Explore more on the Ground

Dear Boys,

Sometimes, everyday chore can expose us to a better way of doing things, even when we have been doing the same thing everyday.

This happens to me when I was cycling to work. Yes, since your dad’s office is a scant 11km away, I will try to cycle to work, as much as practicable and the weather allows.

The Beauty of Google Maps

Of course, there is a plethora of mapping technologies on the web these days, we can plot till we foam in the mouth before we embark on our journey. While this level of planning is great, this is also why we have an entire generation of armchair critics. Knowledge you get from mapping helps you plan, knowing if your plan will work or not, depends on the people who have actually been there, and walked the ground.

Nothing beats putting your foot on the ground

In my context, put the pedal to the ground.

Looking at these 2 maps, they look discernably indifferent, with only a 30m between the 2, while on the ground, the experience is another story altogether. If you look between the 5km and 7km part between the 2 maps, lies the difference.

My default route is the 11.246km one, and while I have used it many many times, there is more complexities to overcome, not a big deal, but more.

There is 2 T-junctions (uncontrolled) I have to look out for, many bus stops with pedestrian traffic as Hougang Ave 3 is a major road with many bus plying this route. As this is the official park connector route, there are also more cyclists, like me, using it. Oh not to mention a petrol station along this road, which vehicles I have to be careful of.

My new route the 11.213km, however, is a unused gem. Defu Ave 1 is not as crowded, there are 2 T Junctions, one which has a traffic light. Less pedestrian traffic, since less bus ply this road. It has a clean gentle uphill (towards work) and the ride is generally more pleasant. the incline is reversed when I head home and it does help makes the ride faster, and I don’t have a petrol station to contend with.

It is even more defined when I am using the left side of the pavement, and not the right side, which will put you in the path of 6 T junctions, one of them is the main gate of SBST Hougang Bus depot, with buses turning in and out. Gnarly.

Not many people can tell you the difference in using these few choices and pick the best one out any given day.

Walk the walk, the talk the walk

You really need to walk the ground in whatever you do, this level of knowledge and detail beats any kind of hypothesis hands down. So while you boys go on to attain knowledge in your respective field, nothing beats hands-on, hard work. This level of experience cannot be attained the easy way.

No Augmented Reality, simulation, reading up, map plotting can get you there by actually walking, and for my case, pedaling. The Direct Feedback you get being there gives you the first hand knowledge which you can rely on, and others can count on, instead of just depending on Google map.

Atrophy, Homeostasis and Growth

Dear Boys,

Netflix is fine, as long as it is the last thing on your task.

As we draw closer to the end of 2022, there are still a few things on our plate to complete, for Wayne, it will be his final year exams. For you Ian, well, you have an uphill task ahead as well.

Despite of these big hurdles looming, I come home one day to see both of you on Netflix.

Since the both of you are already of age, I cannot kick anymore sense into the both of you, except to urge action.

What did Newton says about action? Or was it motion?

An object at rest remains at rest, and an object in motion remains in motion at constant speed and in a straight line unless acted on by an unbalanced force.

That leads us into this interesting thing about human dynamics

Atrophy

Humans or anything organic for that matter, does not stay still. Everything in this world is constantly in a flux, whether you see if or you don’t. Things are constantly moving, changing, evolving, and growing. There is always action, somewhere, somehow. Nothing is fully ‘at rest’.

What happens when you don’t move? You decline. You wilt.

That’s why your dad is constantly exercising, moving and getting some activity, any opportunity given. If I can sneak a 20-lap swim during my lunch time, I would; if the distance is not too big, I’d cycle to work, and I’m doing that twice a week. Aikido every Monday. Anything just to move, because if I don’t I know my bodily woes will catch up. I will fall ill, I get hurt and won’t heal so quickly. Mentally I won’t be ship shape, its a gradual downhill that will lead to an uncontrolled free fall.

Atrophy happens if you do not stay active and stay in motion.

Homeostasis

Even if we constantly stay in motion, we stay constant, and consistent, then we are doing the bare minimum, keeping our lives happily humming along. Everything is find and dandy, watch Netflix all day and nothing will happen, sun rise, sun set. Things stays in equilibrium.

