The no pain no gain ride

After a poor night sleep, we had started our prep for the ride. Xian was excited and with his new sunglasses (actually it is mine which I had bought many years ago -> as I don’t feel comfortable using sunglasses, I had placed it elsewhere for quite a long time) he is all set to go….

I arrived at the school at 7am and Xian had found his gang and joined the pack.

I was still nervous as we were placed in the first team to push out; can we catch up with the team ?

After the short ceremony, we started our ride. It started with a slow ride around the township and later proceeded to the outskirt and we stopped at a school for rest after 14km of ride.

The second part of the ride was very rough as it covered the notorious mountain road which had more than 10 ascendo-decresendo slope. The second part of the ride had started with a sprint and I was quite worn out when we enter the mountain road. Xian was still energetic but yet he is also being drop off from the leading team. After 20 min of ride, I was exhausted but yet struggled to complete the ride as I would have to know if Xian had made it to the check point safely. It was the worst ride of my life, the F20W was designed for long distance ride and custom for negotiating slope, but I could manage to ride at a speed of 10km/h max.

I had found Xian at this dangerous down sloping curve, he was sitting along the roadside where 2 staffs were standing beside him guarding him and preparing to send him onto the collecting bus.

This was the slope where Xian fell..

looking from the other end of the curve

I stopped beside him and did a quick check on him; he had abrasion over his left elbow and knee. The bicycle was ok with some scratch over the left handle. I told the staffs that Xian could continue and he started the ride again.

We finally made it to the second check point and after a short rest and were greeted by Ving and Yun who have missed the most perilous part of our ride. 
After a refreshing supplement of ionized drink and some food, we were on our way again. I could barely pedal than and my thigh had cramped after 5 mins of struggling.

I was picked up by Ving minutes later and headed toward the 3^rd check point.

We met Xian at the check point and after lunch I had joined the ride again.

The rest of the 14km ride was smooth and I completed the ride with Xian. 

Xian had learnt a lot from  the ride - pain , gain, sharing and much more....
As for me, I learnt what is called aging and definitely would have to get a 26" mountain bike if I wanted to take part in such ride in the future.