I guess I should make it official.
Maybe you might've guessed. Maybe not.
I've moved, guys.
www.xanga.com/Crest1_E2
The new blog won't be totally personal; I'll use it as a kind of update portal for Team E2 Cyclists as well. Makes the archiving of pics and data an' all easier that way, I guess.
I'll miss this blog though. Really.
Ride safe. Tailwinds always.
Crest1's signing off on blogspot.~
Thursday, 26 June 2008
Thursday, 19 June 2008
Disquieting thoughts.
I was eating breakfast today. With a can of something in my hand. I think it was a Coke.
I was mulling over some unresolved issues. Recent ones.
I looked up.
The can had been crushed.
My hand was bleeding. Guess I crushed it.
There's something seriously, seriously wrong with me.
Ride fast, ride safe.
~Crest1 out
I was mulling over some unresolved issues. Recent ones.
I looked up.
The can had been crushed.
My hand was bleeding. Guess I crushed it.
There's something seriously, seriously wrong with me.
Ride fast, ride safe.
~Crest1 out
Thursday, 12 June 2008
That occasional tailwind.
Feeling insipid, uninspired, and at odds with the world, I've decided to post an uncut, blow-by-blow account of whatever was going through my head during my Thursday ride today. [I call it a Thursday ride because Thursdays are the days upon which my weekly riding performance peaks. Incidentally, it also takes place on Thursdays.] It's pretty much raw and ugly, so do feel free to laugh and lambast me for my lack of quality-control on this piece.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The gate creaks open, and I haul my ride out the door, over my dad's silent Altis, and the tarmac before my eyes opens into a new vista, infinite possibilities, conveyed to me in a language no layman will comprehend. Hitting the road, I crunch into the low gears, spinning them out and downshifting, upshifting, clicking through the gears, just for the heck of it, to feel my derailleur's subtleties, to hear the reassuring clack of the well-adjusted drivetrain, to know that mechanically, my ride is sound and there is no way in hell anything can stop this from being the ride of my life. And the formalities complete, I shift back up the cassette into the low cogs, and I spin once more at the mind-numbing pace of 100rpms.
I hit the park, a tiny oasis of greenery and laughter and mirth in an otherwise sleepy, brooding part of the neighbourhood. Turning into the park connector, I dodge two prams, an elderly lady and her umbrella; I mentally lambast her lack of umbrella-handling acumen as I swerve past her outstretched implement threatening to force an untimely dismount. I hit the first in a series of speed bumps; why NParks ever decided speed bumps were neccessary on a footpath used by only cyclists and pedestrians constantly baffles me. Granted, the world record for top speed achieved on any human-powered machine is 81mph---on a roadie of course---but anyone smart enough to train to that kinda level would also recognize that power levels worthy of a petrol-guzzling engine at fifth gear don't exactly belong on a park connector meant to promote space-sharing between cyclists and pedestrians. Strangely enough, at this point I begin to wonder how I can ever get anywhere near that kinda level of power output. In fact, the momentary distraction is near catastrophic; I narrowly miss a collision with another old age pensioner walking in the oppo direction. I know the guy; he saunters about the neighbourhood trying to look miserable all day. Sometimes, I suspect that the reason he never seems to make way for cyclists like me is that he's too preoccupied maintaining that hangdog look to notice me. The traffic intersection's coming up; I see the green man flashing at me, goading me to try that sprint. It's 70 meters across cobbled ground in 13...12...I downshift and crank my way through. I get across with excess seconds on the clock; I don't bother to check on 'em though. The entrance to the next connecting section is a tricky one; large gap in the asphalt threatening a pinch flat and 10 meters down, a random protrusion in the road surface which very nearly flung me off my bike a week earlier. Loosening up, I rise into the descending position and pick my line through the gap; there're only three lines over it that don't endanger the inner tube's integrity. Hitting the protrusion, my bike rises and I rise with it, knees flexed, arse suspended over the saddle, torso and arms loose with just a subtle nudge to maintain my steering line. I mentally remind myself of the importance of such 'body english'; aluminium, when faced with the rigours of uneven and brutal sections of road, is punishing on both rider and wheels. Busted wheels'd set me back $380; a busted back, far more. I grin to myself, feeling the morning stiffness seeping out of my legs; upshifting, I spin once more, relishing the slow burning in the lungs as my body goes aerobic.
