Ubin is not Urban!

One of the things I get asked a lot by friends back in Oz is:

"Don't you go a little stir crazy in Singapore?  How do you get out of the city"

This is especially relevant as my routine back home would be to pretty much take off on early Sunday morning and then 'go bush' (Aussies understand) for a good 6-8hr mountain bike ride.  Occasionally with friends but more often than not alone. Additionally for the past 12 months or so I would probably get at least one overnighter (or longer) in every couple of months.

Now, so far I don't get the 'stir crazy' thing - I ride into Malaysia a couple of times a month, I travel a bit for work and really, although you don't get in your car and drive for 3 hours... there are these things called 'planes and once outside of Oz you realise that people take these things to go places.  No, its true!

But still, even with cheap flights and other countries being readily accessible the one thing that is hard to do here is get away from civilisation and get into something that has some semblance of nature.

Well, at least that's what I thought until I discovered Palau Ubin (or Ubin for short).

Ubin is a small island just off Singapore - transport is via a small boat known as a 'bumboat' and takes about 10 minutes.

Once there its like you've stepped back in time 20 years (apparently) - lots of jungle, a few walking tracks a few basic shops and (very) local restaurants and that's it!  Oh and about 20 bike hire places where you can take your pick of rusty, poorly maintained steeds!

The final attraction on Ubin is that it has one of Asia's only IMBA designed and certified mountain bike courses.  One of the few tracks around that has actual flow!

After a couple of visits I decided to take the opportunity of Lisa being away over a weekend for work to take the boys camping on Ubin.  But of course we would have to ride there :)

Now, last time I tried to take the boys bike camping on my own (in Australia) it almost resulted in a visit from Child Welfare and no camping was done.  However, the boys seem to have repressed the memory so I thought we'd give it another try.

A word on my setup.

The main engine of this enterprise is a Wee Hoo iGo2 trailer...

These are pretty amazing...

They work like a recumbent towed behind the bike.  Kids sit behind each other and the child in front can pedal (allegedly, there doesn't seem to be much pedalling on our trips from what I can tell!).

Mine was modified to carry a set of Ortlieb panniers on the back.

Despite the weight, it is actually pretty easy to pedal.  With the weight of the trailer, two kids and camping gear I think I was probably towing close to 50kg or so.  Of course whilst the weight itself isn't hard to lug around, having a significant amount of weight on the back of your bike pivoting around the seatpost means the whole thing really isn't that stable!

Still, it more or less worked and we made our way down to Marina Barrage and then along East Coast to the Ubin Ferry Terminal.  Of course there was a howling headwind so what in my head was a nice easy flat cruise turned into a 2 1/2 hour mission - made me wish I hadn't gone out riding with ANZA earlier in the Day!

After managing to get a bike, a trailer and two very excited small boys down two flights of stairs and onto a small boat we were on our way!  It seems silly but a simple 10 minute boat ride can make a world of difference and you can really feel the city being left behind.

Once at Ubin, we followed the directions and attempted to register at the local police station (ok, house marked police near the ferry terminal would be a better description!).

On Ubin, there are at least three difference campsites.  For this trip, we hadn't bought food (apart from snacks!) and cooking supplies so we chose the campsite closest to the ferry terminal as I knew there was a decent local seafood place there which would be great for dinner.

The Jelutong Campsite is only about 5 minutes walk from the small village near the Jetty but has a reasonable view and is nice and shady.  After a quick scout around we found a spot to pitch our tent!

Much to the disgust of my camping companions we did not have equipment to build a campfire (advice was that it wasn't allowed) but this site had a few well defined firepits as well as other campers who had fires.  Although to be honest the whole 'sit in front of a nice campfire' thing looses some of its appeal when its 26'C at 9pm!  Well we'll know for next time!

Dinner was a fairly simple affair but its good local food and pretty cheap - the tiger beer wasn't cold but a few ice cubes helped (ok, to be honest its that Tiger is so watered down that you don't notice the ice!)

 

So after a big feed it was starting to get dark so we retired back to the campsite.

Whilst we were camping you can't escape the fact that my kids are little urbanites at heart so I had come prepared with iPads for the boys and I.  Given how warm it is at night here I hadn't bothered with sleeping bags and we just had a couple of sheets to put over camp mattresses.  The boys curled up inside the tent with their iPads and I set up under the stars.

