Without a care in the world, and without even consulting us, OCBC are closing our regular Sunday Social Ride roads. So if you are out on Sunday Morning between 1am and midday, you can expect almost the entire east coast through to the south west at Keppel to be closed. Details and maps below courtesy of Dave “Ride Report” Powell.
Donald Macdonald
In theory, the logistics for the TT looked simple. Hook up with Pierre and Raoul, ride 5km to the bus pick up and then get an easy bus ride to the TT with plenty of spare time to warm up. The reality involved a missed bus, a chase to the border, an incursion with immigration officials after we took the wrong lane and a briefly lost Employment Pass. It bordered on Mister Bean farce at times. Umpteen apologies to the crowd that took the bus and spent an hour waiting in scenic JB for our eventual arrival…
Eventually we made it to Pasir Gudang but had less than 15 minutes to the start which made the warm up less than optimal. One lap of the track and one lap of the bathroom and I was as ready as I was gonna be…
This race was the 1st outing for the new Allied World CCN team kit and pressure was on for a result – especially with Allied World main man Iain MacLeod in attendance! The overcast weather was a boon but I still found myself dripping with sweat behind the full visor helmet by lap 5.
As with every TT, I said that I’d temper the 1st lap and not go out too hard. I did feel like I was holding back on lap 1 but managed a 41 average. By lap 2 though, I found that there was definitely less in the tank and I was never going to be upping the pace. A 5.44 lap, Became a 5.52 and then a 6.05 pretty quickly…
Not much to say about the race. 10 laps of the 3.8km circuit but with the constantly changing gradient and wind, I found it impossible to get into a good rhythm and was never able to grind it out like a Changi TT. I was happy with the consistent lap times which were all mostly within a 5 second range of each other. The only minor moment of excitement coming when my bar tape completely unravelled and I peeled it off mid race.
The high number of riders on the track also allowed the chance to regularly pick off rabbits on the road which gave a bit of a buzz. Pierre did the same to me on lap 5 when he came past and immediately dropped me like a bomb.
I made it to 6th in Open at the end. 4 minutes behind Pierre and about 2 minutes off the podium. 1:00:03 for the 38km – although I then also did an extra lap as I wasn’t sure that I’d done 10!
First outing in the new kit and 1st podiums – with PA taking Open victory and Hish 3rd in Masters. A good day topped off with some fine Anza beers.
The event itself seemed like a great success despite the limited numbers (60) registered. Some fine promotion by Megan had pulled in a sizable women’s field and we had a lot of riders trying their first TT and first race. One brave soul even completed the course on a hybrid which took real guts!
some stellar performances were also laid down by Alexander Jaeschke, Stale Nore, Phil Routley, Peter Mcquade and many others – showing that a dedicated TT bike was not essential for a good time.
Overall club champions 2015 were as follows:
Ladies:
Mens:
Many thanks to Anza committee for supporting the idea and putting considerable funds behind it.
By Matt Coghlan
First of all, thanks to my wife Claire for looking after 3 kids 8 and under while I went cycling in France – the deal was a 2 week family holiday in advance which was great, but did not help with training as it mostly involved eating cheese and drinking red wine[I do not understand, surely this is perfect training for a riding trip in France? Ed.].
I had always been keen to cycle in France and see Le Tour and decided on a 5 day – King of the Mountains trip in the Pyrenees with Thomson Cycling Tours. The tour was 5 days of cycling including 2 days where we rode part of the tour route and then watched. The tour allowed you to select your group and a bit like Starbucks who do not want anyone to order a small coffee, there were 2 options each day – Performance (nuts) or Extreme (completely insane). My training had been limited, but given I have seen Bruce Swales had climbed the Tourmalet after a heart attack, I assumed I would be OK.
We were based in St Lary Soulan which was a beautiful village in the Southern Pyrenees. Day 1 was a quick warm up with about 500m of climbing which had me worried as I was huffing and puffing like the Big Bad wolf, but I put this down to living at 1000m elevation compared to Singapore.
