Youth Olympic Games Singapore 2010
This video summarize the 2 exciting weekends for Dirtraction’s team at the Youth Olympics Games
the full coverage of mountain biking, BMX, Road time trials and mass start, in various roles.
we need a rest!
Post event : restoring the trail to its natural state
Finally, time is elongated and we got to do a proper audit on the state of trails after an event.
The Cyclone Kent Ridge MTB Race left Kent Ridge with the least amount of scars. Races in dry weather, the riding surface retains its natural look and we are happy with it.
We took the chance to take down the race tapes, rebars (threatening rebars that shouldn’t be there) along the way. The whole mess is sum up in 2 big bag loads of tapes, about 20kg of rebars and 20 sticks.
The trail looks better with the natural green silhoutte with the lines winding in and out.
Tampines MTB Park still in a state of getting towards stabilization, even after 4 years since the trail get expanded.
We see numorous flooding from earth packing in the site drainage, and some unsightly mud pool that shouldn’t be there.
Most of the eneloop mountain bike carnival race items is taken off, and we took the final pieces around the seating around off a few days ago.
Given time and resources again, with the latter more important, we should need to bridge up the various mud pool, reroute if needed to make it a fun riding experience for all rides.
Lead Runner Mountainbike Escorts for Aviva Ironman 70.3 2009
If you’ve been a regular at the Aviva Ironman 70.3 triathlon series that takes place every year at East Coast Park, no doubt you would be familiar by now with the mountainbikers that escort the top few athletes as they embark on the final, run leg of the race.
The guys clowning around while waiting L-R: Ellery, William, HM & Joshua
This year was no different and as usual Dirtraction was called upon to provide some knobby-tired support to the event. What a contrast our dirty, mud-encrusted mountainbikes were, to the sleek, carbon 2-wheeled wonders hanging from the transition racks!
More clowning around… when are the pros coming out? L-R: Kit, Su & LiYing
The mission: escort the top 3 male and female pros throughout the run leg, reporting on their position and clearing the way of errant joggers and other passers-by if necessary. Our weapons: $15 cateye bells! Well, actually while most of the other riders were content with their bells, I wanted something a little more… audible. I was lucky enough to score one of these babies as backup from HM as he would not be escorting but directing us from the transition area via radio. Boy, did I plan to use it! How often do you get to blast 115Db of pure “ZZZONK!” at people without getting dirty looks?
So the race starts, and we wait at the transition exit for the pros to start streaming out. I’m not going to pretend I know the who’s who of triathlon, so suffice to say when the first 3 dudes came bounding out, William, Ellery and Joshua duly set off ahead of each one to begin clearing the way. The top 3 female pros were quite a ways behind though, easily 10 places behind their male counterparts.
Looking for my next air horn victim while pro triathlete Andrea Hewitt (background) trails behind
Kit was assigned to Female Pro #1, Su to Female Pro #2 and lucky me got the easiest gig 
My ward was Team TBB pro Tereza Macel, while Su got New Zealand athlete Andrea Hewitt (yes, I Googled their names for this!). Within the first 10 minutes or so though, Macel closed in on Hewitt and overtook her, so now I stay behind to guard the new number three, while Su took on Macel who is now the number two. And… it stayed that way pretty much for almost the entire duration of the run leg, with only a few pedestrians blocking the way a couple of times to liven things up a bit. Nothing the ol’ air horn can’t handle, though – 115Db of sonic mayhem coming your way baby!
Just some usual post-race hanging about and smiling for pictures… L-R: HM, Su & Kit
However, things started to get interesting in the final few KMs. As we passed by the start/finish arch for the last time, going for the final u-turn, I realized Macel was only 20 metres away and closing. Hewitt continued closing the gap until the two athletes eventually swapped positions. Su and I traded a few remarks about getting back our former charges, excited to be up close to some good racing action. Now escorting Macel again, I slow down and ride alongside. She is visibly at her limit, exhaling really loudly and quickly and sometimes gritting her teeth. I wondered if I should offer some words of encouragement but decide against it, trying to remain as neutral as possible. She obviously didn’t have much left in her tank, as Hewitt broke away comfortably and sprinted for the finish arch in second place. I escorted Macel to the last 20 metres or so, then broke formation, coasting into the sidelines. Oh well, better luck next year huh? At least I got to use my air horn… 
Timing a couple of DH races in Malaysia
Syaiful fixing up the Eneloop MTB Carnival start arch
So after the crazy few weeks that was the Eneloop MTB Carnival (see above pic), we got a job timing the 3rd Bukit Cermin DH Challenge in Putra Heights, Selangor. Prior to the carnival, we were also timing another downhill race, the Mt Austin DH race organized by Team Element JB. Took quite a few pics of the carnival-like atmosphere at the race. Not a bad turnout for a first-time local race.