Another traffic intersection looms; the green man lights up bang on time and I cruise through the remaining length of the connector, over the Siglap canal and to the foot of the bridge. It's one of those with a sloping path instead of stairs; yet another well-intended yet sadly isolated attempt to integrate cyclists into the footpaths. I hit the top of the bridge and glance over the ECP to look upon yet another typical morning at the East Coast; the multitudes of senior citizens practicing martial arts to the tune of scratchy cassettes and CDs; the throngs of teenagers out for a day at the beach and the omnipresent men manning the rental bike stores looking on disinterestedly; this early in the morning, not many people want to be pedaling around yet. I reach the park and clip in, the mechanical click of the Look pedals obscured by a rousing martial tune from the CD player a particularly large group of senior citizens are using to set the rhythm for their tai-chi routines. I see them practically every week; still, most of them stare at me a good deal every time I go riding at the coast. I settle into a rhythm myself, spinning along in the third-largest cog; I turn onto the straight stretch outside White Sands resort and downshift two cogs, using the lower cadence to monitor my pedal technique. I pass the spot where, a year ago, I'd hovered on the brink of taking down a cyclist; this particular character had been attempting to ride no-hands, swerving all over the bike lane like a drunken ass and blocking the rest of the cyclists behind him. My problem hadn't been that exactly; the fact that he'd been doing such a thing on a busy, congested Saturday evening was. I wondered why he hadn't yet realized the idiocy of his ways; then I realized he was too busy entertaining the two girls he was riding with. Neither of 'em looked like they could keep a straight line of travel either. I'd glanced at the time, measured him up, and decided that if I came abreast of him on the Area F hill and nudged his front wheel, he'd be enjoying some quality time off the bike to contemplate his abject lack of bike handling abilities. I'd figured he'd take his companions down with him too; even if he didn't, they'd never catch me once I got over the hill. And just as I'd been shifting into the smaller cogs to maneouvre into position, the right lane had opened up for a few blissful seconds. Seizing the opportunity, I'd simply surged right past him, my thoughts of initiating his involuntary penance left in the wake of my acceleration.
As I upshift one cog, I silently laugh at the memory of my near attempt at inflicting wholesale injury upon said rider; though I'd rarely contemplate such a thing nowadays, recreational cyclists with skill and intelligence levels identical to his seem to have proliferated. I ponder this as I reach the tiny hill nestled behind the first pond at Area C; it's such a gentle grade that I don't bother upshifting. The crest of this particular hill, if you can call it that, is nestled within that strip of forested area formerly known as the Bird Sanctuary; it's a pretty pensive spot. Minimal light thanks to the subtantial canopy, the trees shutting out extraneous noises; it's a kinda haven of sorts right before one of the more challenging sections of my ride. I roll down the hill and sweep into the gently arcing left turn, taking my hands off the brake hoods and settling into the drops. Ahead of me is a gently rolling stretch leading to the new food centre near Area F; being open to the seafront, it's constantly plagued by consistently troublesome sidewinds and occasionally daunting headwinds. Today is no exception; I flatten my profile and up the pace, settling into time-trial mode, relishing the mounting furnace in my legs; on the short climb at the end of the stretch, I pass 2 roadies. One looks to be well on his way to the golden years; the other, in his late thirties. Both are chattering animatedly with each other, their bodies and pedal strokes relaxed in a way that tell me they have lapsed into the inanity of the conversation; they're simply out to enjoy their bikes, the beautiful day, and they can't for the life of them understand why people like me spend such a fine morning bent double on the dropbars, sweating like a pig with snot and dribble from sheer exertion plastered over my face and top tube. I grunt a hello and zip past them; they smile and nod, the same wordless demeanour as that bestowed upon a raving lunatic. Inwardly, I cringe; I enquire of myself the purpose behind this irrational need to force my body into an abyss of mounting, sustained pain three times a week. And then I'm through the 90-degree turn with the hawker centre behind me, with the road opening up once more; I stand on the pedals and spin out the gear and shift forward on the saddle and grasp the drops and blank out my mind; thus all I need to know is that there is only one hill and one bridge before the flat run to Changi, and I spin and I crank forward, resolutely and without emotion, with the world around me blurring, condensing until the road, that undulating strip of asphalt laced with a conduit of my stories across it, each individual blemish and gravel chunk resonating in tune to various indelible portions of my subconscious, is all that remains. And that's all I need.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Once again, I must express my profound gratitude to all who put up with my incoherent, rambling musings to attempt to grasp the gist of this posting. My apologies for the abrupt end to the narrative [if it's worthy of such a title]; my Thursday rides are usually a time trial by the time I get to Area F, meaning my mind remains totally blank with no function remaining except to breathe, crank pedals, and hydrate. When I roll home, I usually haven't yet recovered from the haze of fatigue hanging over me; thus, extraneous mental activity such as thinking would be out of the question.
Tailwinds always.
