Éclectique

So I'm basically bored out of my mind right now. One thing I've managed to do is more or less breakdown my habit of getting 'sets' when it comes to components, and lockdown a build which gets me drooling. Previously, I had the habit of getting sets. For example, if a brand had a line or collection that included handlebars, seatpost, stem, & wheels, I would list that collection as part of my 'dream build' even though I only liked the wheelsets I did similar things with my music & I'm trying to break the habit by taking ONLY components I LIKE. So here's the list; Eddy Merckx EMX-525 frameset Easton EC90 Aero 56mm wheelset Easton EC90 Aero handlebars Time Xpresso 12 Titan-Carbon pedals S-Works Carbon Road crankarms S-Works SL Carbon spider S-Works SL chainrings PRO Vibe stem PRO Vibe seatpost Shimano Dura-Ace 9070 Di2 (except crankarms, spider & chainrings) Easton R4 casette (Shimano 11-speed compatible) S-Works Tou...

So I did the Putrajaya International Triathlon last weekend.  It was a rather last minute event so not many people signed up.  Personally, I was skeptical about how well I would do as I hadn't been able to properly train for the past month or so, juggling school work, committee work and finals. Crossing the line in an unofficial time of 2:07:11, I was pretty happy.  Seeing as I'd never done such distances back to back compounded by the lack of training, I actually performed better than I did at Desaru.  Unfortunately, the rest of the field was rather experienced and I came in around the bottom quarter. :( My only issue with the course was the cycle route.  Why go on the highway?  Putrajaya has a very complete motorcycle lane system.  Why didn't the organizers use that?  They really should have.  On top of that, there were no signs and not enough marshals so at times, we were winging it, hoping they would place marshals at crucial exit poi...

So, I did my first duathlon last weekend. It was the Powerman Duathlon Asian Championships & some big names came down hoping to secure points to qualify for the Duathlon World Championships in Switzerland. The duathlon I participated in was held in Putrajaya. Such a beautiful place to race. I hope they do it again next year. A duathlon is run-bike-run & sounds easier than triathlon -- which is swim-bike-run.  It's simpler, yes but it is in no way easier.  Most likely due to the slightly different distances.  That being said, I like the duathlon distances better.  Maybe I should start doing the long distance triathlons after this. Anywho... Compared to the Desaru triathlon, I was able to put a 5 minute gap between my brother & myself.  Best part of it; I started creating that gap in the first run & he never closed it.  In Desaru, Akid had a 1 minute advantage out of the water but I was able to close it & we arrived at T2 (bike-to...

So, it's Ramadan now. A month of fasting.  :)  It's fun, actually.  Aside from the spiritual gains, at the end of the day, the food looks very good & one does feel more grateful.  Also, at least I'm on my term break so I won't be running all over school going to my classes.  Now, I just need to find a way to stay in shape.  If not, it'll be a month wasted.  On top of that if I don't keep up, come September -- & the numerous events I'm planning to enter -- I'll be screwed. I'll most likely be doing night rides, night runs, and the TotalGym after breaking fast, just so that I'll have the energy to do so.  If I do it during the day, I'll have difficulty fasting the rest of the day.  Plus, I want to try and maintain my current BMI else I might fall too low.  Gaining BMI during Ramadan with my metabolism is pretty much out of the question. Hehe. Sheesh.  Everything sounds so bland, doesn't it?  Nothing exciting...  ...

The smell of the trees, of nature, The shaded cover of the overhead canopy, That feel of the first crunch, As you transition from pavement to dirt The rush of wind past your ears, The blur of trees in peripheral vision, Your mind & body focusing on the narrow singletrack ahead, Left! Right! Lean back! Your instincts shout as you tackle the terrain, Your fingers playing with the brakes to keep your speed in check, That adrenaline rush as you hang time or smoothly tackle a rock garden, The feel of your suspension compressing & elation soaring, The pounding in your chest, your ears, The burning in your lungs, your legs, As you push through one more pedal stroke on the arduous climb, Clearing the technical switchbacks while holding the tempo, "Left. Right. Left. Right," Leaning down onto your bars to provide more power from your core to your legs, Or even standing up as you almost lose traction, That screaming success when you'v...