Day 2 – 62km and 1760m of climbing including Col D’Azet Val Louron and Col de Peyresourde. It was only a week ago, but I actually can’t remember much of these other than the scenery.
Day 3 – Col D’Aspin and Col du Tourmalet in the morning of the Tour, so 1st category climb followed by HC.. Aspin was a beautiful ride and it was fun to ride past the spectators setting up their picnic tables before the race came through. Then on to Tourmalet, 17kms and 7.5% average gradient, 1300m vertical. This was tough following the Aspin earlier, but lots of activity as you rode to the summit. I was finished by the top of the climb, but was happy to get my photo and then make it back to our viewing point at 1km where we say the riders go past. It was great to be so close and see the pros also suffering.
Day 4 – Plateau de Beille. We were riding the last 23kms of the stage to the summit finish. It was also 38c in the shade, so a hot day. The climb is about 17kms with the first 7 or so kms the toughest, so a real grind to get through those. By the time we reached the summit, they weren’t letting riders through, so I had to make do with a photo 500m from the top. It also meant I couldn’t compare my stats to J Rodriguez (Purito) who won the stage, although I averaged about 8km/h and the pros did it in 20km/h. We watched the end of the race and then rode down the mountain with most of the pros (the team leaders and jersey holders went down in the team cars). I contemplated following one of the Pros lines down the hill, but came to my senses as I would like to get home in one piece.
Day 5 was a lazy 55km with 1425m of climbing to finish the week
The Pyrenees scenery and riding were spectacular and I would highly recommend it. Thomson tours were also outstanding with great organization, ride leaders and everything else you need for support. Food and hotel were also excellent. We had about 28 riders in total and it was also a great group.
Donald MacDonald
SG50 is a trial of a new type of event for Cycosports. It’s a 50 lap race of the Pasir Gudang circuit in Johor – giving approximately 200 km of racing for the day. Where it gets interesting is that you ride in relay teams of ¾ with each team being handicapped by the self declared ranking of each riders ability.
This system led to some colossal sandbagging and so our team of 3 (Will, Dave Cox and myself) found ourselves starting 50 minutes behind the first teams. Some seriously good teams had 30+ minutes advantage over us & we knew from the start that catching them was almost an impossibility. But a race is a race, and anything that gets us out of Singapore for a ride needs to be encouraged.
We rode over with the other Cat 1 team in the race – The Mavs who were debuting their decent new kit. With the relay format, we’d only be getting 60km racing each so the ride there and back ensured some decent mileage of 160km+ for the trip. We collectively got lost for an hour on the last trip so I was well chuffed when we managed to get to the track with no issues this time.
Tactically we agreed that we’d work with the Mavs from the start to try and close the gap TTT style. We also cunningly agreed to partner up so that our strongest riders went with theirs. Unfortunately this idea went out the window when we almost missed the start, forcing me to do the 1st 2 laps with Bastian and Andreas. This put me on the limit immediately and I was thankful when Will appeared for lap 3.
Collectively we were catching the best teams by 10 seconds on each lap but that meant that we’d need 150 laps to overhaul some of the strongest Cat 2 teams – just not realistic. After getting dropped by the Mavs combined 2 man TTT, we moved to our Plan B which was to help the Franza team win. We aligned our lap changeovers with Franza and worked together for 20 laps to help them drop The Cranks team and extend their lead. Franza eventually ended up winning the event by a decent margin. (hopefully a race report being imminent).
The race itself was great. With only 25 teams, it felt like the track was deserted most of the time and you were usually just alone or working in groups of max 2-3. We focussed on each rider doing 2 laps which meant a 12 minute hard effort followed by 24 minutes off. Great interval training! Innovative approaches were trialled for the changeover between riders and we found the illegal rolling handover the most efficient. This brought a formal complaint from the Cannasia boys and so was sadly rapidly discontinued – lest we eat into their 20 minutes head start.
