Joyriders.sg

Congratulations to all Joyriders who did us proud at the ITT! 

 

 

 

AAA Adrain Mok 2nd

Some kam hoe   4th

Michel Velasco   5th

 

 

Jurong Francis 1st 

Kelvin Thumbs  4th

 

 

Chinese woody zhaomu 1st

 

 

Animal matthew 1st

 

 

On Sunday morning, 19 July, seven riders decked out in green and yellow Joyrider colours assembled near the start line of the Ipoh Century Ride. With the breaking dawn still a few substantial minutes away and a gruelling 160km route ahead, what we were gearing up for would occur to the sedentary and the conservative as being absolutely crazy. But we knew better, and this ride meant much more to the seven of us. Our seven-man team consisted of: CACTUS Choonwei, Ernest El Pacino, Super Mario Marcus, Zhong Xuan, Eugene, Yongfeng and I, Andy Schleck. Oops, I mean Wei Ming.

 

 

And so it began. The ride started off as a rolling start. Apparently the repetitive emphasis that the ride was not a race did not seem to sink in very well with any of the riders(lol!) as we couldn't even see the front of the peloton right after the very start! I could understand why. No one would want to pay and go through all the hassle of going to Ipoh just for a leisure ride. Every rider out there had something to cycle for. Some just didn't know it. It could be the sense of pride after the completion of a 160km ride, or just the soaking in of the almost surreal surroundings – whether cycling past massive plantations or on winding village roads where kids dash excitedly out of their homes to catch a glimpse of what they rarely get a taste of. 

Though we started conservatively, we eventually settled into a comfortable pace after constantly moving forward from group to group, thanks to our dear Cactus Choonwei who played the role of pacesetter, or should I say pace-pusher. We just simply couldn't comprehend how his body could be so efficient in energy conservation (he had no bottle cages on his bike for goodness sake!) hence his hastily conjured nickname (by us) of Cactus! We ended up taking long pulls at the front of various groups of cyclists, partly because we had a bigger and more organised team than most of the other riders we encountered, and also because our pace was simply too fast for them so much so that if they tried taking over the pulling duties they would run out of energy rapidly and end up getting dropped (or at least that's what we deluded ourselves into thinking just for fun). We were behaving like team Columbia at the opening stages of this year's Tour de France – pulling the peloton most of the way. Some of us even joked, "Eh, we protecting yellow jersey ah? Why are we doing all the work ah? Too hardworking already!" We also made special efforts to appear fierce, and `garang', and all that stuff that camwhores and egomaniacs love to do whenever our photographer and his support vehicle came within ten metres of our group. So you guys gotta check out our pictures okay! 

The merciless sun came out from its hiding during the second half of the ride. As usual this was probably due to me and my suay comments like "wah, no sun, so good ah?" during the first part of the ride. However we managed to keep our group together as much as we could by sharing workload and pulling responsibilities as well as making longer stops at the now crucial water stations. By the last checkpoint the once simple and humble water station had evolved into a full blown energy replacement facility, offering an assortment of drinks, fruits, biscuits, bread and all that yeasty stuff. I wasn't a fan of solid food by that time in the race, but the true lifesaver at that point was the legendary icy fountain/zapper of rejuvenation! Okay, so it really was just a cold water sponging station, but at that point it felt like heaven for us. Ernest can probably tell you. Five of us gave him the icy treatment all at once. Talk about brainfreeze.

So that's about it. We started together, we ended together. Bam, ride over. We all went back with proud smiles on our faces, 160km in our legs, and a medal under our belts. But the true reward was non-material. Other than the pride and admiration we had for each other as a team, we made an impact. We got people talking, we got cameras turning as we passed. If a van of total strangers could drive past you and shout "Go Singapore!" then you know you've definitely made your presence felt. What's that team, they will ask. Who are all these riders, coordinated in outstanding green and yellow, who ride in formation so elegantly, who result in turning heads and clicking shutters? Oh them, you'll say, they're the Joyriders.

 

 

Weiming S Clubber 

La Marmotte, which was held on July 4th, lived up to its reputation:

Per Wikipedia, " La Marmotte is one of the toughest one-day cyclosportive events in the world. The route is 174 km long, but features more than 5180 meters of climbing. The event goes over the Col du Glandon, Col du Telegraphe, Col du Galibier and finishes at the top of one the most famous Tour de France climbs, Alpe d'Huez."

 

 

There were over 7,000 participants, but less than 5,300 finished. Temperatures north of 30 degrees greeted us on the fourth and final climb of the day up Alpe d'Huez. Each of the 21 switchbacks of Alpe d'Huez were lined with the "cycling wounded".

The vast majority of participants were from Europe. Based on what we were told, there are typically less than a dozen from the US and from Asia. The atmosphere at the start and along the route was something I had never witnessed before -- both because of the sheer number of cyclists and the multitude of languages being spoken at once. 

We set off in three mass start waves from Bourg d'Ossians, a town at the base of Alpe d'Huez. I was in the second wave, which had 2,000 cyclists (and am glad I was not in the third which have over 3,000 cyclists).

There were three food stops along the route with baguettes, cheese, ham, fruit cake, dried fruit (and Coke at the final food stop) -- but no chocolate, cookies or Snickers bars! Fortunately we had our own van strategically parked 130K into the route stocked like the candy aisle at Cold Storage. Sugar in any form was the order of the day.

Riding with Joyriders prepared me well for the controlled chaos along the route, and I was able to avoid a number of crashes on the descents. 

I finished in 10 hours, 41 minutes which was good enough for a Silver Medal based on my age group and a range of times to finish. 

(Above are photos taken during La Marmotte, as well as in Les Allues (where our acclimatization camp was) and Alpe d'Huez, which served as the finish for La Marmotte.)

 

 

Baby Larry

12 July 2009