That’s where we plateau, on this large flat featureless surface, where nothing is challenging and nothing is challenged. It’s a pleasant plain vanilla where you just watch the clouds go by. You won’t degrade, but you won’t progress as well.

Just a word of caution, life eventually catches up and one fine day your homeostasis might lead to atrophy even before you can say Oops!

Growth

This is where fear, unknown, trepidation, round-the-corner monster, resides. If you can constantly challenge yourself and find a higher calling, you will look up and you will climb. Hopefully you have seen what your better self can achieve and aim for it.

Growth is not about ‘constant motion’, it is about deliberate, activated additional actions, decisions, planning and go-getting. It is tiring, takes effort and sometimes, you fail, plans goes south. Murphy’s Law comes to play.

You boys have strived and achieved goals before, not big goals but goals you both can be personally proud of, you own personal bragging rights. Use these achievements to build your confidence on, and climb. Small wins leads to big wins.

That’s life’s non-negotiable fact, you don’t climb, you’ll stay still, and if you stay still long enough, you’ll slide back, and once that happens un-arrested, then good luck, you’ll hit the infinite bottom and the climb back up is going to be another hell of a story to tell. I hope we don’t have to tell that kind of story.

Life’s like riding a bicycle

This is very much a cliché but it is true, you stop cycling, you fall off your bicycle, it is, really as simple as that, so please, for your own excellence and growth, never stop hustling, pedaling, grinding and striving.

Perspective Taking

Dear boys,

You get what you focus on, period.

I wanted to write about this because one evening, we were talking, and Wayne said ‘Tomorrow is going to be a good day.’ Yet, knowing him, there is always a caveat.

Of course during the day, somethings might turn up, screw up our ‘good day’. We might meet an obnoxious person who piss us off, and mess up our ‘good day’. We might get our results back to find out that it is a ‘fail’, that is not going to be a good day.

It is all in the perspective, boys. What we focus on gets magnified. even things we ‘don’t want’. This is the classic law of attraction, and it has happened to me so many times. especially when I’m riding trails, the more you tell yourself, ‘don’t slam into that tree, don’t slam into that tree, don’t slam into that tree,’ what happens, you end up slamming into the tree!

So I will train myself to look ahead and plan the route to take, usually it is quite a successful endeavor but being on a mountain biking trail is anything but predictable neither ‘successful’.

Law of attraction

Which is why we need to be very conscious about what we think about. It’s fine to say ‘Tomorrow is going to be a good day.’ and leave it as that. BUT, adding, ‘I hope nothing bad is going to happen!’, and you can be sure something ‘bad’ will happen and you will be fixated over it instead of what other good stuff that has happened.

It will happen especially when we don’t want something. The more we don’t want, the more we select reasons to justify our don’t want-ness, and we look around for more situations to put ourselves in, just to say: ‘You see lah, everytime like this one! I always get what I don’t want!” Just truly and earnestly think about what you want then, and let the magic happens!

Boxing yourself in thinking about dying.

Wayne, there was a period of time when the argument or scolding isn’t going your way, you will think of dying. or killing yourself.

So during one of those heated scolding, you brought this up again, as you sense that you are cornered, boxed in and everything is your fault. So you say that you might as well kill yourself. And I gladly entertained that thought, let go into killing ourselves. We imagined a few scenarios, how sad we will feel if you die, and how people needs tremendous amount of energy, focus and will power just to kill themselves, or throw themselves off a building. Why not, focus all that energy, on being good? Save yourself and not kill yourself?

We explored focusing on living, the wonderful gift of having a chance to better ourselves, despite of making mistakes, despite of losing, despite of looking stupid, we have life and another chance to try again. By focusing on death, once you are dead, you are dead, there is no more chance to try again, make a better day, or simply enjoy being loved by your brother, mom and dad. No more mummy tiger to hug, or smell patchie boy again.

The elephant in the room

It is a taboo, I want to address it with you boys, while we grow up, we need to be very careful what thoughts we bring into our mind. Some of these thoughts, we brought them in, some others, people planted it there. So by talking about death and suicide, we properly addressed the matter instead of treating it like a taboo, because the more we don’t want to talk about it, the more it will surface and the larger it will become, so much so that it will be too powerless for us to talk about it. So now we got such zero sum game out of our mind, we can focus on growth, focus on the good day, magnify the awesome, and build on the phenomenal.