An interesting day out and a solid workout. With an 11 hour door to door experience, I managed to pick up a quality Scottish Suntan during the day and was hurting by the time I got back. Pizza and a whisky soon put it right!
Nice to do something different and it’d be interesting to do again with more teams and realistic handicaps.
“every morning there’s a halo hanging
from the corner of my girlfriends 4 poster bed”
Sugar Ray’s upbeat pop rock wakes me from my all too short slumber. It’s 3.15 – possibly the earliest that I’ve ever purposely woken up – and there is no halo hanging from the bed. Instead, there is a big bag of doom with a side of cannot-be-arsed. 3.15am FFS.
Whats the rationale for this torturously early start? Trifactor. One of the few companies that seem able to get a road closed in Singapore and so we need to get along and support a local Organiser. This years race looked interesting – with aero bars finally being banned and a new course round Nicholl Highway – so a few lost hours of sleep seems a fair price for a race on home soil. I’ve also been invited on a ride with the Australian Prime Minister today but priorities! Racing > Politics any day!
The Club Invitational race kicked off at 4.45am – with around 25 riders from all the major clubs in Singapore. Pierre is riding for Anza and Will representing Direct Asia. The Open race is due to start 10 minutes later with riders being sent off in 7 waves. Due to a time slippage, the 1st wave gets sent off with the Club Race which proves decisive later in the rankings.
Will put the hammer down early in the club race and soloed off the front for the first 45 minutes – building a gap of upto 25 seconds at one point. Pierre marshaled the pack behind and then launched the decisive attack when Will got caught – splitting the group in 2. With 2 great sprinters in the group (Elyas Cycleworx and SEA Games selfie king Vincent Ang), PA was always going to have challenges and so attacked again at 1km to go. Sadly it wasn’t to be and Elyas came home 1st (although he was in the Open race) with Vincent Ang winning the Club Invitational. PA came 6th and Will 7th.
Back in the Open race, I was due to go in wave 3 along with about 100 others. A scan of the group showed a few decent riders and I suggested that we hammer the start to try and get rid off the rest as early as possible. The horn went and I immediately gunned it. By the first u-turn at 1km, the pack was already down to 6 riders and we’d reduced this to just 4 riders by the 3km point. We had 2 from Geylang Racing, 1 from Integrated Racing and myself. A good group and one that worked well together to build a decent lead over the peleton.
We lost the Integrated Racing guy at a uturn on the 2nd lap when he almost got taken out by a back marker from a slower group. It felt like a much safer race this year with the aero bars gone but a lot of shouting was still necessary to get people to keep left.
With him gone, it was just myself and the Geylang boys for the rest of the race and we rolled along at a 39 average. A couple of guys from other waves jumped on the back off the group but for most of it, there was just the 3 of us working. The course was an out and back on Nichol Highway with a brief excursion into Republic Avenue. Total of 7km and we did 8 laps.
On the 2nd last lap, I ramped it up on the Nichol Highway bridge to determine who still had legs and could see 1 Geylang was stronger than the other. I went again on the bridge full gas on the final lap to try and split the group but then got caught in traffic before a turn which enabled the stronger Geylang to get back on my wheel. I went again on the uphill around 500m before the end but couldn’t shake him and he blew past me about 10m before the line. Still, I was happy with 2nd in the wave. In the overall, Elyas and the riders that started alongside the Club Race had an advantage of a much stronger peleton to pull them and so my time was good enough for 4th overall only.
Still it was a great event. The new course was a bit of a cracker and hopefully others can start using the same for future events. Organization was efficient and it was much safer than previous years. We’ll worth that 3.15 start!
BANG! That was the sound of the first tube going in the foyer of the Park Royal hotel.