Today is the 4th of July!!! The American Independence Day. In conjunction with this, the Sunway ADTP Student Committee is orgainizing a summer pool party called "An American Summer" this evening, from 6-10. It's going to be a blast!! Hehe! Anyway, the weekend was busy for me. I went to my mom's Family Day in Taman Rimba Kiara, Taman Tun Dr. Ismail, KL. Quite a nice place. Apparently, there's also some trails there so definitely worth a look. I used my student ID to get a discount for the first time on Saturday!! Woohoo!! Hehe!! On Sunday, I went to Bukit Bandaraya, Shah Alam for the 3rd leg of the Token Bikezooka MTB Series. The turn up was a bit less this time around. The track was a blast!! Phew. At the beginning, they give us this massive climb. 80. Everybody was cursing on their way up. I was humming. Hehe! A trick I learned from my mom. After the climb, there's a quick descent then some tarmac where you can regain your breath. Then more cli...

Finally the weekend is over. Time for me to recover and recuperate. On Friday, I had my Bronze Medal examinations. I passed so now I'm a qualified life guard! Hehe! It was actually a lot of fun! There were only 2 timed events. The first was to swim 50m (any stroke), rescue the victim and tow him back 50m with the assistance of an aid (a short rope). The time to beat was 00:03:00 minutes. I clocked in 00:02:48. Hehe! The other timed event was the rope toss. You have to gather the rope, roll it so that you can toss it well to the victim who is about 10-20m out in 'open' water. Time to beat; 00:01:00. My time: 00:0043. Muahahaha! I also did very good for the other events. My 'victim' -- a fellow exam taker -- said that my chin tow was very comfortable. Muahahaha! Luckily for me, the guy was a floater, despite being on the heavier side. Me? I sink. Heh heh. Sorry. He had a bit of trouble with me. Hehe! Saturday was my SAT. Huh. Go figure, the ...

I've said it before; once I'm bored, I start doing lists. So for today, I decided to make a list of cool things I found that would be neat to own. Hehe! GoPro HD Hero. It's a camera for action sports. With an assortment of mounts, you can mount it anywhere to get that awesome footage. The HD Hero model shoots in 1080p videos and 5mp pictures. Impressive considering it's just this small little thing. P/S; the camera is mounted on the helmet. You don't get a free helmet (nor goggles) with the purchase of the camera. Hehe! A cyclocross bike. Cyclocross is sometimes written/typed as CX. They look identical to road bikes with the drops bars and all but they're actually built to go off-road. Pretty neat concept. Hehe. If you notice the bike in the picture below has drop bars and rather thin tires, reminiscent of a road bike. Some ring I found on this website called Novica and it looks like a Jaguar. The animal, not the car. It's a really nifty loo...

Looking back, mountain biking, particularly XC, is sadism at it's finest. During the race you feel your spirit breaking, you want to cry and give up yet you keep motivating yourself, "I want to finish this, I want to finish this," and you do. You don't win, but you did finish where many others pulled out. You're body is aching, and you feel like collapsing. At the same time, once you cross that finish line, you're like, "I actually did it," and you look at the expressions of those who didn't finish it and you feel a mix of joy and pain. Days after that, after you've recovered and gotten back in the saddle, you think, "I can't wait for the next race." It's borderline stupid but it's addictive. That feeling when you're atop the hill and you know you pedalled and struggled your way up. You didn't take some big 4x4 and wreck the environment to get the view. You broke a sweat, you swore, you struggled, and whe...

Some of you may have read on Facebook that I participated in a race this past Sunday on February 20th, 2011. It was an all-day event consisting of one mountain bike event -- called the Jamboree --, and 3 road bike events -- called Criterium races. The Jamboree was the first event of the day and was scheduled to start and 10. Riders were to be at the starting grid by 9:45 a.m. Alright, before you go on, I'm going to rant about the flaws of the event before the good part. So if you want to skip the bad, go to paragraph 7 (not counting this paragraph & the one above). By 9:30, there were still around 30 people who hadn't received their race number and transponders. No, it's not that so many people showed up, overwhelming the organizers. It was the sheer inefficiency of the organizer's themselves. In short, the registration was an absolute mess. The counters weren't properly labelled, the chain of command was all over the place, there was hardly anyone in cha...

