Ride with a Roadie

Did a 180km ride today with Andrew the bike guru. He was with me for 100km before he called it a day. First time I rode with him and it just blew me away. He is a true blue roadie and like another friend who rode with us said, one of the better roadies he had seen so far.


I suppose with a mileage of 300,000km under his belt makes up a lot of his experience on the road? If I had thought that 10,000km on my Cervelo Soloist was a big deal, this bloke had done 100,000km or more on his Cervelo Soloist! Lets see what he did today: stretched his quads by putting his feet on the saddle while on the move (??); he held on to a lorry to help rest his legs while on the move; he hung on to container trucks as well; accelerates really fast to catch the draft of a bus even for a short distance; rides out of a junction while having anticipated the traffic that were coming his way - basically he studied the traffic conditions really fast and early. Really had to take my hat off!


But some stuff I still disagree. No helmet, no lights and dashing red lights. Coming out of traffic junction so fast is also a no no. That is just me. Maybe because I dont have 6 digit mileage under my belt? The mechanical bike is still not flowing and integrated with my physical self yet? Only time will tell. I will rather consider myself as cautious. Overly maybe, but I do have family to support. Any wrong move will be selfish on my part.


Did a new route today and headed towards Tuas using the service road. Nice and flat. Some big trucks peppered here and there, otherwise still nice. At least the heart rate can be constant. Also took the Keppel Flyover for the first time, not done in a race. This flyover is part of the AVIVA 70.3 route which I dont usually ride on to head towards Shenton Way. It was nice I must say. Little traffic as well and was able to go quite fast.


All in all, I spent 6hrs 10min worth of saddle time for the 180km ride. I suspect mainly I had Andrew sitting behind me for the 100km which made me push my cadence higher and used heavier gears, while the bloke was spinning with even higher cadence on his front chain ring! Oh bollocks!


Was at Coastal battling the wind. But was glad that I could still cut through the wind at 30-32kph. Not easy definitely and was very tiring. Fortunately it was just like 5-6km per loop with the darn wind.


Reached home and ran a 6min/km 4km, trying to imagine if I could complete the 42km with this pace. I hope so but I doubt it. Not yet anyway. If not this year, maybe next year or even the year after? Only time will tell.