Nico had announced that he was leaving singapore and after arranging his leaving ride in KL, he left us guessing as to whether he was actually going to join us. It was only with the help of car load of Mick, Macca and Hoops that he actually made it to the Park Royal hotel and the start of his farewell ride.
BANG! That was the sound of the second tube exploding as Mark Losi pumped away to the requisite 110psi.
At this point we decided to take the tyre off (For those Aussies out there, Tyre is english for tire). Closer inspection revealed that the puncture I’d received riding back from Tanah Merah last week was in fact a slit in the sidewall, and those two tubes had served to prove that once the tyre is dead, its dead.
New tyre on (a tip for the less well travelled, always carry a spare tyre, you just never know) and I delve to the bottom of my bag for my last tube, always good to have a clean out anyway. And we’re off for the quick climb to the summit of Frasers.
clunk, clunk, clunk! 15 minutes down the road my rear is flat again, but we’re getting pretty good at this now. with some assistance from the blue hippo and the track pump retrieved from the team support car and much pontificating about what fatal flaw there must be in the manufacture of my Zipps we’re away again.
Now at this point I have a confession. Back in the early days of being in Singapore when I was poor and it was hard to scrape the pennies together for my next s-works and entry to ku de ta, I used to repair my tubes. Now I have just the slightest inkling that that last tube may have been pre-punctured, but don’t tell anybody…. shhh I said.
So the plan was that Raoul “wall climber” wanted the KOM on “The Wall” so after the warm up through KL, Craig set off to lead Raoul out for the climb. Rumour has it, he beat his personal best but has some more improvement before he can claim the KOM, oh well, if that isn’t an excuse for a return trip then I don’t know what is.
Onwards to Evian and I have no idea who won that one – sorry guys, shout louder if you want recognition!
Water stops and the first of the manic descents. Now I know Gravity is unstoppable, but I do think that blue hippo has some sort of unidentified advantage and I may hang weights on my bike for the next descent, now the simple stats are that I maxed out at 80.6km/h and I still couldn’t catch him, no matter how hard I peddled. I wanted to cry foul but could hardly breathe.
At this point I’m starting to slip into survival mode “Do not overdo it! big climb coming!” going through my head so when the fast boys keep pushing the pace towards the KKB water stop I let the break happen and a few of us form the grupetto, and a very civilised bunch it was, until the desire to perform a rendition of the Full Monty overtook us.
Now for those of you who have climbed Frasers, you know that it is a climb that just keeps giving. You would have to estimate that once it starts you are on an upward trajectory for 45km with the best saved to last.
WOOF! WOOF! SNARL!
SQUIRT! SQUIRT! TAKE THAT DOG!
OH SHIT THERE ARE 2 OF THEM!
SQUIRT! SQUIRT!
PHEW THEY ARE GONE!
With that little unwanted piece of excitement over we’re ready to climb the last 8km from The Gap to the clock tower. “Will I make it without cramp this time” I’m thinking but the legs are feeling ok, I took it easy, yep, did you hear that Mick, I took the first part easy 😉 the last section is maybe 6%-9% but it has km markers so you know you’re nearly there.
Yay! the legs made it, but it’s Ramadan and the restaurant isn’t open “What’s that? Another restaurant? Further up the hill?” Ok just a little further
AARRGGHHH!
CRAMP STRIKES
BUGGER BUGGER BUGGER
Ride on through to the top. Higher than we’ve been before, but what about the clock tower photo I hear you say. Don’t worry, we came back down for that. Now, whose leaving ride was it again? And damn that kit looks good even if I do say so myself!
And we’re off, Noel, aka the blue hippo (we’ll make it stick I promise you Noel) has stated he wants the KOM for the descent. We all agree he is missing a few marbles and take a more leisurely approach to the first 8km, having lost skin on this section of road before.
Now at The Gap we regrouped and set off again and after a while I have the usual thought going through my head.
“Bit slow this, come on guys we can do better than this” So I come around the outside to up the pace just a little.
