopped and watched the fog roll in between the hill peaks, nature’s air-con at work.

I finished the race broken and humbled. Clearly my inactivity was showing at my poor performance especially on the climbs. As usual, the hill claimed many victims; riders with cramped legs were sprawled in pools of mud, scattered on the side of the trails like litter. And every now and then, you can hear screams of pain and agony in the distance. Ah, another cramper!

For me, I went home with chaffed inner thighs – friction from my cycling shorts. It’s not pretty and definitely not comfortable especially in the shower when water touches the raw skin.

Again, as I say every year, I’ll be back Penang!

I’m about to post a Penang Jamboree 2009 entry, and realised….. I HAVEN’T POSTED THE ONE I WROTE IN 2007!!!!

Here it goes…please remember this was written in 2007
It’s been one year since the last Penang Jamboree, and I don’t know what possessed me to do it again!
Read more…

Morning of the PCC Ride, I woke up with butterflies in my tummy. Nervous because it’s been awhile since my last epic ride, and I wasn’t sure if I was going to survive this ride.

Woke up groggy from the lack of sleep, but it helped that we had a pre-ride routine:
- Get changed, fill hydration pack with bottled water, pack our toolkit, spare tubes, happy food, power gels, hydration salts, grab bike, helmut, gloves and we’re good to go.

We loaded the cars, had a quick carbo-loading breakfast at a near by coffee shop, then proceeded towards the University of Nottingham KL campus assembly point. Once we reached the school grounds, we unloaded and cable tied our ride passports to our bikes.

All registered participants are given a ride passport to collect stickers at every checkpoint.My goal was to get all 4 stickers!

The route was split into 4 stages combined to give you 65km of riding. Here’s the trail explained on the PCC website.

Stage 1 is a fast and flowing pure cross-country route with very few technical sections. It could be considered an easy ‘warm up’ even though it’s 21km! 70% canopied and no big hills.

Riders are advised to pace themselves well for Stage 2 (19km) where you’ll put your ‘warmed up’ muscles to good use. Again, very few technical sections, 1 river crossing and 70% canopied trails. Get prepared for the big-ish hill climb. The rest of the stage has rolling hills.

The best part about check point 2 was the chilled watermelon the organisers had arranged for riders. That was very much welcomed and appreciated! When your body is that exhausted and dehydrated, whatever you eat just tastes so much better. At that moment, you’re going “OMG this is the BEST watermelon in the world, the bananas taste so good!”. But I bet at any other given time, it would just taste blah.

Oh and forget about hygiene, because by that point, you don’t really care. You’d grab the watermelon with your glove, proceed to chomp it down, dripping juices all over yourself and when you’re done, wipe the excess bits off your face with your dirty sweaty cycling shirt.

Stage 3 is short at only 10km but that’s because there are not that many flat sections so it includes some short hill climbs and fun technical descents.

Stage 4 is the best with 16km of estate tracks, plantations, single tracks, flats, climbs and more climbs and a grand finale descent back to the Finish.

This year’s ride was especially taxing for me, but I’m glad to have finished it. I was absolutely spent, and was just looking forward to a nice hot shower and a big lunch.

In summary: Fantastic cross country trails, although I would have preferred more flowy downhills. Race was well organised as usual, but a shame it started to rain before the lucky draw started, we all left to avoid getting totally drenched.

On a side note, it was lovely to meet some Malaysian riders who have been following this blog *waves*.
From left to right: Nik, Max, Eric, Yew Weng, Chee Han, Wayne, Chi, Ling, Angela, Leon

After a wanton mee and chee cheong fun, we were all set for what seemed to be, a very long drive home.

Thanks to the PCC guys for organising the ride.

Next epic ride: Penang Jamboree 2009… Who’s going?

First big ride for 2009 was the PCC Presidential Ride in Kajang Kuala Lumpur. Judging from the number of mountain biking posts this year, you can tell how LITTLE I’ve hit the trails. I guess it was the culmination of the break up, lack of motivation and no partner to cycle with. So the PCC ride this year was a little tough mentally and physically.