I would have done this one my 250th post but I didn't notice that it was the 250th. Heh heh. My bad. Anyway, I recently bought a book. Finally, a book. Hehe. I'm an avid reader & as I was browsing through MPH Subang Parade last weekend, I realized it's been a while since I read a book that I wanted to. The latter part of last year many of us had our noses buried in reference books, text books, notes we took down during class, etc, gearing up for SPM. Now it was time I got something I wanted to read. I've always been intrigued by mystery novels; the Hardy Boys, Famous Five, etc. So I got one. Want to guess what book I got? I'll give you a hint. Look familiar? I'm sure it pretty is. Yep, I got myself a copy of 'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Somehow, despite being a fan of mystery books, I had never read any of Sherlock Holmes' Adventures. Sure, I've heard of some of his stories but never actually re...

This morning, we wanted to go for a bike ride along the GCE -- Guthrie Corridor Expressway. Unfortunately, it started raining and it hasn't stopped since. So now I'm stuck at home, bored, with no idea what to do. I just had a yummy lunch my mom cooked. Hehe. Hmm. If the weather doesn't let up, I might try and convince Mama & Abah to take me for a haircut. I need it badly. I don't like having long hair. I tried. Heh heh. I also need to confirm with Mama whether I can go to Mid Valley with Liyana & Sofea tomorrow... Hmm. Suddenly there are things to do. Sort of. I think I'll curl up for a nap. Au revoir.

Over the months and years, I have made lists and lists of all kind of things. I like to do lists, for some reason. Places to visit, things to do, things I want, etc. Well, 3 things I can cross of the list of "Things I Want" is a road bike, a DSLR and a pair of Converse/Puma/whateverelselookslikethat. Last year, I got a road bike Well, 2 actually -- each at half price. So for the price of one full bike, I got 2. A miracle, really that one. Finding even one road bike with 50% discount is a rarity. Let alone, 2. In the same store. If that fact alone wasn't enough, let's go over some details, shall we? They were technically still the latest -- the 2011 versions were just about to roll out and they were 2010 models. They were brand new -- as in not second hand. And the cherry on the icing -- or rather, the final nail in the coffin -- is that they were both top end models. Even as we were making the payment, people were still ogling it. Hehe. I got them duri...

I passed my Computerized Test in one go! I'm glad I was able to. But you know what was weird? My score. Before I elaborate, the test is split into 2 'papers' with the first being a vision test and the 2nd the actual Law or Undang test. The 2nd part is split into 3 sections; the first 15 questions -- Part I --, the next 25 -- Part II --, and the final 10 -- Part III. The parts difficulty transition from easy, hard to medium. I scored 15/15 for Part I, 25/25 for Part II but 5/10 for Part III. Heh. Go figure, eh? Well, I was still able to get the passing mark so I'm happy. I got 45/50 which is 90%. Woohoo!! After that, I decided to go straight for the 3-hour Theory course. Unfortunately, the classes were full for the 3-hour Practical course so I'm taking that one next week. A week after that, I'll get my 'L' license or Learning Driver's License -- LDL. Hmm. What to do in that week before I get my LDL? Hehe. Hopefully I can hit PCP by mys...

As the title says, this post is going to be about mountain biking. Yes, I'm bored. So just to introduce my fellow readers to the realm of mountain biking. I'll do my best to include photos so you kind of get the idea of the different bikes and objectives of each form. Before I start, let me introduce very briefly on what categories I will be elaborating on about below. First of all is Cross Country, the very roots of mountain biking. Afterwards I will explain on All-Mountain/ Enduro . Following that will be Downhill. My personal favorite. Following up on that part will be Freeride / Slopestyle . And last but not least, Fourcross . This is the most popular form; Cross Country or XC in short. XC mountain biking was one of the first forms of mountain biking. It was pioneered by a group of friends in the early to mid-80's. I could go into a long-winding talk about that alone but I think what I've written suffices. If you want to know more, just look it up. The inte...

