theCollectiveUs

So as it stands I’m about 8 hours away from 8 hours stranded in Brunei and a little more than a day away from dragging my possessions across Auckland. There is some semblance of a plan.

A week from now, I’ll probably be wondering why the hell I signed up to ride a hilly marathon in the middle of vacation. But I’ll probably also be smiling to myself a lot because you know, the rainy season makes one quite delirious. Or maybe it’s the arsenic in the tap water.

I didn’t pack Zambuk.

I haven’t had coffee in a week before what’s now yesterday. The day before, I pretty much went on an impromptu fast for most of the day.

And then I had that one cup of coffee in the late morning.

And I’ve been eating consistently what I’d consider light snacks (note: my definition.)

APPARENTLY, I’m now so refreshed and awake at 3 in the morning I could probably go out and run cross-country.

Help.

Distance travelled: ~ 42km

Time taken: ~ 4 h

Time started: 10am

Time of first meal of the day: 4pm

Times stopped for kids who ran into the bike path: 5

Times stopped for adults who U-turned/stopped abruptly in the middle of the bike path without looking: 3

Animals that were nearly squished: 2 (A beetle and a bird)

Times shoelaces got trapped in the pedal: 1

Number of scrapes resulting from that: 1 tiny abrasion on my palm. AMAZING!

Amount of water brought along for the ride: 0

Expiry date of the energy gel sachet consumed mid-ride: July 09

——

Today’s ride went pretty well. I felt a bit of soreness in my knee at about 15km but it went off and never came back. The sun was terrible from around 1130 – 1300 especially when the area I was at had no shade. I had intended for the ride to be continuous but 2.5h into it, my vision turned white and starry so I had to take a water break. That was when this lady, chicken wing in hand, came by and started chatting with me.

Rough translation -

Lady: Wah, do you perform with that?

Me: No I don’t.

Lady: Where’re you going to perform with that?

Me: I’m not performing. I’m riding home.

Lady: You can use that for performing. You know how to perform!

—-

I’m starting to get the hang of riding in the wind. The Changi stretch had a good amount of sea breeze and there was a few times I got blown off course which is terrible because the wind’s not exactly strong – it’s more of a mix of lethargy and having to ride slow to avoid the crowd that makes the path quite difficult to maneuver.I’m quite terrible as well with sharp turns to the left.

And now I’ll go rinse my wheels and try to fit them into a giant bag. I hope I don’t get charged extra for bringing a bicycle on board just because I’m bringing 2 unicycles. Maybe 3.

One of my favorite pastimes is to chat with taxi drivers. Chat with, NOT chat up.It’s really a good way to get more fluent with speaking mandarin and acquire conversational skills at the same time. These days, since I’m cabbing home from work pretty often, it’s mostly taxi uncles. No one knows more about the world than taxi drivers.

Today’s driver was this guy who refers to his son’s mother as ‘my other half’ which I found particularly cute. We talked about running and his son who apparently graduated from the same school as I did and the importance of an education in Singapore.

He asked if I were from China which must speak volumes about my oral mandarin skillz.

Today I finally got around to looking at my itinerary and with the help of my trusty fingers, found out promptly that my stopover in Brunei lasts 8 hours. Apparently, getting to New Zealand takes a lot longer than I thought it would.

I don’t intend to get out of the airport in Brunei since I’m going to quote from Wikitravel:

here are only ± 40 taxis in whole Brunei (2009), because the car ownership and usage are high. Since there are around 10 waiting at the airport and 8 in the Belait District there is a little chance of finding a free taxi along the road, especially during morning and afternoon peak hours when they are hired by business men.

Sounds dire. And uhm

Jerudong Park was once a decent theme park with a multitude of rides. Sadly, a downward cycle of neglect…has given the park a sad “circus left town last week” air about it. Most people who visit only go at night to avoid the heat during the day

Fun.

Apart from Spirit Tracks, anyone with a good DS title to recommend? The alternative is to pick up knitting.

I spent some time yesterday evening and this morning cleaning the rust off my 29″ uni and putting it back together, swapping out for some new parts. Among the new additions are the black bumper and handle on my seat, the pedals and the shiny new tyre. Literally shiny because there’s a scotchbrite strip acround the circumference to reflect light.

I’ve never been very comfortable with high pressure tyres and this one’s a relatively skinny one with a 1.75″ width. I was really expecting quite a tough time acclimatising to especially turning with it but it was surprisingly intuitive. I couldn’t get up on it the first time I tried but within a minute of getting up, I was going down curbs with ease.

The ride lasted something like 15km on mostly gravel (I wanted a feel of how it works on bumpy surfaces). I still have some trouble turning especially when there’s wind but it is very much more responsive than I thought it would be. Riding on roads feels so incredibly smooth it’s almost effortless. I think I probably managed a 15kph through the ride at what feels like a leisurely cadence. On flat windless roads, I’d think that going at 20kph or more sustained isn’t too hard a stretch.

What do you guys think of my pedals incidentally?

I bought these a fortnight ago because I figure I *really* should get back to running. Especially since i now have a Nike+ thingamajig that tells me how fast or slow I’m running, an iPod Touch that hooks up to the thingamajig and now new shoes. The weather’s been a mixed bag – December’s cool enough to prance or sprint around but it rains every other day so you probably won’t want to prance around in snazzy new shoes.

It would almost seem like I really do like orange given the amount of orange I’m wearing on any given day but truth is, orange hides food stains well.

Joking.

This pair happens to be on offer and had the most decent color combination of the Nike shoes around. They remind me a lot of Pleasantville especially when I’m wearing shades of grey and all that stands out in my reflection on glass walls are my shoes.

I’ve yet to run in them yet but they do feel like they’d be great for that purpose. Maybe I should just wake up extra early tomorrow or Thursday and run a 2.4km around the track to get a gauge of their speed.

Or maybe I’ll just hug them to sleep and dream of running. That sounds less exhausting.

Yeah, I’ll do that.

How to Spend Your Sunday -

7am: Wake up, do the laundry, head out for run

11am: Go back home. Bathe, sun laundry, sleep.

12noon: Get woken up by phone call. No I don’t want to go out for lunch.

1205: More phone calls.

1215: SMSes now.

1230: Brushed teeth (again), cleaned up room get back to sleep.

1315: IS IT RAINING??? Takes in laundry.

2pm: Sleep.

4pm: Maybe food will be nice. Goes for food.

1730: Head home. Sleep.

1830: Talks to friend, somewhat coherantly.

2100: Goes for coffee

2250: Goes home.

2300: Packs laundry, thinks about unicycling. Thinks not.

0000: Cleans up desktop.

0145: Types this.