~Crest1 out
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The gate creaks open, and I haul my ride out the door, over my dad's silent Altis, and the tarmac before my eyes opens into a new vista, infinite possibilities, conveyed to me in a language no layman will comprehend. Hitting the road, I crunch into the low gears, spinning them out and downshifting, upshifting, clicking through the gears, just for the heck of it, to feel my derailleur's subtleties, to hear the reassuring clack of the well-adjusted drivetrain, to know that mechanically, my ride is sound and there is no way in hell anything can stop this from being the ride of my life. And the formalities complete, I shift back up the cassette into the low cogs, and I spin once more at the mind-numbing pace of 100rpms.
I hit the park, a tiny oasis of greenery and laughter and mirth in an otherwise sleepy, brooding part of the neighbourhood. Turning into the park connector, I dodge two prams, an elderly lady and her umbrella; I mentally lambast her lack of umbrella-handling acumen as I swerve past her outstretched implement threatening to force an untimely dismount. I hit the first in a series of speed bumps; why NParks ever decided speed bumps were neccessary on a footpath used by only cyclists and pedestrians constantly baffles me. Granted, the world record for top speed achieved on any human-powered machine is 81mph---on a roadie of course---but anyone smart enough to train to that kinda level would also recognize that power levels worthy of a petrol-guzzling engine at fifth gear don't exactly belong on a park connector meant to promote space-sharing between cyclists and pedestrians. Strangely enough, at this point I begin to wonder how I can ever get anywhere near that kinda level of power output. In fact, the momentary distraction is near catastrophic; I narrowly miss a collision with another old age pensioner walking in the oppo direction. I know the guy; he saunters about the neighbourhood trying to look miserable all day. Sometimes, I suspect that the reason he never seems to make way for cyclists like me is that he's too preoccupied maintaining that hangdog look to notice me. The traffic intersection's coming up; I see the green man flashing at me, goading me to try that sprint. It's 70 meters across cobbled ground in 13...12...I downshift and crank my way through. I get across with excess seconds on the clock; I don't bother to check on 'em though. The entrance to the next connecting section is a tricky one; large gap in the asphalt threatening a pinch flat and 10 meters down, a random protrusion in the road surface which very nearly flung me off my bike a week earlier. Loosening up, I rise into the descending position and pick my line through the gap; there're only three lines over it that don't endanger the inner tube's integrity. Hitting the protrusion, my bike rises and I rise with it, knees flexed, arse suspended over the saddle, torso and arms loose with just a subtle nudge to maintain my steering line. I mentally remind myself of the importance of such 'body english'; aluminium, when faced with the rigours of uneven and brutal sections of road, is punishing on both rider and wheels. Busted wheels'd set me back $380; a busted back, far more. I grin to myself, feeling the morning stiffness seeping out of my legs; upshifting, I spin once more, relishing the slow burning in the lungs as my body goes aerobic.
Another traffic intersection looms; the green man lights up bang on time and I cruise through the remaining length of the connector, over the Siglap canal and to the foot of the bridge. It's one of those with a sloping path instead of stairs; yet another well-intended yet sadly isolated attempt to integrate cyclists into the footpaths. I hit the top of the bridge and glance over the ECP to look upon yet another typical morning at the East Coast; the multitudes of senior citizens practicing martial arts to the tune of scratchy cassettes and CDs; the throngs of teenagers out for a day at the beach and the omnipresent men manning the rental bike stores looking on disinterestedly; this early in the morning, not many people want to be pedaling around yet. I reach the park and clip in, the mechanical click of the Look pedals obscured by a rousing martial tune from the CD player a particularly large group of senior citizens are using to set the rhythm for their tai-chi routines. I see them practically every week; still, most of them stare at me a good deal every time I go riding at the coast. I settle into a rhythm myself, spinning along in the third-largest cog; I turn onto the straight stretch outside White Sands resort and downshift two cogs, using the lower cadence to monitor my pedal technique. I pass the spot where, a year ago, I'd hovered on the brink of taking down a cyclist; this particular character had been attempting to ride no-hands, swerving all over the bike lane like a drunken ass and blocking the rest of the cyclists behind him. My problem hadn't been that exactly; the fact that he'd been doing such a thing on a busy, congested Saturday evening was. I wondered why he hadn't yet realized the idiocy of his ways; then I realized he was too busy entertaining the two girls he was riding with. Neither of 'em looked like they could keep a straight line of travel either. I'd glanced at the time, measured him up, and decided that if I came abreast of him on the Area F hill and nudged his front wheel, he'd be enjoying some quality time off the bike to contemplate his abject lack of bike handling abilities. I'd figured he'd take his companions down with him too; even if he didn't, they'd never catch me once I got over the hill. And just as I'd been shifting into the smaller cogs to maneouvre into position, the right lane had opened up for a few blissful seconds. Seizing the opportunity, I'd simply surged right past him, my thoughts of initiating his involuntary penance left in the wake of my acceleration.