Our negativities will not go away, being upbeat and cheery isn’t a façade, thinking and focusing on good stuffs means when we are hit with bad stuff, we know how go to a resourceful and open state to handle a rough patch well and emerge from such episodes no worse for wear.

Attack the Day!

Dear Boys,

It happens to all of us, at any given time. We can be lost, demotivated, felt like we have lost a sense of drive, purpose or even belonging. We might feel like a fraud, and even though ‘Fake it till you make it’ sounds like a decent comping mechanism, often we do feel like the faking it seems fake!

What do we do?

Especially when we are swamped with work, or even at times where we don’t have much to do and feels listless.

Recently with my new job, I was struggling to get traction, working very hard touching all the bases but invariably losing some, and of course, missing tasks happens often and being the responsible guy I am, I can be very unforgiving to myself and this self-reprimand can affect our sense of self worth. Maybe I am not good enough?

Eventually I thought about my time Mountain Biking.

On the trails, you have no time to think, or you eat dirt. You cannot be afraid and you really need to process your information in a flow. There is no judgment nor time to be critical, on the bike, you work one root, one stone, one curve, uphill, downslope at a time, one by one, you cannot think too far, nor look back and gloat at the nasty boulder you just hopped over. You must be in the moment.

Be afraid and worry about the next root, and surely you will get caught, and fall. This happened to me once at the Bukit Timah Mountain bike trail back in 2019. I had 2 bad falls and damn near broke my left shoulder. The impact was so hard it left a permanent bump on my left shoulder, I think my bones has shifted permanently, but there was no broken bones or dislocation.

Attack, attack, and attack

Sometimes you have to be aggressive in life and attack the tasks at hand vehemently. This is one way to deal with procrastination, take yourself, your ego, personality and self-talk out of the equation, take the task at hand and deal with it one at a time, never judge which is more ‘difficult’, or which is the one that will make you happier. Treat each tasks the same, and take them one at a time, build speed, velocity and efficiency in getting s**t done.

After a while, you will get a sense of how many tasks you have ‘killed’ off and then you an quickly add more complex tasks to your work. Think of the outstanding work you need to do in a clinical, objective manner, and struck them off your list without getting to emotionally involved. There is no need to get angry, happy, sad or whatever. Just objectively get them done one by one.

Don’t wait

Don’t get fixated at how ‘tough’ a task is, or how you dread talking to a difficult person, just get on the call and talk to the person, use whatever you already know, it might not be much but it is a start. You might be mocked, or ridiculed, but keep going, keep clearing tasks. You know what you know and you will learn what you don’t know, as you go along. Never wait for information to be given to you, go out there and get it.

Waiting means you will lose the initiative, and get a curve ball in your face. Standing still means that something unexpected and unprepared that will knock you off your momentum; so keep moving, keep working, keep attacking the day and before you know it, you would have gone through the hour with a lot of things done and time to spare.

This is a tactically efficient way to get the busy out of the busyness, and it does summon your energy in the right channel and focus. Doing this day to day means you will build an energy and a can-do work ethics puts you in a very productive state of mind.

Of course once you are done with the day, don’t look back too much and look forward, use what you have accomplished to move forward, into another position and start the attack again, consolidate what you have gained the past days and use it to remove more tasks at hand. There is a time and space for reflection, and do not mix this up with an action based attack day.

Wayne’s little insecurity

Dear Wayne,

Watching you develop as our youngest family member can be very endearing and frustrating at the same time. You have a very light frame, very much like you dad. Small and punch size, you naturally have to fight harder for your fair share of existence.

Of late, I noticed that you have a certain disdain for bicycling. We went for a night supper a couple of weeks back, and we all agreed that, mum and dad will jog, you and your big brother will cycle. You refused to, using all sorts of excuse. Saying that you will be slow and you’ll be left behind. We constantly assured you that we will not, to no avail, you refused to budge from your stand.

I know how you feel, son, you have your smallish kiddy bike, with training wheels on, you don’t look very cool when your big brother’s bike is bigger and he is already riding on 2 wheels. You look inferior compared to him. Riding bike has somehow become your weakness, and you didn’t want the world to know.

Your weakness is not a weakness to us.

