Why I am a cyclist

Biycling. I've been a fanatic of sorts when it comes to bicycling, despite my lardy and unathletic self.

My first memory of being on a bicycle was when I was about 7 years old, on a yellow bicycle with bright-yellow solid plastic wheels and tyres, going around in circles in the void deck of the HDB block with training wheels.

Dad wasn't very forgiving. He insisted I mastered the techniques of bicycling from yound, getting the cornering spot-on, keeping to the left of the cycle path and all. Even when I fell and hurt my wrist badly, he forced me to suck it up and go on despite. It was painful.

I got weaned off the training wheels some time later and started to go out to the parks and all. Fortunately despite the painful way I learnt bicycling, I never shunned it.

When I was about 10, dad sometimes fetched me from school riding his foldable bike, strapping my schoolbag to the rear rack of the bicycle and allowing me to ride it across the park.

There was this one time where I fell after losing control going over a rut. Dad got pretty angry with me. It's all blurry in my mind, but there's one thing I remember clearly.

I never did get to ride the bike across the park after school anymore. Around that age I got my own foldable bike too, a nice 6-speeder decked out with a gear-shifter where you twist the handlebars like a motorbike throttle and smooth 20-inch wheels. Sadly I hardly got to ride it. No one to ride with. Pestered my dad to go bike riding with me but it hardly worked so I soon stopped asking.

Sometimes, I'm just amazed at how I got into cycling again despite my unhappy childhood experiences regarding it. Apart from the very rare occasions where I cycled with my friends using rental bikes and all, I never really picked up bicycling until I was about 18.

I went out for short cycling trips with a group of schoolmates and picked up cycling all over again. Bicycling never felt as liberating. I could pedal anywhere you like to, coast over to tranquil parks and reservoirs and lanes I'd never go to otherwise. It was also great to be able to disperse any angst and frustration into pedal energy.


So I cleaned up my foldable bike and rode it again, discovering the park connectors and the roads in my area. Put the camera into a bagpack and cycled all the way from Bishan to Changi, talking photos along the way. But it wasn't enough. I wanted the speed and efficiency that a 20-inch foldable with low gear ranges simply couldn't provide.


I decided to use my brother's bicycle (he hadn't used it in years) and clean and tune it up. Brought it to the shop to replace the seized pedals and too-short seatpost, and I was good to go. It was a cheap and ugly bicycle with primitive gear-shifting but it worked - barely at least.

Shortly gave up on it after too embarassing moments with friends where the chain simply decided to derail in bumpy areas. Sometimes it was just so frustrating, having so much I wanted to do on the bike - explore the offroad trails, cannonball up the steep slopes and get to faraway places without worrying about break-downs- but simply couldn't do.

Kept on begging my parents to give the go-ahead to get a shiny new high-end bike, similar to the one my friend G got. Can't forget the days G and I would pore over printed-out bicycle catalogues in the lecture theatre, oblivious to the drone of the lecturer and the mathematical equations projected onto the screen. Made the final and definite plans to get the bicycle the next weekend - a GT Avalanche 2.0 that retails for about $500.

That week also happened to be the week that a good friend died. The girl who made my 17th birthday magical, the first girl I had talked to when I entered junior college, the girl who rested her head on my shoulder and held my hand while the orientation group passed the night at East Coast Park.



Nothing could stop me from getting that bicycle on that Saturday. Not even the diarrhoea I had, not even the feeling of despondence of knowing that a girl I used to like was now dead. Despite feeling really unwell, I soldiered on and bought the bike and rode it back from Tampines to Bishan - with the company of 2 friends.

Naturally I vented all those negative vibes on my bicycle. Barelling up the hills, flying down the slopes. It was a great distraction from whatever negative thoughts I had, a getaway from my own mind.

So that was the story of how I got my current bike. But how did I stick on to the sport for more than 3 years and counting?

1. Cycling is theraputic
Cycling clears my mind. It gives me a feeling of liberation and freedom, being to go to almost any place I want to within the island without much difficulty. Places that roads don't go, places where you can ride for kilometres without meeting a single soul.

Exercise in any form also soothes the frazzled nerves and releases happy chemicals within the brain and cycling is no exception.

2. Cycling feeds my self-destructive streak
Obviously I wouldn't recommend reckless bicycling as a way to feed one's self-destructive streak, but that is what I end up doing.

Those who know me well would know my old self-destructive habits, which have gotten alot better ever since I had started bicycling. Instead, I seek thrill and excitement from bicycling situations where I'm put into mortal peril. Flying down hills at almost 50kmh while tailgating a bus, taking sharp left turns at high speed and almost losing control, taking liberties with traffic rules - stuff like that. I dunno if it's necessarily a good thing, but well, at least, the scars such activities leave are much more easily explainable.

Sometimes it really freaks me out thinking about the kinds of things I end up doing to feed this streak. I feel guilty as hell for doing such risky things to myself, but it's not really a choice of mine, it's sorta like an evil craving in me that I'm forced to feed.

3. Cycling is intellectual
Go into bicycling forums and what you see is a load of information on stuff like how to maintain your bike yourself. The bicycle is a machine that's really fun to figure out and to tune up. There's so much to learn - gear ratios, aerodynamics, body kinetics, springs and suspensions.

In addition, no other sport keeps in mind human physiology as much as bicycling does. There's so much information around regarding sport physiology and nutrition with a slant towards bicycling. Even runners don't have half as much intellectual discussion regarding human physiology and nutrition. Only in bicycle forums do people discuss stuff like glycogen metabolism in the muscles and the best fluids for rehydration in suh great detail. It's also no surprise that medical professionals are very highly represented in the bicycling demographic, simply because it's one sport that's so intellectual.

4. Cycling makes me strong
Cycling has made me so much stronger physically, nuff said. Few other sports reach the same intensities as cycling does. You'd know when you do your first ever standing hill-climb. The forces and energy required is simply mind-boggling. Of course, I'm proud to say that I've never felt as fit and healthy in the past as compared to now.

So that's the story of my passion in cycling and I hope you liked it.