As I upshift one cog, I silently laugh at the memory of my near attempt at inflicting wholesale injury upon said rider; though I'd rarely contemplate such a thing nowadays, recreational cyclists with skill and intelligence levels identical to his seem to have proliferated. I ponder this as I reach the tiny hill nestled behind the first pond at Area C; it's such a gentle grade that I don't bother upshifting. The crest of this particular hill, if you can call it that, is nestled within that strip of forested area formerly known as the Bird Sanctuary; it's a pretty pensive spot. Minimal light thanks to the subtantial canopy, the trees shutting out extraneous noises; it's a kinda haven of sorts right before one of the more challenging sections of my ride. I roll down the hill and sweep into the gently arcing left turn, taking my hands off the brake hoods and settling into the drops. Ahead of me is a gently rolling stretch leading to the new food centre near Area F; being open to the seafront, it's constantly plagued by consistently troublesome sidewinds and occasionally daunting headwinds. Today is no exception; I flatten my profile and up the pace, settling into time-trial mode, relishing the mounting furnace in my legs; on the short climb at the end of the stretch, I pass 2 roadies. One looks to be well on his way to the golden years; the other, in his late thirties. Both are chattering animatedly with each other, their bodies and pedal strokes relaxed in a way that tell me they have lapsed into the inanity of the conversation; they're simply out to enjoy their bikes, the beautiful day, and they can't for the life of them understand why people like me spend such a fine morning bent double on the dropbars, sweating like a pig with snot and dribble from sheer exertion plastered over my face and top tube. I grunt a hello and zip past them; they smile and nod, the same wordless demeanour as that bestowed upon a raving lunatic. Inwardly, I cringe; I enquire of myself the purpose behind this irrational need to force my body into an abyss of mounting, sustained pain three times a week. And then I'm through the 90-degree turn with the hawker centre behind me, with the road opening up once more; I stand on the pedals and spin out the gear and shift forward on the saddle and grasp the drops and blank out my mind; thus all I need to know is that there is only one hill and one bridge before the flat run to Changi, and I spin and I crank forward, resolutely and without emotion, with the world around me blurring, condensing until the road, that undulating strip of asphalt laced with a conduit of my stories across it, each individual blemish and gravel chunk resonating in tune to various indelible portions of my subconscious, is all that remains. And that's all I need.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Once again, I must express my profound gratitude to all who put up with my incoherent, rambling musings to attempt to grasp the gist of this posting. My apologies for the abrupt end to the narrative [if it's worthy of such a title]; my Thursday rides are usually a time trial by the time I get to Area F, meaning my mind remains totally blank with no function remaining except to breathe, crank pedals, and hydrate. When I roll home, I usually haven't yet recovered from the haze of fatigue hanging over me; thus, extraneous mental activity such as thinking would be out of the question.
Tailwinds always.
~Crest1 out
Friday, 6 June 2008
Fluctuating nuances.
I was just doing a spot of thinking this night. Evaluating, for example, why I was sitting at home chewing morosely upon crusty, equally deflated pizza on a perfectly good Friday night. Then it hit me. I'm just doing what's reflexive---whiling away the perceived excess in hours, minutes, seconds. But was that justifiable? I realize, even in the few vacuoles granted us between the merciless stampede of everyday tasks, expectations, goals, there are undertakings, ideas, available for us to turn over in our mental turmoil. I proceed to pluck issues from the cerebral haze at random. My academic progress. That special someone. My bike racing season. Softball. My laptop's ever-shrinking volume of data storage. How to get the fresh pizza stains off my shirt.
I turn each of these virtual items over, allowing myself a godlike distancing from it. I assess options, viability, opportunities and disadvantages along with possible repercussions/risks. And I realize. What seemed an insurmountable issue or a crossroads of indecision could be coerced into presenting several differing, clear-cut lines of action. I remind myself once more of the options regarding each one, the individual risks and potential behind each.
Idly, I reach out and spin the rear wheel of my bike. It's propped upside down, allowing me easy access for cleaning and servicing. The freewheel kicks in, the melancholy clicking of the ratchet punctuating the oppressive silence. The clicking never wavers in pitch or volume; precision engineering within the sealed hub bearings ensures a semblance of uniformity as such. But, all too suddenly, the consistent clicks slow, and halt altogether. The ratcheting of the freewheel is but an illusion of consistency, longevity in a sense. Just as one believes the entrancing rhythm will persist indefinitely, the linear nature of time proffers a reality check.