HM burying the cable into the race course at a critical crossing point
I see you, you see me… Tag Heuer photocell unit(foreground) and reflector(background)
HM & John at the timing booth
The AG Suspension tent at the Mt Austin JB Race
Morewood Makulu – at the time the photo was taken, I don’t think Nathan Rennie even got his yet!
Morewood Mbuzi – AM bike set up as a mini DH bike
Another team tent with their bling bikes on display
Young ‘uns from Singapore lounging at the KSH tent
Team Rich – they’re not poor!
Finish area turned into a carnival-like atmosphere
Lelong, lelong! Specialized Demo up for grabs!
All eyes were glued to this screen during the race run
Broken arms can wait. Results are more important…
So anyway, me, HM & Su made the trip up to KL, or PJ rather for the Bukit Cermin race. I went a few days early to recce the race course, and procure a rather big spool of 1000m of 2-core data cable for our Tag Heuer timing system. (The last time we tried bringing in a large amount of cable into Malaysia for the JB race, we ended up spending quite an amount of time at Customs explaining why we were trying to bring in 500m of cable.) HM followed a couple days after and Su the next day after that.
Went to the race course with HM on Saturday (official practice day) after collecting the cable from my cousin’s hardware store in Klang, where we also had a nice bak kut teh breakfast! Too bad HM got tied up almost half an hour on the phone throughout breakfast. At the race venue, HM got busy connecting the male and female “banana” plugs to the cable. We were doing it in the hot sun at first, then decided it might be a lot smarter to do it in the air conditioned comfort of my Kenari. After all, the Kenari is basically a big box on wheels. Fold down the seats and you have a nice little workshop.
This is what 500m of cable looks like as it gets unravelled
Kenari transformed into a mobile workshop
HM splicing ‘banana’ plugs to 1000m of data cable
HM’s bro, Hui Hsing (HH??) performing timekeeping duties
Too bad we were all super busy (HM’s bro and my friend Benny were also drafted to help) to take any pics of the race itself. Check out mygravity.com for race pics. For more pics from us check out the Dirt Media Showcase.
Super D – Tampines
Super D, the all mountain fun filled race get featured for the first time in Tampines Bike Park.
We’ve the chance to build it better and slightly more technical than what we can do in Kent Ridge some half a year ago.
The track will includes rollers, big berms (inslope turns), a slope style like 7ft tall WALL RIDE, simple drop off, DH rock garden, XC-like false flat and contour rides, and the ‘got to be skillful to ride fast’ ziggurat.
For the past 1 week, Jason, Peter and I with the help of 2 workers and occasional help from various other bikers, we managed to get half the wall ride up, 1 full berm ready, a 1 1/2ft drop off( with rollable options) and a nice long rock garden that react nicely to those well chunky suspension fork. The series of rollers is half done and should be ready by the end of the week.
We do suggest riders not to ‘test’ the wall ride at the moment as we are still securing some of the sturcture.
Rock Garden – building in progress
the Making of a Carnival
We’re just got back into Tampines Bike Park just after Christmas. With 2 months of time for trail work (Feb 14th 2009 being our internal dateline for GO!), it seems that some interesting lines can be placed into Tampines for this coming race.
First we’ve to address a few issues before building new one. The state of the trail is bad after the new contractor for this place trying to keep things sane by doing whatever without knowing what is it to manage a bike park. The wooden wonder is rotting away with various key bridges broken, the pond loop is disconnected as the new earthy plateau is place over the old BikeAsia100 race trail. Descender is a series of ruts (is a fall line truck road in the first place) and Mimosa is eating up the whole trail.
