RACING STORY: The Unseen Side of the Ride
WRITTEN BY: Kenneth TAN  
 
Every once in awhile when I met someone, all they ever talk about was how wonderful it must have been to be able to the things that I used to do........... race bicycle, go to far away land and live at length in places where names most people can't even pronounce properly, learn to speak a foreign lingo, cold country away from this heat.......... blah.......... blah.......... blah.......... I think most people know what I am trying to put across.

What they fail to see is that behind all this facade of : "WOW?!..........Pro life", there is alot of nitty gritty things to do everyday, put up with alot of time wasting antics from alot of people with parochial views on living life as a sports person. 

For example, one month before the trip I have to get a letter to buy my ticket and also arrange that all my bikes can fly with me to anywhere I need to go. To do this I have to get a letter from the National sports council to buy the ticket at a discounted prices and at the same time get the excess baggage. This usually takes a day or two.......... as when you turn up at the offices you need to visit to get these things done, most likely than not you have to wait?!

Than it is the ticket counter you have to go to actually purchase the damn ticket which is located at another part of town so you "mozy" over to that part of town only to find out that it has closed already as you took too long to get the damn letter in the first place! I swear it always happens like this!
 
Than I have to make sure I have a place to stay in the country I am going, like someone's grandmother has a room, someone has a vacant holiday apartment, friend's home or even a cheap hotel. Normally you try to not live in cheap hotel for more than a week as it will drain your cash.
Here we are talking about connections and I mean awhole lot of it too, not everyone is going to let a total stranger come into their homes so it takes a lot of convincing from your friend on your behalf or whomever you are going to live with.
And if you have to live in hotel, I usually makes friends with the boss who will let me work off some of the debts I incurred while I am staying there like extra food, drinks and even laundry or I work in a nearby bike shop to help pay for the stuff.
Not all cycling whilst I was in Europe, I had to work alittle too but I never lost the focus of why I was there in the first place and that is to race bikes and do well coz when I got home after 6-8 months time.......... I have a nation's expectation to live up to! Now this, is the hardest part of the ride !??!.
 
After all that has to be done, you drive all over town looking for carton boxes to pack your at least 1 bike 3 pairs of wheels.......... I usually look for good sturdy type from American companies as they actually put some thought to the way it is packed?!! I swear I had a carton box from Litespeed that went to 2 trips to Holland and back, that's 4 times across the continent! Sadly the bike I had didn't last as long though, on one of the trips it broke while I was racing but it still came back in the same carton box! Heh! Heh!.......... What'd I SAY!

Than you need to list down spare parts, I usually go for long periods so spares are imperative, luckily I used to race for Shimano so that was never a problem with all these stuff like chains, spokes, chain rings, cassettes and of course tyres and tubes.

Rubber were always my main concern as they cost alot on "the other side of the pond", tubes and tyres I always have an abundance of so I do not have to spend silly money on things I can get at home cheaper.......... besides I was "sponsored" by Vittoria then so what I cannot have I buy them at a special price.......... the word "sponsored " has a different meaning when you are in Singapore, nothing is free.?!?
 
After all has been done, you still have to ask around for a ride to the airport! Here we are talking about 3 boxes of bike equipment, 2 boxes of necessities and alot of cold weather cycling clothing and plain old instant noodles!.......... Not that I need to eat them, its just to remind me of home when I am there busting my chops and it helps the morale alittle when you are in a foreign land! You know what I mean.......... right? Theres no place like home. 

Once I had 45kg worth of stuff to cart over but I was never made to pay the excess as our national airline was good enough to waived it thru! I guess there IS some privilege to being a national athlete?!
 
With all these extra stuff I had to do, I still had put in a daily 2-3 hour ride and to cap it all off, when I get to my European destination, I still have to pray that my friend will turn up at the airport to pick me up or I will have to haul all my stuff all by myself!!.......... And it happened once too!
~ the end ~