I remain seated, stunned by the profoundity of the moment. In that minute frame of time and space, I realize the striking similarity of my life's issues and goals to the absurd paradox of the freewheel. I may continuously ponder, reaffirm, and polish my options; yet, beneath the glistening veneer of the entire thought process, the smoldering truth is that I am yet to commit to a course of action, that, while the decisions required on these matters seem to possess indefinite grace periods, the end will inevitably arrive, as insidiously and swiftly as the victory of frictional forces over the smooth, persistent motion of the freewheel. When the crunchtime finally arrives, it will come with haste. I need to be ready. I'm running outta time. And that means I gotta go get these pizza sauce stains off my shirt now.
I thought it pretty appropriate to append below another essay by Bill Strickland, executive editor of Bicycling Magazine and one of the finest prose-crafters in the cycling industry. It's almost a lyrical work I find. Enjoy.
Out of Time
by Bill Strickland
We spin, 87 of us, tight down to the elbows and handlebars, clicking up and down gears more to hear the sound than to find the right cadence. We spin around the course, one-mile long, 23-feet-8-inches wide, black going gray, and at the back we talk about books, and other races, training plans, Tom Boonen, the weather. Sunlight is flowing down thick over us like syrup from the open circle of a bottle high up in the sky, adding an extra and unexpected sweetness to this early spring night — a peculiar sense of slowness that is not in any way negative but somehow delicious, perhaps because we are not at all going slow; we are spinning around and around in the twenties, nudging up into the thirties. Pretty soon we stop talking.
I’m sitting my front wheel between a rider from Colavita and one from Rite Aid, and they are spinning and I am spinning and the pack sways left and we sway left and the people behind us sway left, around and around and Colavita and Rite Aid stay at the back so I do, too. When you have the wheel of someone who does not pay for his jersey, you do not have to think.
I don’t even think about not thinking. It is that kind of evening.
Outside of the Thursday Night Crit, life is waiting for us. My lawn mower is waiting for me; it won’t start again. Our state’s presidential primary is a few days away. The puppy needs a haircut tomorrow. I have three deadlines. I haven’t called my mother in two weeks. I keep forgetting to accomplish the monumental task of transporting an expense check from the top of my desk to my home. The weather is about to turn. The car needs gas.
We spin around the loop doing twenty-five, then we spin around it at thirty-one, and we spin and spin and spin, becoming ourselves the amulet that encircles us for this single hour-and-seven minutes of the week. Life is not allowed in here. Only we are.
There are attacks but they come back to the pack. There are bells for sprints and there are sprints, and there is sweat and snot and shouts when two people touch for too long, and there is wheezing, too, and hacking and coughing, and some of us start to regret how little of the life outside this loop we devoted to preparing for what would happen inside the loop. But no one regrets, at least not right now, not at twenty-seven miles per hour, how we have once again pilfered too much time from our lives for riding.
We cross over the finish line but it is not the finish. It feels under this sun and in this pack and on this course like there will never be a finish, but the number on the lap counter has flipped down to single digits. Our hour-and-seven is almost gone. We speed toward its end as happily as we sped away from its beginning, happy for the chance to speed no matter where it leads us. I told you we are not thinking. In two more laps a bell will ring. We will go faster, some of us as fast as we can, others — the good ones — just fast enough, but all of us rushing away from the race that exists only because of the rushing. In six laps, life will be thing that is rushing. In five laps. In four.
The finish line flits under my front wheel, under my back wheel, is gone – which means only that we are spinning toward it once again, whirring and whining and splitting apart the air in front of us faster and faster, lining up and setting up and holding wheels and snorting and swooping like a pack that knows what it’s doing, though we have no idea what we are really doing by sprinting toward the end. We have no idea, because we have been so long out of time, that we are almost out of time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you for bothering to sift through all the painfully disjointed, staid drivel I felt compelled to post.
Ride fast, ride safe. Tailwinds always.
~Crest1 out
I turn each of these virtual items over, allowing myself a godlike distancing from it. I assess options, viability, opportunities and disadvantages along with possible repercussions/risks. And I realize. What seemed an insurmountable issue or a crossroads of indecision could be coerced into presenting several differing, clear-cut lines of action. I remind myself once more of the options regarding each one, the individual risks and potential behind each.
Idly, I reach out and spin the rear wheel of my bike. It's propped upside down, allowing me easy access for cleaning and servicing. The freewheel kicks in, the melancholy clicking of the ratchet punctuating the oppressive silence. The clicking never wavers in pitch or volume; precision engineering within the sealed hub bearings ensures a semblance of uniformity as such. But, all too suddenly, the consistent clicks slow, and halt altogether. The ratcheting of the freewheel is but an illusion of consistency, longevity in a sense. Just as one believes the entrancing rhythm will persist indefinitely, the linear nature of time proffers a reality check.