You see, son, there is no weakness to show in this family. We are one, your brother loves you and so does your dad and mum. We will not leave you behind no matter what. Your weakness is not a weakness to us.

This will something that you have to deal with when you grow older, handling your insecurity, your weakness. Always bear in mind, you have a family, we are family. We will help you, and even if you are struggling and stubbornly decline help, we will still help you. We will help you even if you don’t ask for our help, because that is what family is all about. You don’t have to fight your insecurities alone.

We tried to teach you to ride on 2 wheels some time back but it was tough, you made it tougher for us to teach you as you constantly self sabotage yourself, by purposely falling, pretending that it is harder than it really is. We didn’t push it, but I think the hardship has been etched already, you associate bicycle as your weakness.

You are a kid that cannot be rushed. you will do it, and you will do it well, when you want to. So I am not pushing you to learn to ride a bicycle on 2 wheels. You take your time, there are people who goes through life not knowing how to ride a bike, which is fine, so I’m not going to rush you.

your bicycles — You and your brother’s bicycles

More importantly, please don’t make your challenges your weakness. I hope by the time you are old enough to read this, you can find enough in you to face your obstacles and overcome them. We are humans, and we are born to overcome challenges. You possesses enough will and tenacity, we have seen it in you, but you’ve choose to use these values as inertia instead of a source of motivation. We need to correct this in time to come.

First published: June 26, 2015

My Regular Go-To Spot

Dear boys,

Your dad has a regular go-to spot where he cycles to get some space and get away from the hustle and bustle of life.

This spot is a scant 10km away from our home and the thought of getting there is already putting a kind of peace in my mind. Cycling there is also quite a therapy as it is a place of space, solitude and the view is quite something.

So there is this spot on top of the knoll, and barring COVID, I can string up my hammock and just chill at the hut. The breeze is good, view is awesome and there isn’t a lot of people around. There I can be an anonymous nobody, and yet recharge by getting connected to nature.

It is open 24/7 and the vibe is so non-judgmental and welcoming. I can go there anytime and more often than not, the hut is empty, and if it isn’t, it is fine as well, because I can string my hammock around a tree and still chill.

That’s the connection my cycling has for me, and brings me regularly to this place for my own space. Doing this often helps me get my exercise (minimally) and also a sense of peace which is not too far away.

The view do help me relax and having the breeze blow through my hammock is an awesome experience, you can really fall asleep and lose yourself to the big beautiful nature.

I lost my Wedding Ring

Dear Boys,

Your dad lost his wedding ring.

You cannot imagine how pissed he was. What makes him more pissed was he remembered exactly where he lost it.

Cycling Trip

It was on a cycling trip where Andy and I were taking cover from a storm at some shophouses just in front of Commonwealth MRT, and it’s my usual practice to wear glove for wet weather conditions, and I’ll usually remove my ring when I wear my glove. So my practice was I took out my ring to wear around my neck using one of the sport necklace your dad often wears. What happened was along with the ring, I also hung my mask around the necklace. I remembered that we are about to move off after the rain receded slightly, I unclasped the necklace to keep my mask, the ring must have fallen off.

That was EXACTLY what happened, and I only realised that I lost it during our return leg, cycling somewhere near Kallang Way Park Connector (PCN) when I ran my hands around my necklace checking for my ring only to realised that it is no longer there. I’ll usually randomly do a pat-down equipment check but this time it was already too late.

I still got to give it a try, so once I got my bike home, I hailed a private hire ride to get to Commonwealth in a feeble attempt to find the ring. By then the spectacle shop whose space we occupied in the morning has already open shop, and put out their roll-out display counter. The nice Auntie helped me look around but, alas, it was gone.

Andy’s photo

Andy sent me the pictures he took and I confirmed my loss. It was still on my neck at Commonwealth MRT, and by the time to took the next picture at Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) at Clementi, the ring was no longer there.

Philosophical about loss

What the F can I do? Except to self console myself about the sheer stupidity of the loss. The self reproach, self berating and mentally beating myself for being so dumb and careless, losing an item which I’ve kept so carefully with me for the past 18 years.