Oh, of course I'd bought a warmer :) Ardberg 10yr old from a Nalgene Hip flask is fantastic!

As far as camping trips go it had been pretty successful - kids were enjoying being out and about and whilst we were really only 15 minutes from Singapore proper, when you're lying outside reading a (e)book then its just enough to convince yourself that nature really isn't that far away.  Just the thing I needed to get a bit of a fix!

Things got a bit shaky the next morning as none of the shops were open at early o'clock when the kids chased me out of bed.  Luckily there were many things to entertain small boys around the camp ('Look Dad... a stick!') and we managed to get an icy cold coconut water from one of the shops that opened early to cater for the hoards of mountain bikers who had started coming in on the first bumboat.

With no real food we just packed up the campsite and headed back over to Singapore where we got brekky at the Changi Village hawker market (Kaya toast apparently is close enough in taste to Peanut butter that the boys accepted the lie gladly).

From there we headed back along East Coast.  Luckily there was no headwind this time and we made pretty good time back to Brussel Sprouts - a Belgian Beer cafe chain where we met Lisa for a quick bit of lunch (she had arrived back from her work trip early that morning).

     

All in all a pretty good way to spend a weekend!

Cloudride 1000... the fine line between tough and pointless

Well, as promised here's the Cloudride post mortem.  Apologies for the lack of photos but I was busy.

Right at the outset, I need to point out that (a) I didn't finish (actually it was a pretty dismal effort) and (b) the level of toughness and grit shown by those who pressed on - finisher or not - is amazing.

I felt a little underdone coming into the ride, both fitness wise and in terms of preparation.  I had made my own cue sheets for the course and felt I pretty good handle on things but I probably hadn't invested a huge amount of time in ensuring that I was fully prepared.

Ok, I'm prepared to admit that there was a little 'I've done Tour Divide and know how to suffer... how bad could this be?'  How wrong can you get?

I had worked out that the two 'extreme' sections were likely to be day 1 - based on the experiences last year there was no way I'd get to Nimmitabel and then the section from Delegate to Jindabyne which would be another overnight stay with no resupply.

After setting off in an overcast but dry morning, I handled the ride through to Bungendore pretty well.  There's a little bit of climbing through this section but the riding is lovely - mostly 2nd class forest roads.  Even the little flat cruise to Hoskinstown on tar was fun (although by now the drizzle had set in).

A quick water resupply and time check showed I was well ahead of my rough timing so things were travelling well.

Of course then it turned to shit.

The real climbing begins after Hoskinstown - smooth surface but constant stuff and pretty steep.  Nightmare single speed territory.  But I was overall feeling quite positive - I was mentally prepared for walking the steep sections so all was good.

But... as we gained elevation the mist and drizzle turned into actual rain.  The track we were on was soft and had been freshly scraped - nice in the dry but with a bit of moisture it was slow and awful.  I found getting on top of my gearing (about 32:18) almost impossible and ended up either walking or killing the energy I had... the net result being more walking.

Probably the bit that did me in was the Cowangerrong Firetrail and its 750+m of elevation gain over 23km or so.  It took me about 4 hours to crest it.  Slow going.  Even then, getting down to the Jerrabattgulla Creek also took an age as the rain had turned the old logging track (which wasn't remotely close to the GPS trace) into a muddy slip and slide.

After refilling it was another 90 minutes of trudging up a muddy track onto a decently formed road.

At this point it was about 9pm.  I'd done about 120km. I was wet.  I was cold.  It was still raining.

By now I had abandoned any thought of perhaps getting to Numerella but kept pushing on to minimise the amount of time I'd have to 'make up' the next day.

I finally pulled the pin at 140km or so at about 11pm.  Luckily the rain had stopped.

Well, so after the rain came the fog / mist.  My ZPacks tent and bivy combo is awesome for keeping you dry in direct rain but thick mist just settles on everything.  The combination of the moisture in the air and the wet body in the sleeping bag made for a very sleepless night.

Oh and a sodden sleeping bag the next morning - down is super light and warm but get it wet and its useless!

I was underway at 5:30 am the next morning and managed the difficult nav section off the Rocky Range Firetrap pretty well but I was just slow.  Too Slow.

By now I was pretty much fed up and had let the negativity creep in and was having difficulty keeping motivated.  Even the open roads on the way to Numerella didn't cheer me up.

