10th SAFRA Runway cycling

With LHam's return from Finalnd looming on the horizon, I decided to take part in my first ever SAFRA organised Runway cycling event held at the Paya Lebar Airport.

This being my first time, I didn't know what to expect, how to get there, and who else was coming besides Otterman, since not much was mentioned on the WAT list. The night before, still having no clue, I txted Otterman to get the details for the meeting point and all that. His route wasn't going to cross with mine at any point till the Airport, so I had to figure it out myself. Luckily, I found a very straightfoward route... just follow the route for SBS bus 80 which comes by my place! But it still took me a long time with my ah pek riding style. Good thing Otterman, Airani and KMY were late as well.

Some pictures I grabbed from Otterman's blog, there's a link to the full picture gallery too.


Clearly, I'm not a morning person.


I brightened up considerably after finding out from Airani that she knows a good prata place nearby. That's lunch in the bag! An otterman look-alike lurks in the background. hehehe. PS expertise courtesy of Otterman. Its too high level for me!


This taken by fellow rider Kevin when KMY made a pit stop.



Apparently, its the first time in seven years there was rain during the event. Dark clouds were already looming as we were lining up at the frontline and we made some sort of plans for lightning evacuation (conclusion - hang around someone taller than you are!!!). The rain started barely 5 minutes into flag-off and there was a torrential downpour for 10 minutes or so. A double rainbow emerged behind one of the hangars and it was a beautiful sight. No pictures of that though.. pity.

Airani and I rode 15km while Otterman and KMY did 30km. Whilst waiting for their return, we ate ice cream, watched some performances put up by the SAF music and drama company. This being multi-racial Singapore, there items in all the four major languages! English song and dance, Chinese song and dance, Indian song and dance, followed by Malay song and dance. The Chinese song was quite jarring, and I quickly abandoned the stage front to find Airani, who was looking at the Aircraft displays they put up. The highlight of the day was supposed to be the lucky draw, but none of us won anything. :/ However, we made up for that by adjourning for lunch at some coffeeshop near Lor Ah Soo and in true Zendogs style, relak-ed one corner - literally! and talked for so long that I didn't feel like riding back to the lab anymore. But rode I did, albeit very slowly. I'll be back next year!