Cycling
| Yesterday I hope I took the last ever Chinese exam of my life. Of course, it's only a hope, but it's still a hope and it's always there for me to hope for. I really hope I pass. Anyway, today at the nice time of 9 in the morning, I was supposed to meet Manori at Parkway Macs to go cycling with XM at East Coast. And yx, being the lazy pok she is, refused to come in favour of her bed, her air con, and her computer(s). Anyway after lots of blah which I am way too lazy to write here, we finally rented a bike at 10.15. The bike actually cost $5/hour but the guy was willing to give us the bike for 3 hours if we paid $10. So we took it, since it was the same for 2 or 3 hours. Just as well, because we later took over 2 hours. Cycling towards the Bedok side of East Coast was relatively fun, although there was, as usual, the usual influx of (incompetent and competent) cyclists. I only began to think about what I'd do if I was in charge of National Parks when we were going in the Fort Road direction. And while I was formulating the various ideas, I spent my time dodging little kids, trying to predict when they would stop and when they would veer left or right, and also wondering where their parents were. So basically, if I had my way, I'd ban all vehicles with anything more than 2 wheels from riding on the cycling trail. The exception would be roller blades, but then, I don't really think those are considered vehicles. This means that tricycles and erm, quadcycles (those with 2 extra wheels at the back for balance) will not be allowed. Actually, my original idea included anything with a wheel rim size of below 16" to be banned from the trail, but then I thought better of it. The advantage of doing such a thing would be that the track would be filled with more competent cyclists. This would make cycling a much more enjoyable matter, and also reduce the risk of accidents. Children are generally very unpredictable, and they have this annoying habit of stopping in the middle of nowhere with no warning whatsoever, causing you to brake in order to avoid crashing into them, and risking the person behind you crashing into you instead. Either that, or they think there are virtual cones (or for that matter, mines) on the road which they just have to avoid, and this results in them cycling in a manner which increases their risk of falling off the bike, and also causes the people behind them to ring their bells or shout more than necessary. I blame the parents for letting the children become a hazard to themselves and others. If the child somehow hurts himself/herself, if there is another (older) cyclist involved, I really pity that cyclist. I say that because it's happened to me before. I was cycling happily and there was this kid who must have been something like 5, in front of me, and I was still happily behind him, and out of the blue he decided to stop for whatever good or bad reason(s). Oh, and the parents happened to be walking on the cycling track, talking among themselves, you know, the usual auntie talk. They were not paying attention to the welfare of their child at all. Needless to say, when the kid stopped, I braked to try to avoid hitting him, and I succeeded, stopping probably a couple of centimetres away from his bike. I was going to go around him when the person behind me crashed into me, obviously unable to stop in time. This resulted in a chain reaction which resulted in my bike hitting into the kid's bike, abeit not really hard, because I did try to stop it hitting. I didn't fall off my bike because my legs were on the floor, keeping the bike steady. And crash, my bike nudges the kid's bike, (which had 4 wheels, btw), and the kid has a really bad sense of balance or something, so he falls off the bike. The bike didn't fall, he did. So then the person behind me apologises, disappears, and leaves me with those irate parents. Smart guy. I should have just run (I mean, cycled) off. Go use your imagination to figure out what happened afterwards. But children and their parents are not the only culprits. Another big culprit would be couples, whether they are in love or not. For some weird reason, they seem to enjoy walking hand in hand down the sides, or sometimes, the middle of the cycling path. The footpath is less than 2 metres away, but they are so madly in love that it has made them blind, and therefore they do not see the footpath, or the cyclists and bladers. I think that couples, or sometimes groups are bigger obstructions than, say, a tree in the middle of the path. This is because the tree is there, you can see it, you can avoid it. Whereas when it comes to people, you can see it, you try to avoid it, but they don't see you, and they smartly walk right into your path. After which, the aftermath depends a lot on luck. And finally, there are those people who come to East Coast park to learn to cycle / rollerblade / hold hands / whatever. What I really have yet to figure out is why there are people willing to teach you to roller blade, but not to cycle. To me at least, cycling is harder than roller blading. This is because, roller blades are worn on your feet, and you can keep your balance quite easily even the first time round. Although there are usually 8 wheels in total, they are lined up and this creates a nice thing for you to balance on. Whereas in cycling, you have to balance on 2 wheels, and pedal, and use the brakes at the same time. I know I took longer to cycle than to roller blade. I suggest to the National Parks Board to please, please, come up with learn-to-cycle tracks, specially for this purpose. This will create a conducive environment for the learners, as well as the more seasoned cyclists, as they do not have to constantly avoid them while trying to cycle on the main track. I specifically avoided mentioning bladers above, as although I believe that they too, need a place to learn, they can learn at any place with a sufficent amount of flat surface. I think there is one such place near Marine Cove. In case you were wondering, I learnt to cycle and blade outside my house. It's quite a good place. So, well, cycling today was relatively fun, except for the abovementioned things. Other than that, the slopes were nice, except that there usually were people stuck trying to get up, or coming down too slowly. Still, with the size of Singapore and the possiblities available, I think I'll still be going back there pretty soon. |
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on Tuesday, November 01, 2005 at 3:12 pm.
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4:03 pm, November 01, 2005i believe you could ask cc to help. his first job was at NParks, so he should have quite a few contacts. xD
5:53 pm, November 06, 2005
i don't know where marina cove is, but there is already a learning track at east coast park. for both cyclers and roller bladers. haha! a too-late idea, rh. just that you didn't know where to track was. what i would suggest is that maybe you can convince all those "uncompetent" cyclists to go to that track.
but then again, why would you think that you're so competent at cycling?
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