Once I arrived in (more or less) civilisation I just sat down and opened my last 'real' food and just sat and contemplated what to do next.

From where I was I figured it would be a good 5-7 hours to Nimmitabel which created the real possibility of perhaps spending a night in a wet sleeping bag - especially if I wasn't able to get somewhere to stay where I could dry my gear.

On the positive side, although I was slow, I was still making decent time although my achilles  tendons were starting to get quite sore - fine whilst riding but each hike a bike section was getting more punishing.

But, in the end it was thinking ahead - at my pace and given the gear I was carrying I probably was not equipped to spend 48 hours between service stops.  Managing that is a whole different strategy to my 'fast and light' TDR setup.

So, having decided that I wasn't going to manage that section I decided to call it early and let Steve know I was pulling the pin.  I ended up riding the tar to Cooma (which is actually a really fun ride!) and got a lift back to Canberra with tail firmly between the legs.

The what and why's of not completing were pretty simple in the end.  I stopped having fun and couldn't get into really enjoying this ride and well, after all we do this for fun and if you aren't having any then its just an exercise in self flagellation.

Now, you might be reading this and thinking it was pretty crap but there are some things about this ride which other backpacking style events should take notice of.

Firstly, the general organisation of the thing is top notch.  Steve Watson has put a lot of effort into the course notes and they need to be read.  Re read.  Read again.  And then tattooed on your arms.  My experience just in the first day was that sometimes the GPS trace of the course was inaccurate (and in a few cases wildly so) but Steve's course notes were always spot on.

On top of that, he also recognises the difficulty (and indeed, danger) of the country we're riding through and his efforts to retrieve broken riders who need rescue have been awesome (as of writing there is one finisher and 3 left on course out of 18 starters).

Doing the Tour Divide your planning is aided by comprehensive maps and a guide book and Steve's notes are an admirable substitute.

Now, the things I didn't like!

Firstly, its masochistically difficult.  In both years only a few have finished and the course has destroyed seasoned riders.  A sub 5 day ride on this course means you are the sort of rider that has a shot at winning Tour Divide (Ollie who won year 1 is a TDR winner and Calvin this year placed 2nd).

The sheer amount of climbing boggles the mind - at 24,000VM in its 1000km length that's more than 8000VM more than the most difficult 1000km stretch of Tour Divide.  Actually, if you took all of the biggest climbing days from my TDR ride and added them together you still don't get that much climbing in 1000km.

But the difficulty in the course is not actually the climbing.  Its the logistics.

The resupply points are pretty few and far between - especially in the first 600km or so.  The need to be totally self sufficient (not even a farmhouse to wander into and beg for help) means that you are reliant on hitting towns between the hours of about 9-5 in order to find a store to buy more food.  Arrive 30 minutes late and you effectively loose 14 hours while you wait for the shops to re-open.

This means that for the truly mind-numbingly fast, sub 5 days is do-able but for the rest of the pack a few slow hours quickly turns into a day or two's delay.  Added to this is that with less pace comes the need to carry more food and gear which means more weight and in turn less pace (called a vicious circle!).

For instance if I was going back I'd add cooking equipment and the sort of food that goes along with that.  That is a bit of a re-think to how I've packed for events like Tour Divide or the New Zealand Brevets.

Finishing Cloudride is truly an achievement and those that get through it have my utmost respect.  For me though, the unforgiving nature of the course and how its laid out mean that to attempt it you're either a gun and aiming for sub 5 days or, you need to be prepared to chill and take it a bit slower and pack accordingly.

Its probably never going to be an event for the masses (like Tour Divide / Highland Trail Race / Colorado Trail Race etc) as at times it feels like its tough just for the sake of being tough.  But then again, as one of the ultimate tests of self its right up there and it is in our back yard.

Being constructive, I would say that a perhaps a Cloudride 'light' course which skips some of the more masochistic sections would be a great addition.  I really enjoyed all of the experiences around the race and actually loved riding in the alps.  I'm also glad I had a chance to spend a little time with Steve (even though it was forced) this guy loves the country and his knowledge of where to ride is amazing - its nice to meet a race organiser that has gone out of their way to put something together just to show off places they love.

Last year's race served as a warning as to its toughness and the field grew for this year so me being soft I guess just adds to its reputation I suppose... personally the current course didn't suit me but Steve, throw together a slightly softer (there... I said it) option and I'll be the first to sign up :)