My World. My Life.

Monday, June 30, 2008

{*sleeeplessness*}

its only when you have experienced the inability to sleep, does the contrary seem so (for lack of a better word) good!

Gabby | 9:06 AM

Thursday, June 26, 2008

{*close shaves*}

i almost died two times today doing 5 loops w hill climbs around bukit panjang.

1st close shave: i was negotiating a gradual downhill on my dropbars when a car cut in front of me (it was a 2-lane road, 1 lane in each direction) and stopped to turn left. i had to swerve to the right and almost got knocked down by a lorry. i still dunno how much clearance there was between the lorry and i, but it must have been close.

2nd close shave: ending the 5 loops, i was accelerating from this Z-ing and was on my aerobars when the left "elbow cushion" slipped, dropping in height abruptly. this led to a sudden shift in weight forward and to the right. thank god i recovered in time.

on this note, i would like to say that i have had several close shaves for the 3k+ kms i have been riding on the road. many a times, i would have been seriously hurt or killed if not for GOD. all praise goes to him. here's wishing jinsheng a speedy recovery - he got into an accident last night and last i heard, his leg's broken. speedy recovery bro!

ride safe.

Gabby | 6:42 PM

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

{*zzz*}

lord diplock writes very cheem verdicts.

Gabby | 1:50 AM

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

{*east side fever*}

clocked ard 128 km today - something neither jefri nor i set out to do when we decided to head to the east side to do coastal. everything went as planned - thru ecp, then coastal and back to ecp. dinner after that.

however, it was decided that it'd be foolish to head home then. peak hour traffic at bukit timah is not joke. so yeah i made the call (jefri suggested it) to do coastal 1 more time and thereafter, we decided to take west coast followed by clementi road on the way back.

bad idea - the climbs at nus and clementi (at holy cross there, and the sim/ngee ann poly area) sapped most of our energy. with the last of what i had in me, i managed to get home.

it was a fulfilling ride. legs are dead-laden; fatigue and the build up of lactic acid has taken their tolls. but its a good feeling, i love aches and sore body parts.

1 aim, i will go all out to achieve it.

Gabby | 2:03 AM

Friday, June 06, 2008

{*woohoo!*}

went to far east plaza to get my hair cut at supercuts by a hairstylist called serene. it was jefri's maiden experience of having a hairstylist and not a barber cut his hair. it turned out pretty good, pictures are below. looks like mug-shoots huh? hahha.

i know this is bad (and jefri you will kill me) but jefri seemed quite uncomfortable having a guy massage/wash his hair. hahha he'll get used to it soon! no turning back.

after all was done, we made our way to seoul garden, taka. had WAY too much meat (oddly, we only had 3 platefuls of meat, compared to 4 when we ate at woodlands) and almost puked. hahha okay thats an exaggeration but the stomach did feel weird.

ok here comes the funny part: we went to the bus stop outside taka ard 5 something to take 171 home. being the smartass i am, i suggested we walk back 1 or 2 stops to catch the bus so that we could have seats. as we walked back, we saw this almost empty 171 zoom past. ZZZ. then then then, there was a sequence of SIX, yes SIX 190s that we saw before the next 171 came. as u prob know, i normally take 190 to go home.

so yeah there u have it. my day.

Gabby | 11:50 PM

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

{*yesterdayyy all my troublesss seeemed soo farawaay*}

hahah YES THEY DID. highlights of the day:

10 am odd: met up with amanda and made our way to cafe del mar, sentosa. it started raining when we JUST sat down on the dubious-looking cushions which were lying on top of the suntanning chairs. we made our way into the sheltered area and our food and drinks came! fish and chips, calamari and mocktails round #1.

rain stopped, sun came and we went back to suntanning. mocktails round #2. heaven! mocktails round #3 came around and so did the rain. sticking to our usual contingency plan, we made our way to the sheltered area before heading home once it had stopped raining. in between the rain and mocktails round #2, we took a whole lot of photos, had a brief nap and yeah suntannnnnned!

6 pm odd: met kelly! SO GLAD to see her. longer hair, prettier, and SO busy. see la, intern then forget gabby le. sad la. we met amanda and ams shortly thereafter and ate at the new jpn place @ raffles city (yes, its NOT raffles place, kelly). ordered A LOT of food - ams contributed a lot. golden mushrooms, shitake mushrooms, beef, chicken, egg, tomato rice, etc.

hahha SO much for budget right? this was further aggravated by expensive dessert at canele. BRICK-like chocolate cake, cheese cake and uh another chocolate cake w "air" - internal joke.