I remain seated, stunned by the profoundity of the moment. In that minute frame of time and space, I realize the striking similarity of my life's issues and goals to the absurd paradox of the freewheel. I may continuously ponder, reaffirm, and polish my options; yet, beneath the glistening veneer of the entire thought process, the smoldering truth is that I am yet to commit to a course of action, that, while the decisions required on these matters seem to possess indefinite grace periods, the end will inevitably arrive, as insidiously and swiftly as the victory of frictional forces over the smooth, persistent motion of the freewheel. When the crunchtime finally arrives, it will come with haste. I need to be ready. I'm running outta time. And that means I gotta go get these pizza sauce stains off my shirt now.
I thought it pretty appropriate to append below another essay by Bill Strickland, executive editor of Bicycling Magazine and one of the finest prose-crafters in the cycling industry. It's almost a lyrical work I find. Enjoy.
Out of Time
by Bill Strickland
We spin, 87 of us, tight down to the elbows and handlebars, clicking up and down gears more to hear the sound than to find the right cadence. We spin around the course, one-mile long, 23-feet-8-inches wide, black going gray, and at the back we talk about books, and other races, training plans, Tom Boonen, the weather. Sunlight is flowing down thick over us like syrup from the open circle of a bottle high up in the sky, adding an extra and unexpected sweetness to this early spring night — a peculiar sense of slowness that is not in any way negative but somehow delicious, perhaps because we are not at all going slow; we are spinning around and around in the twenties, nudging up into the thirties. Pretty soon we stop talking.
I’m sitting my front wheel between a rider from Colavita and one from Rite Aid, and they are spinning and I am spinning and the pack sways left and we sway left and the people behind us sway left, around and around and Colavita and Rite Aid stay at the back so I do, too. When you have the wheel of someone who does not pay for his jersey, you do not have to think.
I don’t even think about not thinking. It is that kind of evening.
Outside of the Thursday Night Crit, life is waiting for us. My lawn mower is waiting for me; it won’t start again. Our state’s presidential primary is a few days away. The puppy needs a haircut tomorrow. I have three deadlines. I haven’t called my mother in two weeks. I keep forgetting to accomplish the monumental task of transporting an expense check from the top of my desk to my home. The weather is about to turn. The car needs gas.
We spin around the loop doing twenty-five, then we spin around it at thirty-one, and we spin and spin and spin, becoming ourselves the amulet that encircles us for this single hour-and-seven minutes of the week. Life is not allowed in here. Only we are.
There are attacks but they come back to the pack. There are bells for sprints and there are sprints, and there is sweat and snot and shouts when two people touch for too long, and there is wheezing, too, and hacking and coughing, and some of us start to regret how little of the life outside this loop we devoted to preparing for what would happen inside the loop. But no one regrets, at least not right now, not at twenty-seven miles per hour, how we have once again pilfered too much time from our lives for riding.
We cross over the finish line but it is not the finish. It feels under this sun and in this pack and on this course like there will never be a finish, but the number on the lap counter has flipped down to single digits. Our hour-and-seven is almost gone. We speed toward its end as happily as we sped away from its beginning, happy for the chance to speed no matter where it leads us. I told you we are not thinking. In two more laps a bell will ring. We will go faster, some of us as fast as we can, others — the good ones — just fast enough, but all of us rushing away from the race that exists only because of the rushing. In six laps, life will be thing that is rushing. In five laps. In four.
The finish line flits under my front wheel, under my back wheel, is gone – which means only that we are spinning toward it once again, whirring and whining and splitting apart the air in front of us faster and faster, lining up and setting up and holding wheels and snorting and swooping like a pack that knows what it’s doing, though we have no idea what we are really doing by sprinting toward the end. We have no idea, because we have been so long out of time, that we are almost out of time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you for bothering to sift through all the painfully disjointed, staid drivel I felt compelled to post.
Ride fast, ride safe. Tailwinds always.
~Crest1 out
Monday, 2 June 2008
Pyrrhic vacation.
This'll be my first post since getting back from OB Mongolia. Due to the absence of pics, though, you won't be hearing 'bout it for awhile. Suffice to say it was great, as near to the expression "experience of a lifetime" as you could get, and left a rather permanent imprint on my memory. So yeah. More on that some other time.
What's been going on in the past few weeks? Let's see. Training rides Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. Softball Monday, Wednesday, Friday. [I realize weights room is EMPTY in the mornings.] Trying to study some to buttress my dismal attempts at academics. Oh, and did I mention 14th SLC finale? There you go. I knew I left out something.
