BIKERZ HAVEN

Biking Trips

bikerz
Bukit Timah Mountain Biking Course, Singapore

It was 10 am in the morning and I was changing into my cycling suit after doing some schoolwork. I had been waiting for a week for this day. Excitedly, I waited for my friend, Hongwei, who is also an army officer, to come over. After mounting my bike, I saw a blue bike approaching and on closer scrutiny, I confirmed that it was Hongwei.

Before long, we were sitting in my mum's red, Honda Civic and driving towards MacRitche reservoir. Then, it started to drizzle. Still we did not call off our plan. After 5 long minutes, my mum's car pulled up at the MacRitche reservoir carpark.
Sliding down the slippery slopes of the reservoir's cross country tracks, we cycled through the route in 10 minutes. Little did I expect that we would complete the route so fast. So now after completing the route, we headed to a place where Hongwei, said they had their army training there. It was near SLCC (Singapore Island Country Club). After carrying our bikes over railings after railings, and cycling toward Rifle Range Rd, we were starting to get the aim of our trip: rough terrain. MacRitche was not very rough though, so we came here. It was at least twice as rough! At some points, it was so rough that the bike bounced so hard, blurring my vision. Ignoring that fact, we continued to cycle on.

Now after cycling a few km, we reached a small river, which had huge pipes and a wooden plank across. As I was wearing shoes, Hongwei who was wearing sandals went into the river and I went to the other bank via the plank. After receiving the bike from him, I pushed it up the steep bank. Next, my bike followed the same procedure and reached the other bank safely.
Finally, we crossed the river! We were now faced by another railing and it was Hongwei who carried the bikes over them." If people say there is a railing and you cannot walk across it, you carry your bike and climb over, if there is a river, which you cannot cross, you jump in! " Said Hongwei. I found it unexpectedly true too! At the end of the rough terrain, we experience some "humps". It was fun.

As we stopped for a rest, I was hinting to Hongwei to go some place even more challenging. He had told me earlier that we were in Bukit Timah. So I suggested we go to Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. He did not answer me, so I did not bother to ask again. After all, I had quite a lot of fun already.

However, we continued cycling. Suddenly he said " U-turn, U-turn! Here we come, Bukit Timah Nature Reserve!"
Yes! I was glad to hear that. I was like a dream come true. Looking at the map, I suggested that we go to the summit. However, Hongwei said it was too steep for bikes. Even running up was hard, what more cycling. So, I gave up the idea. The night before, I was watching City Beat, a Chinese entertainment programme, and it featured mountain biking at Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. That was exactly where we were. Furthermore, this road was specially designed for mountain biking as the sign had mentioned. However, I did not think it was so. The course was rough and rugged and did not seem to have been "designed" before! That show also mentioned that a mountain bike would cost at least S$2,000. Mine only cost S$550 and Hongwei's -S$300.

Cycling behind us as we approached a very steep slope were a man and a boy. They were on nice bikes. The boy was behind me and was travelling quite fast, so I thought that he was a very good cyclist and was going to cycle up the whole hill. I was about to give way to him when I saw him stop behind me. Anyway all of us had to push our bikes up the rest of the slopes. The push lasted a short 10 seconds. Than the man and the boy left. " Ha! Ha! Ha! That boy was lousier than me. Or at least, maybe : ).

" I have a bit of a story to tell about going up slopes. At some slopes you can go up half way and then you are stuck. Firstly, you can try to pedal with all your might, come off the bike to push or one can even try to cycle down the hill to gain momentum, and then up again. I chose the first two choices at different hills. But my main problem during this trip was downhill not the other way round as I already had a lot of uphill training in my neighborhood. However, the downhills in my neighborhood are not so steep and not so sudden compared to the ones at Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. The normal roads are also made of tar and not soil and sand.

After cycling on a level rough terrain for a while, we saw a sign that showed a picture of a bike and a person pushing it down the slope. It meant that there was a steep down sloop ahead. As I saw on television, those cyclists did not push their bike down, they just cycled down, so I tried too. Although I was using my brake99.9% of the time! At some super steep points, I would fall on the grass but nothing would happen.

Gaining confidence, we started to cycle more steadily and maybe at some point, faster. Especially Hongwei. At a particular slope, we were cycling up and were going down when Hongwei went to the right side of the track. There were a lot of rocks, which caused him to fall. Usually, he would not care, but he start saying "Ah pain" I was on the right side of the track too, so I applied my brakes and slowed down to almost not moving. When I reached him, I stopped as I could see he was slightly injured and his nice shirt had a hole. I thus nicknamed him " Rambo".

He lay on the ground and rested. At one time he wanted to get up but I told him to lie down a while longer to replenish energy. Soon, he was almost okay and we were getting ready to go when he realised that his tire was punctured. Because of this we had to push our bike and get out as soon as possible. Luckily, we were near an exit and soon reached a road. At last! No more rocks, tree roots, soil and sand. After pushing for almost a km, we reached a landmark where I thought my mum would know.

I used Hongwei handphone to call my mum. " Our system is not receiving a response" . I realised that my mum had not switched on her handphone. Anyway we were very thirsty and desperately needed drinks.. As7-11 was closed; Hongwei went to Cold Storage and bought a 1.5-L ice lemon tea. We finished it as though we had not had any water for the past two days. It was now that I had a sudden brainwave, to call home. I managed to get my mum and asked her to come to our rescue. I also told her that Hongwei was injured. Minutes later, her car pulled up. My brother had come with a first aid box but my friend refused "aid" so our trip ended here. I will like to close with factors I missed out.

1) At a point, Hongwei was very exhausted and did not carry my bike up for me (stairs, but I pushed with all my might and got it up.
2) The slopes are 40degrees or so but they felt like 60 degrees because of rough terrain.
3) I had many mosquito bites in the "mosquito ring" I am very pleased with the trip and I hope Hongwei is too! (Although his priority sport is basketball).
Upon reaching my house Hongwei and I went to take showers then we chatted and went for lunch. When we reached home, I was shocked when I saw the time, it was 4.p.m! That was how I spent most of my Good Friday except for the forty-five minutes I used to write this. Ah! It is already 12 midnight!