Tampines Mountain Bike Trail

Cycling Stats

Had some free time today, decided to head over to the MTB trail over at Tampines to see what the fuss is all about. When we got there, lots of cyclist are there having bits of fun. Some on BMXes, most on MTBs, and a bunch of P.E school uniformed kids are there as well with rented bikes I’m not sure where from. Looks like we could have some fun after all.

So we started off easy, three of us, all on hardtails of various brands, and age. I got my brother to lead the way, as he is the lightest and the strongest of us, so why not? Else he’d be bored to death as I’m a lot slower than him.

U-U-D-D-L-R-L-R-A-B Select Start

The first try.

What we didn’t know that our friend did not know how to ride an MTB. My brother and I wondered why the guy is a lot slower than any of us. After we went through the jungle trail, he was extremely tired, and left us, telling us that he would wait at the car park. He pushed the bike all the way there.

Well, that’s where my brother and I started to look for a more challenging path. And apparently, there’s lots of them on the bike trail. I got my heart to throttle at Zone 4 and Zone 5 most of the time without much effort. Added to the 32C heat, we probably sweat like pigs out there.

Lots of loose gravel, and there are long climbs as well as very shot downhills, but it was worth every bit of reason why we came here, to have fun.

This is also where my Edge 705 seems to act up, lapping up to 300 times for no rhyme or reason. Firmware 2.80, still buggy. So this is where the ride was not recorded.

Bike lessons.

After the ride, we decided to take our friend out through the Tampines Park Connector to Pasir Ris beach to give him some tips on cycling the MTB. He like to use the big and heavy gear, and his mistake on the trail was to not even change gears at all as he told us that he liked to cycle on that gear so that he can ride fast. This is where we tried to get his habit of cycling this way to use the lower gear and to get to a higher and easier, faster cadence, which translate to easier sprints if he needs to, and also, faster ride.

He can now keep up with our already slow 20km/h average travel speed. He’s now a changed man . After about 10km of fun, he left us as he needs to go back home, and we decided to try out the jungle trail again, this time, at our pace.

BMX part of Tampines Trail

One more time.

When we went back in, we saw the BMX part of the trail, and decided to check it out. Two boys on their BMX, possibly aged 12, had just finished that trail, and told us that the trail is fun, and we should try it ourselves.

The boys were of course right . I think I felt like a young kid again. If you are to look at the youtube videos for this part of the trail, I think I was a lot slower, and could not jump the bike to save my life, but I tried riding as hard as I could. There are other jumps in that part of the trail, that I have no confidence going through, maybe next time.

Jungle Trail

Now it’s time to proceed to the jungle trail again, this time, at least we can set our own pace, without waiting for the friend who almost “died”.

I was quite weak this time round. My hands and shoulders started to feel the strain. I believed I was quite tired after traveling so far. Still it was fun while it lasted, and we decided to call off the ride after the jungle trail. Time to head home.

Bukit Timah Comparison?

The Bukit Timah trail is a lot more challenging than this one. Tampines trail, is a playground, in comparison. We have not explored the whole area, so it looks like we will have to come back another day and try other areas, as there’s lots to cover.

Negatives?

One thing I don’t like though, because there are people here from all kinds of backgrounds, there are some who do not know how to give way to more experience riders. We got stuck behind a few (5 or 6 of them) school girls who pushed their bike out of the jungle path exit, as they cannot ride it (1% grade, bumpy singletrack). But really, they should just carry their bikes aside, and let us move through. Other than that, we pretty much have the trail to ourselves.