With a bit of luck and planning, National Parks committed some resources from their contractors to grass cut whatever needed so to ‘resurface’ all those hidden trails that everyone race on a good 9mths ago. Dirtraction with RMC came together with a proposal to get all these fix up before moving forward to build new trails.
With resources tight as ever and the economics timing as bad as the imploding white dwarf, support for these trail restoration effort is minimal. We’ve (Dirtraction and RMC) decided to place in our own resources, time and money to complement and get things into place before we loose all these trails to mother earth again.
The bridges is repaired, new connecting lines from the pond loop to the top of the kidney hill is made and most of the grass cutting are done within this one month.
- the wooded wonder is totally ridable now.
- pond loop is now connected to the new lower kidney climb
- kidney loop is split and reused (600metres)
- totally new upper kidney descend and contour line ride is created (approx 800m)
Jason inspecting the ‘Jungle Bridge’ and right the lower kidney climb
Bush fire in tampines, beware NO naked fire for this dry season!
Upper Kidney contour ride, a fun filled gentle section
With the addition of new these new trails in tampines, this coming Night Marathon race can be race on the ‘best of’ Tampines Bike Park.
Monster Mud Madness is probably gone and the good old finishing straight would no longer take the riders with the old Kids Singletrack taking over.
A point to note,
Upper Kidney and Lower Kidney still needed abit of surfacing work. the trail is freshly cut, ruts are big and random. we will make it a fun surface to ride on soon.
Krankin’ at Kent Ridge
The next MTB race in Singapore will be at Kent Ridge again.
mark 18 March 2007Â down as the date with us
more details can be obtained from DirTraction website.
race day – National MTB Championship 2006
Finally the race is on.
The work of the past 3 months, climaxing at the top of Car park A of Kent Ridge Park in the morning, with the first race flagging off at 8am sharp.
A secluded park it used to be, a roudy place it became.
never before we seen such a crowd on a Sunday, riders push punishing gears, spectators taking glimpse of daring downhill and gruelsome climbs, the carnival is certainly on.
some race videos
race photos
some good read
the trail get a quick fix
Is race day tomorrow.
With work still yet to be done on the ‘mud slope’ just before the 3rd bridge, the focus turn to getting it ready first thing in the morning.
With a workforce of 4 labourer, I get to have a good load of granite chips transported to the site, together with cement to secure the landing.
We gathered from previous rain that water drainage might simply be the main problem for that slope. Two drains are dug up, one at the top of the slope, and other other cutting diagnonally at the bottom face of the slope.
the top drain being a simple flat drain, get a good dose of granite chips pounded in.
the bottom drain took some extra effort to finish.
A cement log is buried in together with 3 bags of granite chips.
By mixing the granite chips with 6inches of mud available on site, and with a handful of cement powder sprinkle all around, the mixed up compound is then pounded around the curve and landing itself.
We are forced to divert the trail for the day, so to let the mixture harden up as much, gathered that 24hrs is good enough from our previous experiment on the Snake berm on Thursday.
The early afternoon is spent on getting the snake bend fix up, one of the 7 cement log is lifted so to get a smooth flow again, again handful of cement powder and clay are mixed in to harden the unbermed corners.
While this part of the course doesn’t allow any alternative rerouting, do check your tires for cement powder if you ride through them.
I guess I’ve taken most of the cement chunks during the 5 test ride I did around the new lines for the Snake slope.
I’ve been an advocate of not having cement as one of the trail maintainance/building material. But these 2 days had brought new use for this greyish powder. Water vapour and mud simply do the job naturally, creating good sticky mud-like lumps gel together and harden in the rain, instead of softening as natural mud do when water is excessive. I guess slight usage, as in handful and not spadeful, will do most of the jobs.
As far as the trail is concerned, the trail is ready to be raced on.
The race course is only complete when every section of the course is ready.
The trail is part of them, the Kent Ridge Park walking/cycling track is another, so is the granite climb.
As one of the course director for tomorrow race, the afternoon is spent fixing up tapes , evac points and course redirection.
The whole bunch of helpers for the day, Max, Ling, Alvin, Liyana, Pling, RenHao, Chi, Jaymes and companion turned a bare carpark and grass patch into a proper presentable start finish area.
workforce for trail
24 manhour – mud slope and snake slope fixes
90 manhour – race specific setting up
is a long day…
