Today I made my first effort to go cycling on weekdays. Well, in the past on Tuesdays or Thursdays I would try to make Rodalink West at 7:15pm. But this is no longer possible due to the timing being to early and the venue being too boring (heck. I would heading all the way back to Tuas?!) So today I decide to go try out changi coastal, with a vague idea that Rodalink East may be meeting there at 8:15pm. Well, I was late in the end and reached the Xilin Avenue / Expo bus stop at 8:30pm. Well, there was a group there so I asked if I could just tag along. Turned out this was none other than Team Geylang. Team Geylang is a small, but very strong team in Singapore. Well, the Men's Open 1st place for the Changi criterium was from this team.

So the ride started. The group was small, about only 8 guys. The interesting thing was, this was really an organised training ride, so there was a route briefing with a large map, and there was a coach on motorbike! The coach set the pace on the bike, at about 42kmh. Well, on paper 42 should be manageable, but I suspect there might have been a head wind today as I could really feel the wind rush past me as I hid in the draft. As I was new to the ride and tagging onto some team's training, I just stayed in last wheel. The riders in formed a single file paceline and rotated their position. Looks like the focus was more on practicing a smooth rotation as they drafted the motorbike all the way. The coach finally pulled off before the turning to Changi Village to act as a safety vehicle due to the narrow roads there. So far so good.

Then the road turned left towards Changi prison / Selarang Camp. And it pointed upwards too. This was when the race exploded, and the 'pretenders' were exposed. Nearly immediately, most of the folks dropped back, and I turned on full throttle in an attempt to keep up with the front runners. It was a heart in mouth kind of experience from then on, and I simply could not close the small gap between me and the 2 in front. The fella pulling in front was Paul Tan, the fella who won men's open. He checked back a few times and saw me and waited so I could get back on (i think). But nearly immediately, I was rode off his and the other guy's wheel. Simply could not keep up. Too bad. The route then snaked through Expo / Changi business park area, and they went for a final loop of coastal. This time, I was really struggling to hold the 42kmh, and when Paul hit the front, it was really really painful. He was pulling at 45kmh for a few minutes I think. When it was my turn I pulled at 40kmh with very awkard-feeling pedals strokes. They felt disjointed and very 'forced', which they were. And in an attempt to look 'useful' I pulled for quite long, maybe 30s. And I nearly was dropped straight after that. Ha ha.

Yeah, finally the coach reappeared in front and things became better. Back to the 42kmh. But alas, on the final stretch, the speed hit 45kmh (my max in the draft), and started to increase to 47kmh, and a gap formed, and before I knew it they were gone, hundreds of meters ahead of me. Hmmm, it was a pretty fun ride, but I started to worry if I could walk the next day. The ride ended at 945pm, and I had to crawl my way through Geylang which was really crowded. Reached home 1030pm, bathed, went to get dinner and now blog, 1130pm, way past bed time.

Wonder if I will repeat this next Tuesday. Assuming I'm still alive after the canoe marathon.