We have been in Singapore for several days now, and we are getting accustomed to the warm weather. Yesterday, we had a nice visit with Chris – a local Singaporean and a cycle touring enthusiast. We first heard about him from his journals at Crazy Guy on a Bike. We contacted him and he was more than happy to give us a briefing on biking in Malaysia, Thailand, and Laos. Thanks Chris!
Today we decided to get up early (to prove it was possible) and go for a bike ride. Chris recommended riding out to Changi Village, where the ferry for Pengerang in south-east Malaysia departs.
Singapore has a bunch of great recreational pathways, and the East Coast Park is especially good, with wide-dedicated bike/roller blade lanes. The majority of our ride out to the ferry dock was through the park and along a couple of connector paths. This was a nice ride on a weekday, but may be a little crowded on a weekend. We will try to get out early on Sunday to avoid most of the crowds.
Part way along the path, we met another cyclist on a recumbent, the first recumbent we’ve seen since the Rye Recumbent Gathering in New Hampshire, back in September. He was quite surprised to see us as well, since recumbents are very rare in Singapore. He was riding a KMX tadpole trike – great fun, and good on the paths, but he agreed it wasn’t a practical vehicle in traffic, since his eyes were only 80 cm or so above ground.
When we arrived in Changi Village we enjoyed an early lunch from a couple of the different vendors at the Village Market. We are definitely enjoying the cheap and tasty street food available in Singapore!
After lunch, we headed back into town. Unfortunately, we had headwinds in both directions due to a wind shift, so the ride was longer than we expected. It certainly tired us out more than we had planned – but we survived riding during the hottest part of the day. We confirmed that we need to get up and on the road early whenever possible, so that we can stop riding for the day by 2 pm.
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