Weather Is Bonkers!

Is this not suppose to be the driest period of the year in Singapore? Just last week the rain resulted in a "flash flood" - which by the way was totally unheard of - and flooded portion of district 10, Orchard Road? Killed millions of dollars worth of cars parked at the basement in town. Caused millions more of damage to the eateries as well. It rained havoc thereafter and today again!


Monday was suppose to do a swim with the tri blokes but stuck at home to look after my kids. So took it as a rest day. Tuesday was suppose to do a long bike BUT fanciful The Bike Boutique (TBB) says bike not ready for collection till afternoon of that day. In the end, I did my swim sets, 400m warm up, 400m kicks, 500m, 400m, 300m, 200m, 100m, 2x50m, 6x50m and 200m warm down. Not too bad a session, managed to keep to 1:55 per 100m.


And now more about TBB. When I wanted to collect the bike on Monday, "for safety reasons" I was told not to rush the job and collect on Tuesday. Fine. For my own safety, I wont rush them. Went on my planned 170km ride today after collecting bike yesterday. Guess what? My seat post slipped on the 20th km and continued slipping all the way till 30th km where I stopped to ask my wife to pick me up. There was no way I could continue riding all the way back to TBB and get it fixed up because that's another 30km away. Plus, I looked like a fool riding in that position. And TBB does not have my seat height - this is with ELITE.


I was FURIOUS! I dont think these people get it, by botching up my training regime, it means that I will have to lose some other sessions because I cannot do 2 long sessions back to back. I was already squeezed out by not riding long on Tuesday already and now THIS? I planned to get into TBB to scold these incompetent guys but thought the better and went straight to ELITE. Save my energy on something more positive. The best thing was this: I got SMS from the boutique manager and he said that all nuts were checked and seat post was torqued in at 4Nm. No apology, nothing. He simply sided his mechanics. Although he offered to send the bike mechanic to where I was to fix it up, by then I had already come back from ELITE. And that was 2 hours after I SMS him.


You know, I really am giving up on our local TBB. Although Cervelo is touted as a popular brand, I think the shop does not take care of the owners. If a bike shop treats a bike as just another bike and takes no ownership, how can an owner who paid big bucks for it be satisfied? I was speaking to ELITE, many Cervelo owners are turning to them for servicing. After all, the head mechanic for Cervelo is now with ELITE.


Having said that, I think Singapore has many such bike shops that are only interested in making the money and that's it. Service ends when the bike rolls out of the shop. I am pretty sure that this is not the only industry with such an attitude. Face it, customer service has always been frowned upon by corporates because they do not bring in tangible P&L. It is always about the bottom line.


Anyway, I planned to swim after the botched up ride. But the rain is here to wreck havoc again. Mother Nature must be telling us something. Mess with the environment, bear Her wrath...