BANG!
You are kidding me, right! puncture number 4, but really getting pretty slick at this tube change thingy now and we’re off again.
“Bit slow this, come on guys we can do better than this” So I come around the outside to up the pace just a little.
BANG!
Ok now I’ve had enough it’s all very well taking one for the team but I’m on 5 now and I content myself with rolling down behind the rest of the gang to the bottom where all I can do is thank Raoul for one of the best tows I’ve ever had all the way to KKB.
Now I confess at this point I got in the car as the thought of climbing up the steep side of Evian was not appealing and it isn’t as though I haven’t done it before afteral.
So I sat in the car laughing at Noel as every time he tried to get in position to take a photo he cramped up and abusing those fools who had decided to ride back up the hill.
Eventually the 4 man steam train started to break as Craig and Hoops were shelled off the back leaving Phil and Raoul to fight it out for Evian honors.
The photographer was going mad and it’s taken me hours to choose these, but as we took yet another of Raoul leading Phil, Phil finally snaps “You’re only taking photos when Raoul is in front”. To which, Phil, I’m afraid there was only one possible response “Well you’d better F&*^!ng overtake him them” which seems to be the right level of intellectual stimulation as the result was impressive. Phil went for it, 
and opened a gap that was never to be closed. The top of evian was not a pretty sight. Exhausted hot cyclists everywhere and I think this picture of Craig pretty much sums it up. And that, my friends, pretty much brought to an end another great Frasers trip. we hammered down Evian, with enough momentum that The Wall was hardly noticeable and stormed through KL back to The Park Royal where one or two cold beers might have been waiting for us.
With thanks to Mark for his usual outstanding level of hospitality, The Park Royal for looking after and putting up with us, and to all the guys for waiting for me 5 times.
NICO YOU WILL BE MISSED BUT WE SENT YOU OUT WITH A BANG!
Over the last week or so there have been a couple of Facebook posts suggesting it’s much better and more fulfilling to build your own bike. If you, for instance, bought one of the lovely frames from our sponsors Swift Carbon, you’d have to think about where you might take it to have all those other useful bits added. You know, the inconvenient heavy things like wheels, cranks, handlebars etc. that make the bike useful as…. well a bike.
The other alternative is to do that bit yourself. So how hard is it?
Well it so happens that earlier this year we did a hand me down exercise where my daughter inherited my wife’s old bike and so I decided to give it a bit of a clean first.
Well one thing lead to another and the clean turned into an overhaul and the overhaul turned into a replacement of corroded brakes and this in turn turned into a new groupset which required new wheels, and oh it wouldn’t be right to put the old saddle back on and before you knew it we were looking at a complete stripdown and rebuild.
Now back when I was in England, I always did the maintenance on our mountain bikes because, well, you couldn’t sneeze in Evans Cycles without it costing you $200 and even when you spent that it was never quite right so I’d accumulated quite a collection of tools and I though I must have everything.
Turns out not to be far from the truth but more later.
Now you might say a rebuild isn’t the same, but as you’ll see from the photo we did go back to the bare frame. My 11 year old son decided at this point that he wanted to be involved so it was a great chance to show him how it all works. Turns out building a bike is something an 11 year old can do with a little muscle and direction.
Now as a caveat, I will say that as it was a rebuild of a 5+ year old bike the cable routing was all external so that made things a little easier but if you are buying a new frame then you should have all the internal routing tubes and pulls (just don’t lose these I’m told!)
So the first job was dismantle, and all was going so well until we got to the Bottom Bracket. This is where my bag of tools ran out. I have 2 Shimano splined BB removal tools, but neither fitted, so this was my first unforeseen expense. $30 and a trip to Hup Leong sorted that problem and we were back in business. I was pretty impressed with how well it cleaned up with a little citrus degreaser, all credit Trek, your frame has certainly stood up to the corrosive Singapore atmosphere better than my Specialized has.
