On the way back to Singapore I learnt a few interesting things…

  1. What’s the worse thing you can bring on a plane? The flu? Snakes? Diarrhoea? Nope… none of those. Correct answer is: A baby. Yes, this will enrage parents who have them, but I am fresh after watching one scream for 9.5 hours of a 10 hour flight, so the nerves are raw. Plus, look at it this way, if you have a baby, everyone should travel to YOU and not the other way around. WTF. Babies don’t want to go on tour, they want to kick it at home…
  2. If you have a baby on a plane and its screaming, shoving an iPhone in its face will not result in tranquilo, it will instead have the unintended consequence of hysteria. Don’t do that shit
  3. When you run out of all the movies on the SQ system and end up watching Cloud Atlas and some weird sci fi love story with Kirsten Dunst in it (the only reason to ever watch this movie), you get off the plane feeling just that little bit dumber

But, we have more important things to focus on today, specially the preparation for the Singapore National Road Race champs tomorrow. The date has been a moveable feast, but its all set for 140km’s of the most boring circuit ever to host a Nationals race. Yes, I need to not be a hater, but 14 laps of a 10km dead flat and dead straight hotdog circuit down Changi airport straight isn’t exactly going to cause a woody alert, but we need to make do with what we have here. This is the type of view that can be expected for tomorrow (cheap scene setting here with a very old photo):

The big Diesel doing what he does best... Squeezing the life out of little people

The big Diesel on the front doing what he does best… Squeezing the life out of little people, see dude on left

(Shep – I really hope I haven’t inadvertently stolen one of your photos here!) At least there are nice trees… But mainly I hate the Ripple strips that are painted at various points along the way. Clearly they do zero to stop fuckers speeding down here, but they do have the effect of pissing you off when you have to ride over them 14 times.

This year we have a Race Director that has a bicycle, so generously the Elite race kicks off at 7.15am as opposed to 1pm last year, which was an exercise in absolute heat exhaustion and attrition, so that is a major upside for 2013.

As a lone T Rex armed gunslinger tomorrow, I have a little bit of luxury in terms of not having to do a lot of work initially, which will be a change from last year where I was riding for Diesel. There are a few big names turning up, among them Lee Rogers, Mr Cuppens (Yeah, can’t spell his first name), Darren Low (defending champ) and of course the OCBC Pro-Conti team will be making life painful the whole day with their army of droids sent up the road every 5 minutes.

Who do I want to see win it? This guy… Introducing Boon, the crank snapping monster from down under:

"Dirty fuck making me pose with food..."

“Dirty fuck making me pose with food…”

Excellent timing to snap him posing with his victory almond croissant this morning as we discussed the race tomorrow… Badda Boon is currently based out of Melbourne where he pretending to go to University whilst pursuing the PRO dream riding for the AWS team in the NRS (ahh, Acronym heaven). He is back to claim what should rightfully be his, the National Champs jersey. Last year was a close call, so this year is hopefully the ONE!

So, I am all set… Some final tweaks with the boys this morning to make sure we were all set and a short spin to make sure there is no jet lag and its all sorted. The dumbest thing? Adding 600 grams of weights to my beautiful Black Ops Evo to get it up to minimum UCI weight limits. Fuck I hope Pat gets voted out purely on the promise by anyone new to drop that rule to at least 6.2kg’s please:

Can you fly Jimmy?

Can you fly Jimmy?

So, hopefully tomorrow I will have something decent to report on… Most likely it will include copious amounts of suffering, but no promises on the glory part. Will be having a fucking good go at it though!

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