As part of the National Day effort, Active SG organised a series of sporting activities under the name of Pesta Sukan. There were many categories of sporting activities which participants can sign up for inside the Active Sg app. This year I signed up for the swimming and cycling round island adventure. For the swim, it was competitive with the usual competitions from real swim meets.
Found out about the Pesta Sukan Round island cycling and informed my chill riders namely, Jac, Yong Long, Oswald and the couple: Nigel and Katherine. All of them cycles faster than me, but they call it a “chill” affair. For last year’s activity, riders can go virtual and clock 56Km to finish the race and celebrate Singapore’s 56th birthday.
However, this year, they opted for a different format. There was a night cycling version and a day one. Night one starts from 6th Aug evening, the day one was on 7th. Participants need to clock 4 main stations across the island to get the gold medal and also receive the special edition of this year’s jersey.
Info from Website: https://circle.myactivesg.com/getactive-singapore/pesta-sukan-cycling-riba
I paid only $5 for this activity and received a water bottle and bicycle light set from the organiser. Every large check point, there are also water, isotonic, banana and bread for support. Smaller check points have water for hydration. Was quite surprised that they provided all these.
We signed up for the day adventure, and it was my first time joining a physical full cycling activity. Sounds quite exciting and fun. Was glad to have friends to do it with me.
Exact Day
The round island route
I was actually quite drunk the day I went of this. Was supposed to meet 6:45 am at Yishun Sports Centre, but starting off from my house a little late, I reached there about 10 minutes late. The sports centre is about 18Km away from my house. When I reached there, there were already many people in the queue with all different types of bicycle. There were professional road bikes, foldies, MTBs too. But the spirit of national day was heard all around with the past and present national day songs being played at the registration point.
We were given our bib and bike tag, the water bottle and bicycle lights were also given out to us. But because there were no places to put the bottle, we all decided to leave it with the registration counter.
The Route
Our Team
We did the anti clockwise direction instead because we wanted to pass by the East side first for Kath and Nigel to go off first. But the downside is we kinda miss some of the check points in that direction.
Total there are 4 main check points to go to, Yishun Sports Stadium, Pasir Ris Sports Stadium, the Kallang Stadium and finally Jurong West Stadium. 8 sub check points with only water to re fuel. The main check points have banana and bread cakes. Water and 100 plus are given out too.
Along the way I was mainly the last person, maybe its my skills I cannot seemed to go fast. It was good to ride with the group so that I would push myself a bit more.
Dropping Off
Kath and Nigel left us at the Kallang stadium to go off for another Pesta sukan running event. While me, I left the group to finish for their gold medal at Pasir Panjang. This was also the part we nearly missed a check point.
Oswald, Yong Long and Jac all finished at the start point, Yishun stadium. While for the rest of us, we finished as bronze medalists. It was a good experience as I managed to clock about 100km that day. Kindly long for me .
Well till our next adventure!