i am a pain in the ass. that's right, i'm calling myself a pain in the ass. because i went night cycling fri night/sat morning. and now i'm left with a weird joint ache on my right knee and cramps in places i never knew you could get cramps in. somehow me, weepin and michelleooi have an affinity for crazy overnight stuff. like odac night hike.

we were joined by tim chow and asif, who were the veteran cyclists and its largely thanks to them that we were ahead of time most of our route. and out of breath as well. we started off from east coast park at 9pm, after saying goodbye to meiting and securing our bike rental. the haze was quite merciful yesterday, dipping from psi100 in the morning to about psi75 in the evening. so we got the go-ahead to cycle. and from east coast we started off towards changi coast road, which essentially lines the airport runway and you could literally hear the roar of the jets as they landed, which made for a damned impressive sight at night. the other remarkable thing about changi coast road was that it was incredibly long. almost like mandai road dammit. but i enjoyed changi coast road pretty much and it was cool feeling yourself so close to the vehicles sharing the road with you.

so we arrived at changi village, our first destination, at a good 10.30pm. way ahead of time and all was well. had the mandatory nasi lemak which was ohsoshiok and then we had fun watching tim and asif downing their milo dinosaur and its spawn brother, the godzilla. since we were way ahead of time and wanted to linger to midnight at least to catch sight of some of the "action" that changi village was known for, we hung around at the newly- constructed broad walk. found the pavillion with the dead-tree-and-rock sight that adorned the frontpage of straits times. wasn't that impressive seeing it for real. anyhow we hung around till midnight before migrating a short way down to the sandbar which was very very quiet, coupled with the pitch darkness of the sea with its limitless expanse. we were not that alone, however, as there were couples around the sandbar behaving rather intimately. and while we had the large lit words of "changi village hotel" staring down at us from the building atop the hill, there were several tents lining the coast who were probably using them as their personal "hotels", if you get what i mean. anyway we hit the road shortly after, lest we fell asleep, and was largely disappointed not being able to catch some of the "action" by the very "interesting people" of this area.

our next destination was pasir ris park, via loyang avenue, which was the endless road i walked on during ccal camp in ri. this part was quite jialat, cause i was trying hard to catch up with asif and tim, who were speeding ahead of us. turned off into pasir ris drive 12, where we sped a bit more since there was absolutely no traffic and then turned into downtown east. got a little disorientated but soon found our way to the pasir ris park giant playground. and this place is wild man. it has the giant spacenet and wicked spinning things that absolutely blow your brains. we hung around and played the flying fox and the giant slide but couldn't get onto the spacenet because of some inconsiderate bengs and his lians hogging it. we stayed around till 3am because tim and weepin were precariously entering deep slumber zone and headed for bedok reservoir, whilst tim and asif bid us goodbye.

from then on it was just the three of us. we rode along the roads of pasir ris drive 1, then tampines avenue 10 and avenue 1 before reaching bedok reservoir road. it was a good straight ride, with michelle in front breaking wind. no, she wasn't farting. breaking wind as in cutting the air resistance so the two of us behind had a slightly easier time. decided not to ride around the reservoir because the track was all gravel and didnt think the 10 dollar per night bicycles could take it. then we took park connectors and got a little lost, having to backtrack after crossing a wrong overhead bridge.

then it was a simple ride along siglap park connector all the way back to east coast park, where we straight away aimed for macdonalds for a much deserved breakfast. at 5am no less. then we started cycling at 6, aiming to hit kallang area but the area was unfortunately under much construction and we turned back. weepin and his stupid idea to get to the "yellow lightpost near CCAC" which is super far away. so i couldn't tahan anymore and we just stopped at a certain random breakwater and laid there for awhile, admiring the hazy sea and cloudy skies.

killed time until the bicycle shop opened at 8am. speaking of the bicycle shop some of you would be familiar with the one near the tennis courts. and it has like expanded big time, with a huge white tentage now and many more bicycles. economic integration right before our eyes man. and they are charging more exorbitant prices now. where is our anti-thrust laws when you need them man. anyhow, the three of us made the ardous journey back on bus 31 and i finally reached home and crashed at 10am.

and as i look at my 18-map compilation, i find 6 points that i scribbled down throughout the journey and find them quite worthy of mention, so here goes.

number 1: cockroaches
i think cockcroaches are the abomination of insects what with their super ugly appearances. and there were plenty plenty of them at changi coast point. the sight of them crawling all over where we were seated just brought back memories of the sight of sandflies at ccal camp.

number 2: alps
as we were cycling down changi coast, we spotted a sign that read "Alps ahead" and probably the air got that much colder and the slopes that much steeper. the alps turned out to be some airport checkpoints facility or something like that. trust singapore to come up with chim names for anything and everything.

number 3: expeditor
this building had the name "expeditor" displayed largely. and we don't know what on earth expeditor stands for but we're guessing if you go on expeditions, you must be an expeditor.

number 4: happy deepavali
as we sat at the pavillion at changi point, our quiet was largely tarnished by loud music and drunk people. and then at midnight, some small colourful "fireworks" and stupid drunk exclamations of "happy deepavali".

number 5: motorcycles and police
whilst finding our way around pasir ris park, weepin was complaining we shouldn't be cycling on the footpath. then we saw motorcycles speeding down the bicycle paths. talk about irony man. then they got caught by some police cars stationed at the park car park. serves them right.

number 6: Of PE shorts, skirt and panties
now we were at pasir ris park and me and michelle were climbing the large red spacenet thingy. but we were one step too late and there was this beng and his female friend on top. so we figured we would wait halfway along the net and hopefully they'll come down soon. then came some sec 1 girl who was damn lian and started conversing with the beng on top. and by conversing i mean shouting up the net with her full spectrum of language - chinese, hokkien and vulgar. what was more disturbing was their conversation involving her wanting to climb the spacenet although she was wearing a skirt. and she wanted the beng to take off his shorts and throw it down. and me and michelle figured we better leave.

all in all, i think night cycling is really fun and worth going again. even for the pain it inflicts afterwards. but the feeling of having the road to yourself, the sights and sounds in the dead of the night is really hard to get. although one must necessarily lament the sad fact that bicycles are very much sidelined on the roads that are essentially owned by cars. especially huge ass dhl trucks that threaten to squish you like a cockroach. but shall go again soon.

pictures will be up later.