The Bicycle Race

The bike worked fine! And I sped toward the city via the East Coast highway.

Traffic was slightly crowded with riders so an increase in speed was not really appropriate yet. We went up the Benjamin Sheares bridge, down a a sharp fast turn into the city area and pass by the Esplanade and headed into Shenton Way. There I could speed up a little bit. We then headed left towards Marina South. There the route was technical (lots of bends, need some care) and we headed back to the city via Rochor road before turning into Nicoll Highway. This was the better part, straight and fairly easier to go faster. The turnaround point was near Mountbatten road and we went back again to the Esplanade route, via Nicoll Highway again. We had to ride the entire main route 4 times, clocking up a total bike leg of 90km.

During the second loop of the bike leg, I managed to ride alongside (for a short while) with my good friend on the Benjamin Sheares bridge. We chatted a while -I told him to treat this race like a training session with dozens of people (as he did not train much on the bike, having got it only 3 weeks prior to the race). My diet plan went according to schedule on the bike, one energy gel (about 100-120 joules) per half hour. I try to drink every 10-15 minutes or so, the weather was excellent. Hot and dry-it was good biking weather. Unfortunately due to road debris on some parts (especially the highways), I saw a couple of cyclist suffered flats and had to change new tubes. Incidentally, the favorite to win the elite race also got a puncture about mid-way through the bike leg. He decided to withdraw.

As for me, I prayed earnestly that I don't get a puncture (which I didn't !) because it would probably cost me 10 minutes or so. The incident at the bike start already cost me about 5-6 minutes (the bike mechanic said the tube did blow again during my swim-so that makes it two blow-outs even before I stepped on the bike!)