Simon, a friend of mine and one of Damo’s colleagues, bought his first ever road bike yesterday, a Pinarello FP3 with Ultegra and the works (helmet, shoes, cycling kit, lights, gloves, socks, meter, pedals, carbon cages). Amazing what love can do to a man who has spent more time smoking than exercising in his life. Like my other friend Paul who about a month ago also bought his first road bike, Simon saw his initial $3,000 budget balloon when he stepped into the (in)famous CycleWorx at Upper Thomson Road. But if you saw the look on his face today after his virgin ride, you would defo agree with me that the fella is pretty darn pleased with his investment.
The plan was to meet at 7am at CycleWorx and Tom (Simon’s buddy who is more often seen smoking than riding his Pinarello Galileo) said we would do a Mandai-minus-Seletar-Holland Village route. I decided to start my ride earlier at 6am to get a good 30km in first. Together with the two guys, we then did another 40km. Tom split at Orchard and I rode back with Simon to CycleWorx via Novena — he decided a longer but flatter route was better than a shorter but hillier route (Farrer-Lornie). Had a drink and a chat at Longhouse and then it was back home for me, another 10km. So an 80km easy spin today to round off my easy week… before three weeks of hell begins again.
Simon, I must say, is pretty much a natural on the bike. He had no problems clipping in and out of the Look pedals and was even better than Tom on the hills and pretty speedy on the flats (over 30km/h). Not bad for a guy whose previous endurance activity was partying till the early morning (like many times before, he was out on Friday night till Saturday morning 8am).
As we spun back to Longhouse, the clock read 8.30am. Simon, with a smile on his face despite feeling jelly-legged, said to me: ”It’s actually pretty nice to be up and out so early in the morning.”
Welcome to the club, Simon.