Just got back. We woke up early and after getting everything ready, headed to Putrajaya Challenge Park. However, mom didn't come with us. She had other plans. We missed the exit and had to sort of double back a bit after the toll. We arrived at PCP around 11 and unloaded the bikes, geared up, etc. When we got arrived, there were A LOT of people! We were both happy and cautious. It was nice to see the trails being used rather than falling into disarray but we were worried about the number of riders that would be on the trails. However, we realized pretty much everyone was leaving, at his/her own pace. Yes, there were a number of female riders too which was nice to see. Mountain biking is far too nice a sport not to be enjoyed by everyone. Anyway, we headed up to the trail and started. 1st leg; Starts with a rapid but short descent leading straight into a set up ascending switchbacks. Get ready to drop gears quickly and pedal to the top. Stop, and you won't be able t...

Tomorrow I'm going to Putrajaya Challenge Park!!! Woohoo!! It's been like 3 or months or so since I went there. There's a number of things I want to achieve/do there. But before day, an account of today's events. If you don't want to read through that, my fellow readers, scroll down until you start to see numberings. That should be the list of things I want to do at the Putrajaya Challenge Park. Everyone woke up earlier than usual -- considering that it IS a Saturday -- and got ready to go to Mid Valley. After a quick breakfast of cereals and bananas. Yummy. Hehe! Anyway, we left the house around 9:45 and arrived at the Gardens at around 10. We made a beeline to the dentist for our regular check up and scaling. We had to take turns since we were all assigned to the same dentist. After I had finished -- I was the first in -- I brought my VAIO to the Sony Store because I was having trouble uninstalling the trial version of Microsoft Office. Unfortunately, ...

Alright, so maybe not exactly 1001 uses but you get the point. The polymer I'm referring to was developed recently; its called d30. Really nifty stuff. Under low impact, it reacts kind of like playdoh but under high impact, the molecules pack tightly together, causing it to harden up and hold its shape. The video below is demonstrates d30 so you can see it for yourself. P.S. As mentioned in the video, the form of d30 featured is not yet processed and formed. Cool, eh? Brands SixSixOne and Raceface have begun to apply it in their protective gear such as elbow/forearm and knee/shin guards, etc. I thought that this thing wasn't 100% perfected yet so I wasn't expecting it to be available in at least 3-5 years. Yesterday, I went to the Specialized Concept Store in the Strand, Damansara and there it was; 2011 SixSixOne Evo Lite XC elbow AND knee guards as well as SixSixOne Evo elbow and knee guards! Sadly, they cost RM300++ a pair. Huhu. But it's already here in Malays...

Last Sunday, my family & I went for a ride at the Rubber Research Institute (RRI) is Sungai Buloh. It's a really cool XC trail. A lot of loops. The week leading up to our trip was kind of stressful because information regarding RRI was hard to obtain. Getting there is simple enough. Starting from Skypark Terminal, Subang Airport, keep going straight until you reach a Caltex gas station. From there, turn right and keep going, following the signs. The signs will lead you to the actual institute itself which is on your left. The entrance to the trail however, is right across the street, on your right. So turn right -- it's between two nurseries -- and park. There's a small plot of land perfect for parking and unloading the bikes. After that, start off. Map from Subang Airport to Entrance of RRI View Larger Map The road going into the plantation is red soil road and it's a nice ride. You can do some pretty cool sprints there but I'd advise against that. ...

So much has happened. Sad, happy and everything in between. A fast-forwarded version would be like this. Editor's note; most events listed below have happened whereas some have yet to happen. I watched Toy Story 3. And I cried. Well, not sobbing crying but yeah, I shed tears. I really grew up with that movie. During the 1st movie, Andy was moving to a new house. Around the same time, I was moving back to Malaysia from the US. Sad times. In the third movie, Andy is 17 & about to go to college. So am I. I got an invitation from a friend to participate in the Urban Downhill event of the King of Fraser's Hill mountain bike carnival/bash/event/wtv. But I can't go. Huhu. I learned how to take out my back tire, take it apart (tube & tire only) and of course put it back. Another milestone in learning about bikes. My grades are slowly climbing. Yaay! Except for Add Math and Chemistry. Huhu. I'm paying more attention in class than ever before. Which is a g...