All along, I've mostly been using it to get to hawker centers and marketplaces nearby to get food or drinks. Haven't actually ventured into the long distance/mountain biking thing yet.
So I've always known that cousin JJ liked cycling and we had talks at times about going on some kind of cycling trip together. I asked him if he wanted to do some cycling together (longer distance) and he was up for it.
He suggested that we did it at night though, which seemed a little scary at first, but it ended up being quite fun.
Thought it was just gonna be some chill casual night-ride but the crazy thing is that we somehow ended up at Marina Bay Sands (from the west) & the whole journey to and fro took around 8hours! Saw lots of cool and interesting sights that I might've lost touch with here in Sg. The view at night is really different.
The Trip
Packed a bag with stuff including bike locks, some food & water and other stuff that may be needed for the whole night journey.
Heading Out!
Met JJ at Pheonix LRT station abit after 9am. I arrived early and was waiting for him to reach. Was still kinda thinking of where to go, so I just tried to think of a couple of places at a reasonable distance, but it all seem kinda underwhelming. I could only think of shopping centers, which was quite lame as a final destination.
I remembered JJ mentioning something about how cycling to MBS (from the west) was actually not as hard as it sounds. So I checked google maps on my phone to see how do-able it is. Surprisingly enough, it looked ok.
Map from Pheonix LRT to MBS
When JJ arrived, he was quite stunned that I suggested going to MBS. He was like 'Ok, we go to Botanic Gardens first, then see how'. Somehow, we ended up going the distance and made it to MBS in the end.
Picture for good luck
And off we went!
Started off cycling through Upper Bukit Timah road and down the whole stretch of Bukit Timah road.
Cycling at night is really quite therapeutic, it's cool and relatively quiet. You can go relatively fast and the wind blowing on your face feels really nice.
Reached Adam Road food center and we decided to take a quick break there.
Adam Road Food Center
Ordered a nice bowl of ice kachang to cool off. Surprised that there were still quite a number of people there at around 10.30-11pm.
Our next stop was the Botanic Gardens. We made several intermittent stops in between to catch up on things and had some talks about random shit.
Reached the Botanic Gardens at around 12am. Haven't been there in a looong time and the scenery there was quite good actually and the fact that we were virtually the only ones there since it was late added to the feeling.
Our Bikes at the Botanic Gardens
Night view of the Botanic Gardens
Excuse the hand phone quality photo at night.
We cut through the park and exited out at the other end, where we tried to look for Gleneagle's hospital as it would put us to the path on Orchard Road.
Navigated around a little and finally made it to Orchard at around 12-1am. The place is still surprisingly busy still, but certain areas looked sleazy as fuark with so many chicks in tight dresses and ang mohs in their suits hanging around drinking on the street
Orchard Road
What was really annoying about cycling along Orchard was the crazy amount of Traffic lights and how we needed to make detours to cross the street. Really burned quite some time and at this point, I was somehow super awake, despite the conditions, but JJ seemed sleepy already - probably slightly bored of already having done this a few times.
Cycled all the way down and we finally made it to our destination - the Marina Bay Sands! Mission Accomplished! Ha.
Marina Bay Sands end-point
Feels good man, it was my first time making it all the way here on a bicycle. (and probably the furthest I've been on a bike iirc)
We then headed to the Marina Barrage to rest for a while before heading back. Snapped a couple of photos of the CBD scenery at night.
Night View of CBD & Flyer
The picture really doesn't do the photo justice. It's hard to take the same pic as what our eyes were seeing with a hand phone camera in an area with no surrounding light.
The trip there, including all our rest stops and slow-ish chill cycling took around 4-5 hours.
Re-stocked at a 7 eleven along the way back, 1 bottle of 500ml water cost $3?! Fucking Orchard, oh well, got no choice anyway.
Something interesting happened on our way back. We actually tried to pump my bike tyre at some petrol kiosk using the air pump there, but it was an epic fail as the valve on my bike was different from the 'standard' schrader types. Mine was a presto valve, which needed some kind of a suction attachment between it and the pump for it to work.
End up, I had a deflated front tyre (really long story) and we were stuck at the station for around 30mins. I had to literally use my finger to squeeze and redirect the air from the pump to that small hole in my valve, it was such a chore.
Even after that, I could only inflate my tyre enough for it to be barely rideable, but - desperate times, so oh well lol. This actually made it really difficult to pedal and I needed a freaking whole lot of strength to cycle forward.
Really just rushed back afterwards with whatever energy I had and a shitty back tyre.
Made a last food stop at Al-Azhar opposite beauty world at around 3-4am to eat and rest for a little while, as the both of us were quite hungry.
Chicken Murtabak
Milo Godzilla
Started to make the final stretch home at ~4am.
Surprisingly, the trip back took only about 1/2 the time we took to travel to MBS. We were probably just rushing to get home and weren't exactly admiring any scenery on the way back.
Finally reached home at around 5am. Took a shower and crashed for the night (day).
Had a couple of blisters on my food and abrasions, but it's nothing too uncomfortable to deal with.
Just happy that I did the night bike trip and it will yet be another mini milestone for me, making the whole 7-8hour journey worth it!
Who knows whats next for my bike? Maybe the mountain bike trail at Bkt Timah Hill or something? We'll see.
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