Of course, I came up with the ‘nothing is permanent‘ statement to console myself, and justified the decision I made 18 years ago not to get a flashy (and expen$ive) bling bling as a wedding ring, after all it is ceremonial. It was a good call, because had I lost a ring that costs me thousands of dollars, the level of self hatred for me will be relative or many times more of that amount! While the ring is just an extrinsic material, it still makes me angry that I wasn’t able to keep it with me, due to my carelessness.

What Facebook said

I wasn’t ready to write about this, as I was still quite sore over the loss, until I saw this in Steven’s Facebook post, and what best way to live this experience that to really lose something you had for such a long time. What the hell, get over it, and get to greater things in life, and stop whining over the proverbial spilled milk.

The loss eats into me, because I am usually a very careful person, that said, I think generally the same can be said for most people, except that I really, really, really, do take care of things and I take a certain level of pride in that, and to lose my wedding ring, is a huge bruise to my ego. On top of that, I was half expecting your mum to lose hers before I lost mine. ha ha, jokes on me.

Your mum’s reaction

Part of the reason why I was super pissed was because the ring really symbolizes my marriage, and I was mostly expecting your mum to be pissed with me.

She wasn’t

She treasured the marriage more than the ring, while the loss affected her, I’m sure, but she didn’t lose the husband, only the ring. And it matters to her that she still matters to me, and that’s all it mattered to her. There is no point having and wearing a wedding ring, if the love, commitment and marriage is no longer there. The ring would be just hypocritical lip service if we as a couple no longer find a meaning in being husband and wife.

It was a huge relief for me, but deep down inside while I loath my loss, I also knew that I can always get another ring, expensive as hell to get as a symbol, still bearing the same risk of losing it again, sooner or later.

John Travolta to the Rescue

Many years ago, I read somewhere that the actor kept a box full of his wedding rings, he had it made copies of it, because he was prone to losing them, taking them off to play a certain character in his acting career. While I am not as rich to buy a chestful of rings, I should learn from his attitude towards marriage, after all he stayed married to Kelly Preston from 1991 to 2020, where she died of breast cancer. Wedding rings can be lost and replaced, but he kept only one marriage, till death do they part.

Cycling-The Most Adult Thing to Do

Dear Boys,

As you both know by now from my previous post that your dad has been cycling for a long time, all terrain cycling (except water and air!), especially mountain biking!

Well, I guess when you put your feet to the pedal, it is one of the most liberating thing to do as an individual, there is no place you cannot go on a bicycle. Since I took this Marin back in 2018, I’ve been many places in Singapore, and still not bored of it.

Liberating Freedom

In our tech and digital world, this is one of the things I consider to be analogue, humanistic. Sure you can run, but at that speed, you can’t go very far in a daylight, without getting too tired. On a bike, you get speed and you get the view. That relationship with your environment is spontaneous and real, it engages all your senses, and you cannot totally switch off while you’re riding without getting into serious hurt!

Freedom comes with Responsibilities

Whether you’re cycling alone or in a group, you take care of your own s**t, that’s one thing I learn Mountain Biking, because in the ‘swapah’ where you bash through the bushes, you have to fix your own problems, and issues. Chain break, fix it, puncture fix it, so I has taught me from a very young age to prepare and be ready for any and all situations that might arises during the trip. You really have to own that situation you get yourself into, dig your way out of it, cos no one is coming to rescue you.

So it has become a habit for me to pack well, balancing needs and wants on a 2 wheels, water, tool kit, first aid, and other little luxuries for wet weather. And whatever happened on the road, it is all you, your responsibilities. There’s often a lot of bad calls you have to make, and you just have to suck it up and do it.

Green Corridor trails. Photo by https://sengkangbabies.com/

Adulting The Adult Thing

Adulting is quite a new word, and it basically means:

“the practice of behaving in a way characteristic of a responsible adult, especially the accomplishment of mundane but necessary tasks.” (from Google)

I guess that would means a kind of a sarcasm perhaps, but I think that’s what cycling is to me, in a good way. It’s really not a big deal as a cyclist to anyone on the road, but to the cyclist, me, every place I explored gives me that life experience full on, and I can randomly go places and explore new roads, on an MTB, I can even spontaneously go off road and check out where the trail goes. It is an accomplishment that is quite mundane to others but very intrinsically satisfying for me. So while it might sound mundane, it adds to my world perspective and gives my life background and stories to tell, myself and you boys.