Basically, 30th May. Met CCA at 12 noon and had lunch and proceeded to logs room to hang with Boon Yang [who'd somehow invaded the room and occupied the single computer terminal without being thrown out and such]. Hongliang joined us over lunch too, it turns out. [Meaning I just remembered] We spent some time catching up, and I had the privilege of returning Boon Yang his old S4 pants [which, incidentally, niether I nor he can fit into any longer]. But then again, it brought back the memories. Not an entirely useless gesture.
Following that, I attempted to compensate for the abject lack of sleep following the previous night's ride with ZY [we got chased all the way to Anderson Rd by these 2 Aussie angmohs doing the same loop] and FAILED. No thanks to hongliang. People from the uniformed groups make every conversation seem like an exercise in utilising the PA system. So we sauntered around the concourse some and koped leftovers from the lunch buffet spread. Boring, I know, but it killed enough time. By the time we'd slouched our way into the audi, Dahwei, JeR, Warren, Shufen, Chiaern and Ainslie were there. ZZZ. Sat down for 5 minutes before this OT member flashed this seating plan of theirs on the screen which pointedly told us we weren't exactly seated in the appropriate area. Not that they'd accounted for old facils in the plan, of course, but we worked out for ourselves that no participants would be standing all t'way at the back.
Finale itself was pretty cool. Despite the carry-over of the absurdly inconsiderate practice of abruptly cutting off performances due to time constraints, the guys managing the entire affair were overall competent, I guess. 13th facs are pretty much the same bunch of people despite the one year that's gone by; however, for the sake of having a second opinion on this, I'm shamelessly pirating part of Dahwei's post on a topic very much along the lines of this discussion.
"Jia Wei - LOL, fail dao numb liao. Super poser and still XXXTRA gay la.
Boon Yang - So emo and silent now. Like some vulture (:
Hong Liang, Cai Boi - My niaoing partner LOL. Niaoed everybody.
Jia Kun - HAHAHAHA kena niao until sad la. “Jia Kun, you’re damn sad leh… she never come!”
Ainslie - No specs. Cuter.
Jay - Wtf la this guy never changes one lor.
Jer! - Still dam kawaii and guailan lol.
Desmond - Wah seh, HSC WOR (: Always says the wrong things one… makes himself sound damn scandalous lor haha.
David - What can I say… Never changes as well. Still very very complex. xD
Alison - Looks very different. Haiya, not fat la. :/ What to say? Cute ah?
Elaine - Hey, new hairstyle and look (: but super quiet leh. Wahahaha, should have gone and poked you.
Daryl - Aiya this guy still the darlie we know. So lame lol.
Nigel - Man he likes to poke me. Ass. (:
Yu Quan - Lost his voice hoho.
Chern Yuen - WHY SO SERIOUSSESEESEEES Well done man buddy.
Elizabeth - SORRY I FORGOT YOUR NAME >< Ok la, I’m gay, weird, crazy, poser, emo, antisocial, babyface, funny everything la ok -.- Man… you’re another hyper one. "
Well, well. I do realize some of those names are OT members. But heck. It's late and I'm too lazy for editing. Live with it. [I shall not deign to force a similarly uncultured reply with regard to Dahwei's obvious attempt at sarcasm against my person.]
Bottom line is, 13th SLC facils went out for post-finale dinner at Mad Jack's. Had to rush off early for violin class though...apparently Mr Tan thought class started at 8pm instead of 8.30pm and arrived half an hour early. =.='' My apologies to Elizabeth here, too; I sorta remember you hadn't even gotten your food yet when I dashed off. That must seriously suck. =)
To my cycling buds out there: My apologies for the non cycling-related ramblings. But SLC's one of the few things I try not to forget, so excuse my indiscipline in upkeeping my standard of content here. Alright. Training updates.
Got back from OB Mongolia to find that my bike was in for major mechanicals. Front and back wheels BOTH needed serious attention. Hauled the entire sorry mess down to Cycle Craft and had the guys check it out. Verdict? Both wheels had loose bearings and my headset had actually been in danger of falling off. $20. OUCH. I don't understand. I don't really ride that hard, do I?
Switching to short interval training nowadays, meaning I don't haunt Changi with such regularity anymore. However, I'll be rejoining you guys for the Anderson Rd loop soon, so no worries.
Hell. I'm kinda getting a little sleepy here, so MAYBE I'll wrap up here. Ride fast, ride safe. 'Til the next group ride.
