The First TCSS post

I stumbled upon this two-page article in 18 December's New Paper about a sibeh garang female cyclist by the name of Dinah Chan. It was indeed confusing like hell to see her on the left and on the right, then it was mind blowing to see her TT times. The truth is, this is what siao on really means.

But why was it confusing? The name was Dinah. Sounded like a girl's name. The picture on the left of which she is in the centre looks like a man, but on the right, she looks like some really hot recreational cyclist - those you see wearing their JC's PE shirt with tag lines like "A C J C" or "Once a Saint, always a Saint" in East Coast with their girlfriends; not the type that can eat up 25km in 35:28. I asked my friends, and they said she looked like a male on the left. That added to the confusion. Whatever it is, I do wish her and her team good luck at whatever competition they attend, atta girl!

But let's not digress. We are bike commuters; we don't chiongsua, we granny gear up the sua. I can't fathom being able to do 25km in 35 minutes. If that were possible, it would be an absolute boon to the commuter. I mean, my workplace commute in a car takes around 30 minutes too, it's 25km, and my fastest time on a full-fledged hobby road bike ("hobby": i.e. it has Shimano 105, not Dura-Ace; alu, not carbon) has been 55 minutes. Sure, traffic lights might add ten minutes to it, and so does the congested streets of Tanah Merah and Kembangan.

There isn't, however, a need to rush your commute. By charging all the way to your workplace, you can be guaranteed to sweat like it just rained, ruin your work clothes (if you ride in them), require more food to replenish the burnt energy and you might be sapped of all energy. Worst of all, it might make your commute less safe, because when you want to rush, you might take the illegal liberty to beat the next red light...

As always, commute safe, commute again!

EDIT: I added a link to Mr Brown's guide to bike commuting. That guy is also damn garang, but unlike Dinah, he is a garang bike commuter. The last time I met him at some "green" event at SMU, he told me he commutes everyday on his beautiful Dahon. Check out his site, it's a good starting point on how you can zhng your bike to make it safer and more functional.