Zen and The Art of Cycling

A long time ago, your dad used to ride a motorbike and this was one of the book he read that is closest to the subject matter. Now that your dad is no longer on a motorcycle, cycling is the next best thing (and safest) for me to experience life on the road.

Unlike a motorbike, you need a level of fitness to cycle, since you are the engine, passenger and mule all rolled in one, you have to be fit to go the distance. It is not only about physical fitness but a level of mental resilience as well. Mental resilience on a bicycle don’t come from being tough, but knowing when to be tough, when to accept fatigue and when to enjoy the ride.

Enjoying the ride often means getting into a cruising speed, and listening to the sound made by the wheels rolling on the ground. Feeling that wind, or even sometimes the rain! Night time riding can bring about a different sensory experience as well!

Going the Distance

As I do the distance, my on-the-road experience evolve and takes a different relationship. I often have to take the same road but every time I roll past the same spot, the feeling is always different. It is as if the road is your old friend, patiently waiting for you to pass by again. If you have a specific memory, self conversation, incident or flashback on that same spot, it helps to trigger a familiar feeling in you, so that inconspicuous spot to others, is actually a special meeting spot for you.

As Singapore is constantly changing and evolving, some of the same old spots might not exist anymore, so by going on the road, you get your internal map ‘upgraded’ with new topographical details. New park connectors are being build all the time and there are new connectivity across the island that can bring us to more places on a bike. What better way to know this island home of ours?

Your Dad’s Bicycle Life

Dear Boys,

Your dad has been riding a bike since his pre-NS days, where he learned how to ride at his dad’s warehouse in Eunos. It wasn’t a brand new bike I got but one of those hand-me-downs I got from my dad, and I learned to balance it rolling down a small ramp. It was a small bike so it was easy for me to learn how to cycle.

Pre-NS Days

It was in my pre-NS days where I learned to cycle all around town. I used to stayed in Blk 168 Boon Lay Drive in a government rental flat and I cycled the west side, all the way to Clementi. I vividly remember ‘Sunset Way’ at Clementi because I failed to cycle up a steep slope, back in those days I was still to young and noob to learn how to use lower gears to tackle inclines. Till today I ‘swear’ to myself, I will return to that place to conquer the slope!

NS Days

I cycled quite extensively during my NS days when I realised that it is faster going on pedal than bus from my Woodlands house to Dieppe Barracks. Thanks to modern technology, I now know that it is only a mere 6km from A to B. Which was easy for a 19-year-old to do. Oh back then, no helmets, lights or blinkers, those days in 1995.

_{Woodlands to Dieppe Barracks, just 6km!}

It was in camp where I got my very first ‘serious’ MTB, the Marin Bobcat Trail, my Division Commander was retiring and he wanted to sell off his MTB which he basically use to cycle around camp, I happily paid $200 for it and this was the bike that started me seriously cycling.

I bashed trails in Bukit Timah, Ulu Sembawang, Ulu Pandan with it, all without helmets.

My first Century Ride

I did my first 100km with my camp mates, and it was on a Toys ‘R’ Us MTB which was heavy as hell but I had a lot of fun with it. I remembered cycling down Jurong where there is no cars and we occupied all the lanes like a boss. I still recalled one of my friends came along with a dinky MTB and he had problems with the gears and still managed to complete the ride with us.

_{My friends with me on this memorable ride.}

Nov 2015

Whenever we go cycling as a family, I’d depend on our neighbor’s Aleoca, while you boys have your new bikes, complement of your grandparents. Your mum will use our very old GT MTB. We did made a night trip to Yishun and I’m particularly proud of this moment as Wayne was just 6 years old and it was our first night cycling as a family. For a baby to do 30km to and fro, was quite an achievement.

_{Nov 2015-Fixing light sticks to our bikes at Yishun. Our neighbour’s Aleoca}

The next Marin Bobcat Trail

I have Aik Kean to thank for reuniting me with the Marin Bobcat Trail, we were in a train one day and he told me he has transited from Road to MTB, and he has a Marin. It lit me up as not many people have Marins in Singapore. I ask him what model, lo and behold! “Bobcat trail.” he says, and he is selling it to upgrade! I jumped a chance to get it and this is it!