Now Evans Cycles had a knockout deal on a 105 groupset and I spent ages checking and re-checking that I could use the old 9 speed wheelset with the 10 speed 105, and convinced myself that I could. Amazingly it arrived before I finished ordering it (well 3 days from the UK actually, but it felt like it was the same day, must have been busy at work) At which point I realised that I’d clicked the wrong button and ordered the 11 speed! Aaaarrrggghhh! “Danielle, looks like you are getting a new set of wheels as well”
Back to Evans, only to find shipping is expensive for wheels, so Wiggle won this order and $200 for a set of Campagnolo wheels seemed like a bargain (later found out why there shipping is much cheaper, because they take longer than they promise! Grrrr!)
Not to sit idle waiting for wheels, Luka and me were busy. I had another shock as I realised that they had changed the size of the hollowtech bottom bracket and my very expensive used twice spanner didn’t fit, but Shimano came to my rescue as I found an adapter included in the BB box. Faster than Freddy McSpeedy in Fastland Luka had the BB inserted, only to be told to take it out again so he could learn the important lesson of greasing everything first.
Crank & Brakes went on a dream, rear derailleur was super easy (remember on a new bike you’ll need the all important hanger, one of the few truly frame specific items and then we were on to the front derailleur which was, hmmm, troublesome. The bolt wasn’t long enough to join the two ends. Now I knew it just needed stretching into place and it turns out that a bottlecage bolt is just the right size so this did the job of seating the clamp just nicely after which the original bolt could be used again.
Finally the wheels arrived and we had a good lesson in tyre and tube fitting before adding that annoying 11 speed cassette. The chain went on next and the saddle and we were ready to tackle the bit I hadn’t been looking forward to, the STI brake levers / shifter set.
Now you might think that when you buy a groupset that you’d get a handy how to fit it manual, but the manuals consist of a heap of warnings, disclaimers and an instruction to take it to a qualified mechanic to have it fitted. Piffle I hear you say and through the wonders of Youtube, there are instructions for everything. Thank you Billy McBikeMech or whatever your name was. You may be forgotten but your knowledge lives on!
With a final snip or two from the dog claw cutters, sorry I mean cable cutters, we were ready for the bartape and hey presto, Robert is your Mother’s Brother and other such sayings we have a finished bike.
So as I said, all doable by a 10 year old with:
Bottom Bracket Spanner
Multi-tool allen keys
Cable cutters
Adjustable wrench
Cassette tool (note you don’t need the chain whip to build it, just to remove it)
The only thing I wouldn’t do myself would be the headset which is just too important to not have done by a professional with the right tools in my opinion.
Happy building, send us your adventures anzacycling.rti.ed@gmail.com
RTI is a short one today with just a couple of small updates to tease your pallette. Expect big things next week with the downloads on the club Taiwan trip.
After feedback about the club rides having to endure heavy traffic due to their start times, a new, earlier start is being trialled tomorrow for the 28 Group. It’s due to rollout of Longhouse at 6.50am – see Facebook for more details.
Keep it safe out there.
Thanks to Colin Alexander for giving us a heads up on this article.
Anyone that has ridden a Changi recently might have noticed that the previous beautiful greenery of the tree lined avenue has disappeared. If not, the now ferocious (by Singapore standards) wind blowing in your face will make you wish that the surprisingly large windblock defence of the old treeline would come back. In short, the entire stretch is now effectively one long building site and as barren as a moonscape.
The Straits Times article below gives a good summary of what’s being developed on Changi for the airport Terminal 4 and 5 and changes that we can expect to the road network there over the coming years. Some good news (a new longer, wider Changi Coast Road) but definitely with more traffic and the likelihood of some more complex junction systems to navigate.
It’s well worth a read to see what the future holds.
http://dailynews.straitstimes.com/cgi-bin16/DM/t/nDDLt0hnvDj0BOTZ0ycpA0EL
Round The Island 