Saturday, January 19, 2008
Ride the Lobster qualifying ride report
Route
The route that I am taking is based on the Eastern Park Connector in Singapore.
The length of the whole route is estimated to be about 42km. This would allow me to achieve my objective of riding 84km on the first day and 89km on the second day by riding 2 rounds around the park connectors.
Day 1
I woke up on day 1 feeling nervous. The longest I had ridden prior to this attempt was 42km when I wanted to see how the route was like. Now I was about to embark on an attempt to ride 171 km over 2 days. Not something that I was particularly looking forward to.
The day started with me checking out the weather forecast.
Humidity 89%
Temp ranging from 26 - 32 degrees Celsius
Not particularly cooling either. Plus the humidity can make things really difficult.
Partaking in a bowl of cereal, I got my gear together in preparation of the ride.
DAY 1 PART 2
After a quick lunch of instant noodles, I had to set of again. I was feeling ok. A bit saddle sore, groin hurting quite a bit. I set off once again at 2.20pm having finished the first round at 1pm. Didn’t have the mind to take as many pictures this second round as all I wanted to do was to finish this and get home to get some rest. I finished at about 7pm. Was feeling sore, dehydrated and quite a bit crazy. Total time taken for day 1, 10 1/2 hours.
Rating calculation:
Distance ridden: 84km
Subjective rating: Extreme Temp: 42km
Day 2 Part 1
Start of a brand new day. I decided to start the day much earlier so I woke up at 6am and started off at 7.20am, after a breakfast of bread. Also, I decided to do things differently as I was getting slightly bored with the route. For day 2, I rode the route the other way. Also, for the first part, I would ride one round around Bedok Reservoir to account for the 5km increase in total distance for me.
Weather forecast for the day:
Humidity 94%
Temp ranging from 24 - 30 degrees Celsius
Day 2 Part 2
I was pretty much gone in the mind. Wasn’t thinking and pretty much zoned out by this point of time. It was all about putting one leg in front of the other. I reached home at around 12.30pm and had a lunch of Wonton noodles. I set off again at 1.30pm. I decided that I was too tired to try to navigate anymore, so I changed the route again. This time I would ride only part of the Siglap Park Connector (2.2km), the East Coast Park (8km), the Coastal Route (7.9km), the Changi Beach Park (3.9km) and then turn back and ride the same route again. This would give me a distance of 44km. The reason I chose to do so was that it was long straight routes most of the time. It would allow me to zone out.
I finished at 6pm.
Rating calculation for day 2:
Rating calculation:
Distance ridden: 91km
Subjective rating: Extreme Temp: 42km