Sunday, August 30, 2009

Another Aborted Long Ride

We attempted another 5am ride today. 6 of us this early morning. Unlike the last ride, I was not very awake yet. Yawn.... I'm not a strong cyclist, and even worse when it is dark or wet. The slow going speed + my orange shades + arm-warmers/ sleeves made it all too conducive to sleep! We managed to hit coastal for a toilet break. Still yawning. Picked up speed at coastal to get some adrenalin pumping and hopefully wake up. A quick pitstop at B1 and off we went towards west coast. Breakfast was my motivation. The ride over the Telok Blangah highway was good, strong tailwinds that pushed us up gentle slopes at 35kmh! Then we passed a TP standing at a side bay with a handheld speed detector. I thought he was taking photos and almost gave him a V-sign! Was he going to scold speeding cyclists?! Haha.

Going down the highway at Clementi Rd, we could see the very dark clouds across the entire horizon in the west. The short distance to West Coast Mac was fraught with very strong crosswinds as the storm was coming in. I had never physically felt such strong sudden sways as today. Literally swerved by the wind, almost felt like I would fly off. Made it to Mac, parked out bikes and ordered food. And the rain came gushing down, relentlessly.

In the end we waited for almost 2.5h before surrending and began to ride back in the drizzle-rain, which kept pouring intermittenly. I hated it. Cold, wet and miserable. And the very slippery downslopes along the way. Argh. Went home directly while the guys continued their ride to Casuarina. Would just have to go and retrieve my car later.

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