North East bike ride

A number of people mentioned how nice it is to ride in Seletar area. So I persuaded my two bike kakis to try this new route. New because we all don't live in the North East area, and have little clue what to expect.

Did some googling and found a couple of rides in Seletar, Sengkang, etc. So I mapped out this route, motivated by (a) proximity to food, (b) free parking, (c) distance about 40 km, (d) minimal right turns and (e) recommendations. As you'd guessed by now, these reasons do not necessarily make a good route.

Any how, 5 am we met at the car park along Jln Kayu, next to the roti prata shop. The others had difficulty finding the car park (1 down). We set off towards Seletar and Yishun. The dam was surprisingly full of people, mostly young bikers hanging out at 5 am. Not really sure what they were doing. Yishun was pretty nice, along Orchid CC. We had some reservations about Lentor Avenue, primarily heavy and fast traffic. The early hours meant that the traffic was rather light, but the cars were just too fast for our liking. The problem was that two lanes turned into SLE, making it difficult to filter. I almost went up to SLE! We decided unanimously to avoid Lentor Ave in future (two down).

Then it was onto the undulating slopes Yio Chu Kang. Some of these slopes were quite challenging, although not as bad as Mandai Avenue. Here's the bummer. While going up a slope, we were overtaken by a foldable bike with small wheels. Made us feel inadequate! (As it turned out, we met up with the rider later at breakfast, and found out that the rider is elderly :( but a seasoned cyclist).

We found Upper Serangoon Road to possess too many traffic lights; or rather we were stopped by too many red lights (three down). We took a short break (20 km mark) at a petrol station and continued through Hougang (The Florida) and retraced the route I took for my run a few days ago. When we passed Seng Kang over the expressway (PIE), we felt fresh cool air. Not long after, we rode head on to strong winds. Probably the strongest headwind I'd encountered. Around then, we saw lighting flashes. No wonder it was so cool and windy. A storm was in the works.

Good thing the rain did not come while we rode into Punggol Road. Undulating slopes here. We trailed another cyclist, not not fast enough to overtake him. Before we knew it, we were at the jetty and took another break (30km mark). Here's where it got fun. On the way back, I realized why it was so fast on the last slope. This one is quite a long climb that took some work! After 62 km yesterday, I wasn't really thrilled to take on this slope. Maybe another time I would "attack" it.

As we rode into Punggol and unfamiliar territory, it started raining. Light rain enough to make slippery roads. We rode conservatively as we were also not sure about the route (four down). Managed to find our way back to Jln Kayu, by which time the rain had stopped. 38 km. Time for roti prata!

A number of bikers also had the same idea, and we had a nice breakfast. At least we got one right.