9 pm odd: timbre! pizza - 1/2 duck, 1/2 seafood. FANTASTIC. the chili powder there is the epitome of spiciness. band was good, cute guitar players/singer according to ams and met daniel wuu there too! oh and yes lots of photos taken and mocktails/cocktails!

lots of $$$ spent, but had fun. thank you ams, kelly and amanda!

Gabby | 8:00 PM

Monday, June 02, 2008

{*ntu bike rally 2008*}

alright, now that i have the energy to, i will give an account of the bike rally this year. as most would know, the full journey was to be around 128 km, but i managed to clock 153+ km due to my being lost (more on that later) and the trip to ecp.

jeff and i met at ard 0555 and made our way to ecp. it was meant to be a slow, warm-up ride there but due to time constraints (registration was slated to close at 0630) we did around 33-42 km/h. soon after reaching ecp, we were met with a downpour that drenched our bikes, clothes, socks and to a certain extent, morale. minutes after registering, we were off! sticking to our grand plan, we started from wayyy back and slowly made our way to the front.

the ride to the checkpoint before coastal was mostly uneventful, save for 3 events - 2 in which i was almost knocked down thanks to 2 HORRIBLE SINGAPOREAN drivers and 1 in which the marshaler stationed outside the serangoon sec school did not direct me towards the school which resulted in me doing an additional 10 km, almost hitting hougang. as u would know, the stretch from serangoon sec to the caltex petrol station where i stopped was filled with HUGE uphills and of course downhills, a leg more strenuous than mandai.

the coastal stretch was concluded using the newly-built park connector to my surprise. i had already consumed my 2nd pack of energy gel and was prepare to negotiate the coastal stretch on the road. nonetheless, this last stretch proved to be really tiring. i briefly lost the 2nd safety cyclist (the lead cyclist was nowhere to be seen at that point of time) with jeff hot on his heels. fortunately i managed to stay around 30-33 km/h despite the stiff headwinds and caught up with the lead and safety cyclists. thereafter, it was just a mad rush to the finishing point. RELIEF! jeff came in shortly thereafter. great job buddy!

in my humble opinion, several improvements could be made: scrape the idea of giving out sandwiches which are WAY too dry, station more marshalers along the long stretch following the west coast highway before ntu and yes a larger variety of food would be good.

kudos to the organisers of ntu nevertheless, 200+ people would be a logistic nightmare, but they did good.

a quick shoutout to patience and company (alvin couldnt make it), the guy in the black pearl izumi attire who was racing alongside me at neo tiew at speeds in excess of 40 km/h at certain points and to the lead and safety cyclists who finished before i did - u guys did a good job of clearing the path at ecp and pulling : )

2008 ntu bike rally - a job well done.

Gabby | 11:54 PM

Sunday, June 01, 2008

{*woohoO!*}

ok now that this blog has been revived and facebook bicycle app is not working, im gonna post my mileage for the ntu bike rally here!

briefly (cos i barely slept 20 mins for the entire night), i got lost during the leg to serangoon sec school and somehow almost reached hougang. damnit,

but the entire journey was fun, i clocked 153.25 km and yes it IS just shy of the 100 mile mark ZZZ. was too shag after the ride to attempt the remain 6+ km so yeah.

gonna crash soon, ciao pple!

with fatigue comes relief from overwhelming thoughts,
gabby

Gabby | 4:55 PM

{*recovery stage.*}

hours of reflection have induced a sense of numbing surrender. some matters are out of my hand, matters that perplex the most intellectual beings on earth too. of course, im in no way inducing im anywhere near the named group of people.

anyhow i have decided to forget. perhaps this is the reason why the elderly develop senile dementia - they are simply happier (i stand corrected should any readers bring up compelling evidence to prove otherwise) as ignorance does equate to bliss sometimes.

if only i haven't committed so many mistakes in such a short span of time. if only.

on the brighter side of things, WOOHOO ntu bike rally tmr. jeff and i intend to hit 160 km aka 100 miles aka Century by riding to ECP tmr. if need be, we'll clock more distance by doing ecp after the event? hahha no idea. hope we'll survive on this arduously long endeavour.

cheers!

Gabby | 12:41 AM