This week it seems like my letterbox has been carpet bombed with flyers, letters, forms and just about every product under the sun.
I’m thinking of having my letter box Feng Shui’d to ward off evil Pizza delivery letters and Real Estate offerings for properties that I can neither afford nor desire.
Some quite pleasing letters that have arrived are my appointment letters for the Ministry Of Manpower (see previous posting for the MoM) so that I can apply for my Permanent Residency (or PR as it’s know). PR basically changes my employment status over from a temporary resident (i.e 2 years) to a visa that has a few more practical benefits and also opens the door to me perhaps buying a house and becoming more of an long term member of society. There are some disadvantages to this as well for some expats, but on the whole it’d be a good thing for me to have especially as I hope to stick around for a while which is kind of handy as my company has renewed my contract to stay for another year which is jolly fine with me. Like most forms in Singapore, it’s a doddle to fill in and hopefully in the coming months I’ll be getting a Welcome To the Club! letter back. I do go on about Singaporean efficiency a lot but when it’s good it’s very very good, and when it’s bad, it’s not actually all that bad at all. It’ll take a few more forms and a few more months to sort out but it’s a step in the right direction.
Being the new year and with a Christmas void of family and friends from home there was no Christmas tree, no baubles and certainly no Escape To Victory playing on ITV2. To make up for this I did what any self respecting guy would do and went out and decided to buy myself a big f*ck off present. This came in the shape of a 1996 Harley Davidson Fatboy Softail motorbike. Having being declined entry on to this island of my beloved Ducati 996 I’ve been enviously looking at bikes passing me since I arrived. This being Asia I did the only thing that you can do and bought an American bike. I’m told that more HD’s are sold in Asia than in the USA which given the number I’ve seen scooting about could be a very reliable statistic.
I’ve never been a HD fan, but my dream bike is stuck in a garage at home so anything else would be second best to that, apart from maybe a 1198 in matt black, but I’m hardly going to spank 70K on a bike that I can’t ride anywhere on without hitting the sea in 15 minutes. Singapore is only 70ks from the widest points so it’s not going to take long to get from the sea to the sea.
I’ve fancied the idea of doing a bit of road touring in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia next year so when I saw this beauty up for sale, at a price that seemed ok, it was an offer I could not refuse.
After picking the bike up and realising it’s not the quietest ride in town I soon discovered that it’s also not the lightest nor has the best stopping distances. I’m used to riding Italian racers which you can stop with your little finger on a penny. This thing needs a hand like an Olympic lifter and the foot brake being pressed with some vigour to stop it’s hulking mass from becoming intimate with the vehicle in front. I’ve never ever used a foot brake to stop a bike before so as the first set of red lights approached my heart started to race a little as they got closer and closer as my little pinky feathered the three pound brake leaver. Only when firmly pressing a good portion of my size eleven on the foot long brake pedal did the beast come to a standstill. After a little wipe of the brow, we moved on having learnt my first lesson of American brakes.I’m being a bit harsh here as my Ducati has six pot callipers on two twelve inch galvanised discs just on the front. That’s the kind of stopping power the space shuttle utilises when they realise a crucial bit has been left off on a trolley in the hanger and they decide to abort take off. The HD has a bar of soap and some sort of heavy anchor you throw off the back to slow you down string as far as I can see.
It really is a fun ride though and I can see the attraction with Hogs and why people rave about them. If you need to drive a sofa to work and back there really is no other choice. Apart from actually putting some wheels on a sofa and sticking some chrome bits on the side I suppose.
I’ve managed to get a few of the guys in the office geed up so we’re all off up to Central Malaysia in a few weeks to have a bit of a boys road trip which I’m looking forward to very much and I’m sure will give me some stories to wax lyrical anecdotally.
So from two wheels with an engine to two wheels without. This weekend I indulged in my other big passion which is cycling. I bought myself a Trek road bike a few months back with a view to using it to keep a bit fit by cycling to work every other day or so, but also to explore a bit of the island upon. I’ve always been more of a mountain kind of guy, but as most of the hills here resemble small mole hills there is not much choice in vertical.I’m really enjoying the road riding so a few of the guys from work and I ventured off to Bintan in Indonesia for a days riding the pristine roads there. We set off at 5am to cycle to the ferry terminal in the east and took the 50 minute ferry over the waters to Indonesia.
We coined ourselves the affectionate and slightly deprecating name of Mamils. Middle Aged Men in Lycra to you and me.
I’d been to Bintan once before but only on a luxury spa weekend so was quite looking forward to seeing what the real place is like beyond the ringed fences of the spa compounds that scatter the place.
The riding and roads where epic. It’s the most pristine island of islands and is surprisingly bigger than Singapore by a fair bit - and the roads, hills and scenery is unparalleled. I’d ridden a bit in Borneo the year before and it was certainly on par with that, if not better for road riding.
We did a 90k loop of the north west part of the island which is used as a stage run for the Tour De Bintan cycle race held yearly in October. I’d not done it the year before as it’s a bit of a killer event, but it’d be something I’d be keen to do this year after seeing the layout.
The three of us set off on our pristine bikes with the combined street value of a Porsche 911 and swiftly started to sweat our own bodyweight as the first of many rolling hills and king of the mountain stages started to loom into sight around gorgeous traffic free bends.After not riding a hill for over a year and after 90ks of ups and downs I can safely say I had nothing left in the tank at the end. So much so that when I came to stop outside the police station at the end of the ride I promptly got cramp in my dismounting cleat foot and landed in a heap with Trek’s finest on top off me with it’s wheels spinning.
The local constabulary thought this quite funny and gave me an inspiring round of applause whilst I tried to look a bit like I knew what I was doing. It’s a bit hard trying to look anything other than a total dick when you’re strapped to a bike by your feet whilst your head is in a ditch. After scrabbling out from under the bike and dusting off my lycra we got our bearings and headed off back to the ferry for some well earned Satay and copious Bintang beers.
All the way around the island we were greeted and waved at by the most friendly school kids and people you could hope to meet. Being smiled and at and cheered by a sea of gappy toothed kids out by the roadsides in the brightest of school uniforms made the day go by brilliantly and made us all feel very special. I can’t wait to go back and spend a few days exploring more of the routes and seeing more of the island. After doing it, you can really see why people do these amazing trips on bike over extraordinary distances in the most remote of places. There really is nothing quite like appreciating friendly inquisitiveness than getting amongst the people than on a bike and I’ve found.
Planning has commenced to go back with with a bigger group for the 156Km stage ride in late February with a well deserved stay in the spa in the evening to tend to our battered and bruised bodies.
I just need to take the padded shorts next time and get some more practice in as my backside feels like it’s been riding a razor blade today.
No comments:
Post a Comment