**_{Reunited with my Marin Bobcat Trail in 2018.}**

This happened because prior to this, I was at Bukit Timah hill wanting to hike, but spontaneously rented a MTB wanting to relive my trail biking days. It was a bad, bad experience, because I was so rusty with MTB-ing, I took a bike too big for me, and I went up the trail in the wrong direction!

Being a rental MTB, the gears were shit and so were the brakes, more importantly, I couldn’t trust the bike and I couldn’t trust my fitness. It was really a case of the mind is willing and the body says f**k you! The brain was transported back to my 19-year-old NS days but the body was firmly saying NOPE!

I told Aik Kean about my bad experiences and he was selling so I was sold! Since then I’ve gone places with my Marin and I tell you all about the adventures on the road!

Your Dad’s Bicycle Buddy

Dear Boys,

Almost a year ago, you dad when on a cycling trip with Uncle Andy, and we visited Sentosa, which was a place Andy wanted to visit on a bike for a while. It was our first time cycling together, but it turned out to be a friendship sustained through the pedal.

Since then, we ended up doing a lot of fun things, and achieving a lot of personal firsts in our cycling journey.

Lamp Post 1

We did a night cycling together in our quest to pedal to the famed Lampost One. That was quite a night as we bumped into another cyclist and in a jest he, Mahen decided to join us on our quest to Lamp Post 1. We all made it! It certainly helped as buddying up allows us to lean on each other when we are tired and we can help each other look out for dangers or blindspot.

Perfect Buddy

There is nothing in life that is as perfect as this bond Andy and I had, over time, we have build up that silent chemistry on the road that allows us to trust each other unreservedly. Usually I’ll cycle ahead and he’ll cover my back. While he is on a foldie, he certainly can cycle a heck faster than my MTB. Nonetheless, we have never split because one is faster that the other and his foldie also allows him to have the advantage of getting onto the MRT when he tires himself out on the road, but he has never done so and on every road trip, we all start and finish together.

Recently, we have to abort our ‘University Route’ (More about that in a later post), because we met with inclement weather, we reached NUS and there is an option for him to take the MRT at Kent Ridge home and me on my MTB will have to go home in the rain, which was fine. He decided to stick with me and we both pedaled hiome, from rain to no rain.

Good Camaraderie

When we ride, there’s usually little conversation, we don’t cycle side by side, as most of the time we are on pavements, which don’t gives us the luxury of space to do so, more importantly we enjoy the cycling together and in our own personal space. It is the freedom we get at the same time having a buddy to look out for if there is trouble.

We are also respectful of each other’s safety and never take more than necessary risks. For me on my MTB, I will always make sure I look for pavements and even when there is a chance for me to take the dirt for a short route, my bike would certainly be more than capable to eat dirt, but I’d stick to pavement because I know Andy’s bike will not be able to take off road.

He on the other hand helps me watch our for my blind spot and cover the back, sometimes I might miss a car coming up and he’d sound a warning.

While cycling is a physical activity, we have never pushed each other to outdo each other, there is no bragging or bravado between us, we just enjoy cycling and pairing up helps us get to places where we would otherwise will not make it alone. We also never try to outdo each other with our equipment or show who has the better bling bling on our bike.

Our Own Safe Space

I guess the reason why we bonded so well is because I feel that this is our escapade, he’s a dad of four; me, two, and we have our challenges being a dad, and a husband, being on the road helps us find our own man-cave to chill. At the same time, we give our spouse the assurance that we can look out for each other.

It’s also great that while we do share our challenges in parenting, we never dispense advise to each other. I have never told him what he ‘should’ do, neither has he ever told me what I ‘could’ do. We have problems we need to deal with and while we do share some of those problems, we never offer solutions nor ask for answers. There’s just an unspoken rule between us that we will respect our own space, problems and never dispense life stories. We just put our problems aside and ride, and enjoying it.

Good Memories

It’s a good shared experience because the roads we take with each other adds context when we had some conversations a some specific spot on the journey. It helps build a very unique memories I hold and treasure knowing that the moment was share with a buddy I trust and respect.

Onwards with more good times on the road!

theaikidad

Aikido, Parenting and Everything in Between

Category: cycling

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