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 3rd 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.