~Crest1 out
What's been going on in the past few weeks? Let's see. Training rides Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. Softball Monday, Wednesday, Friday. [I realize weights room is EMPTY in the mornings.] Trying to study some to buttress my dismal attempts at academics. Oh, and did I mention 14th SLC finale? There you go. I knew I left out something.
Basically, 30th May. Met CCA at 12 noon and had lunch and proceeded to logs room to hang with Boon Yang [who'd somehow invaded the room and occupied the single computer terminal without being thrown out and such]. Hongliang joined us over lunch too, it turns out. [Meaning I just remembered] We spent some time catching up, and I had the privilege of returning Boon Yang his old S4 pants [which, incidentally, niether I nor he can fit into any longer]. But then again, it brought back the memories. Not an entirely useless gesture.
Following that, I attempted to compensate for the abject lack of sleep following the previous night's ride with ZY [we got chased all the way to Anderson Rd by these 2 Aussie angmohs doing the same loop] and FAILED. No thanks to hongliang. People from the uniformed groups make every conversation seem like an exercise in utilising the PA system. So we sauntered around the concourse some and koped leftovers from the lunch buffet spread. Boring, I know, but it killed enough time. By the time we'd slouched our way into the audi, Dahwei, JeR, Warren, Shufen, Chiaern and Ainslie were there. ZZZ. Sat down for 5 minutes before this OT member flashed this seating plan of theirs on the screen which pointedly told us we weren't exactly seated in the appropriate area. Not that they'd accounted for old facils in the plan, of course, but we worked out for ourselves that no participants would be standing all t'way at the back.
Finale itself was pretty cool. Despite the carry-over of the absurdly inconsiderate practice of abruptly cutting off performances due to time constraints, the guys managing the entire affair were overall competent, I guess. 13th facs are pretty much the same bunch of people despite the one year that's gone by; however, for the sake of having a second opinion on this, I'm shamelessly pirating part of Dahwei's post on a topic very much along the lines of this discussion.
"Jia Wei - LOL, fail dao numb liao. Super poser and still XXXTRA gay la.
Boon Yang - So emo and silent now. Like some vulture (:
Hong Liang, Cai Boi - My niaoing partner LOL. Niaoed everybody.
Jia Kun - HAHAHAHA kena niao until sad la. “Jia Kun, you’re damn sad leh… she never come!”
Ainslie - No specs. Cuter.
Jay - Wtf la this guy never changes one lor.
Jer! - Still dam kawaii and guailan lol.
Desmond - Wah seh, HSC WOR (: Always says the wrong things one… makes himself sound damn scandalous lor haha.
David - What can I say… Never changes as well. Still very very complex. xD
Alison - Looks very different. Haiya, not fat la. :/ What to say? Cute ah?
Elaine - Hey, new hairstyle and look (: but super quiet leh. Wahahaha, should have gone and poked you.
Daryl - Aiya this guy still the darlie we know. So lame lol.
Nigel - Man he likes to poke me. Ass. (:
Yu Quan - Lost his voice hoho.
Chern Yuen - WHY SO SERIOUSSESEESEEES Well done man buddy.
Elizabeth - SORRY I FORGOT YOUR NAME >< Ok la, I’m gay, weird, crazy, poser, emo, antisocial, babyface, funny everything la ok -.- Man… you’re another hyper one. "
Well, well. I do realize some of those names are OT members. But heck. It's late and I'm too lazy for editing. Live with it. [I shall not deign to force a similarly uncultured reply with regard to Dahwei's obvious attempt at sarcasm against my person.]
Bottom line is, 13th SLC facils went out for post-finale dinner at Mad Jack's. Had to rush off early for violin class though...apparently Mr Tan thought class started at 8pm instead of 8.30pm and arrived half an hour early. =.='' My apologies to Elizabeth here, too; I sorta remember you hadn't even gotten your food yet when I dashed off. That must seriously suck. =)
To my cycling buds out there: My apologies for the non cycling-related ramblings. But SLC's one of the few things I try not to forget, so excuse my indiscipline in upkeeping my standard of content here. Alright. Training updates.
Got back from OB Mongolia to find that my bike was in for major mechanicals. Front and back wheels BOTH needed serious attention. Hauled the entire sorry mess down to Cycle Craft and had the guys check it out. Verdict? Both wheels had loose bearings and my headset had actually been in danger of falling off. $20. OUCH. I don't understand. I don't really ride that hard, do I?
Switching to short interval training nowadays, meaning I don't haunt Changi with such regularity anymore. However, I'll be rejoining you guys for the Anderson Rd loop soon, so no worries.
Hell. I'm kinda getting a little sleepy here, so MAYBE I'll wrap up here. Ride fast, ride safe. 'Til the next group ride.
~Crest1 out
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
.JPG)