We all drove up on Saturday morning for the Sunday ride. Thanks to Nik for carpooling and giving me and my bike a ride up to KL. The convoy of 4 cars took about 4 hours from Singapore to KL.

We reached the hotel early afternoon, which meant we had the rest of the day to kill. Hmmm… what to do, what to do…. We went into KL Central, and decided to get a massage! OMG, that massage was the worse massage I’ve had in my entire life! It was rubbish. The masseuse clearly had no idea what she was doing, i felt completely physically abused. Let’s just say there was a lot of hair tugging and back slapping!

We ended the night with a seafood/zhi char dinner before heading home for an early night. I know it’s not terribly exciting, but I just needed to pen this down, so I’d remember what we did.

Read more about the ride in the next post.

Feels good to be cycling again… Time to train up for the PCC ride in 2 weeks.

Lizard count is back too…

Filmed for the ESPN Star Sports hitsquad team.

Was just after our ride at Bukit Timah Mountain Bike trail on a Sunday. Was hot, sweaty and out of breath, GREAT for TV :/ oh dear…

Had my first taste of mountain biking at night late 2007 during the togoparts 11 race, where I had to ride the last lap at sundown. But I title this post my “First night ride” because my recent voyage into the darkness on two wheels was a totally different experience all together. For most of it, I wasn’t familiar with the route, so I had no idea what to expect. All I could do was depend on Wayne’s guidance from behind on where the gnarly sections where.

It was just Wayne, Leon, Nik and I that week, but I’m sure there will be more of us next time.

The experience was out of this world! It brought a whole new dimension to mountain biking. The way you tackle obstacles and drops are waaayy different in the night. And when I did come across areas I was familiar with in the day, scratch that, you won’t recognize the place AT ALL. I think it was the company, fear of the unknown and the adrenaline rush, which made it one of the best rides ever. I HAD SO MUCH FUN!

On a side note, I think my adidas cycling shoes days are limited. It has served me well. Time to order in a new pair.

Here are the out-takes of the Pulau Ubin video from the previous post.

Till next time…

It’s great to be back on the saddle. I’m reminded why I fell in love with the sport to begin with.

I swear it wasn’t planned, but all the girls happened to be in blue that morning

Here’s the latest addition to the Blursotong productions. Two Pulau Ubin rides edited into one video, watch in HD if you have the bandwidth, less grainy. Enjoy!

After a VERY long hiatus, Janice dusted off the goat and joined us for a ride at Bukit Timah Nature reserve last weekend. Albeit a short ride, it was sufficient to get her used to riding off-road again.

Circa May, 2006

September, 2008
I had my biking buddy back again.

It was fun riding with the girls, for once we weren’t outnumbered. It’s such a male dominated sport its hard to find ladies to bike with.

Jan, Waynetta, Cheryl pushing up the gnarly section near the barrier

Cheryl crankin it, and made it.

Carrying our bikes up 3 flight of steps near the end of the trail.

Jan, I’m putting this on record.

Janice has hereby promised that she will be riding off-road at least once a month starting from this month onwards.

Here’s to many more OFF-ROAD rides, this is us Doing the Angela Gray “DTAG”.

Sky has been spitting rain all morning! Mountain Biking plans have been canned. Damn you rain! We were so looking forward to today’s ride! Hmph!

A weekend ago, we all went over to the Tampines trail for a couple of rounds, a trail which we’ve all gone round plenty of times. But not too long ago, PLing had a pretty bad spill on a gnarly section near the bridge.

So on the first round, Rebecca, thinking she should go slow and easy, still had a pretty bad spill down the rocks and got her shin pretty badly chewed up.

On the second round, it was my turn. I was going too slow too and the bike was taking me down the left into the water. But luckily I managed to throw the bike away from me and grabbed on to the bridge. But the fall didn’t come without injuries.

As my nephew would say it, I got an Ouwweee! The bruise was there for a week! Which meant no skirt or dresses for a week! That part now is almost un-ridable due to the weeks rain and erosion.

Here’s adidas Wayne, i say that because he actually took time this morning to match his shirt with his shorts with his socks with his shoes!