Tampines Bike Park

A recent visit to Tampines Bike Park had me wondering why did it take so long for me to visit that biking trail. Well, it sucks to live so far from such an awesome bike park. I live in the northern part of Singapore and it is really exhausting to cycle from where I live to Tampines. If I tried, I would be too tired even before I got off road.

How to get there:
If you search for "tampines bike park" on google maps, you will not find it. The location pins are nowhere near the place. It is along tampines ave 9, at the junction of tampines ave 7. On google maps in satellite view, you would be able to see the brown meandering trails set upon the untouched patches of green, surrounded by construction sites and HDB flats. Thats it!

When I was at the entrance, I thought it was some closed up area and I was tempted to believing that the actual trail is the small rocky part on the right on the entrance. But I was entirely wrong. I think most people would have the same thinking since the mountain biking scene in Singapore isn't really developed and no one would expect a nice gated entrance to a bike trail. Especially so when Mandai's Track 15 requires one to crawl under a gate with a keep-off sign.

Upon entering, there is a sign in/out booth which reminds me of guard duty during my army days.

What facilities are there:
Normally, bike trails have 0 amenities. You get there, you ride, you get out. But this bike park left me very surprised. There are quite a few porta toilets, a big parking area that is free and the best part is, they have a place to wash our bikes! The only place that has these 3 facilties that I know of are golf courses. These are places where people pay shit loads of money to enter, but this bike park is completely free. I have no idea who is paying for all these, but I hope it lasts!

The ride:
 If you have ridden in Pulau Ubin's Ketam Bike Park, you will be in familar grounds. There are many routes to take and they are clearly demarcated according to their difficulty levels. My friend fell at a blue square grade trail for beginners. Clearly, it is not a walk in a park.

There is also a separate area for bike trials. The route looked really awesome with all the humps and curves. Would love to ride through the course if only my front brake cable didn't went loose when I was there.

What to look for in an everyday-carry (edc) torch light?

As a battery and torchlight enthusiast, I believe that everyone should carry some sort of light with them, EVERYDAY. No, it does not need to be super bright or super chunky. Just a small reliable light that works when you need it to. I rarely get the chance to use my trusty LRI Photon III but when have to, I'm really glad that I have it with me. Two years ago, my friend and I had to walk through a short unlit underpass in Orchard area. Having my light on my keychain means that it is extremely easy to find and it allowed us to see about 1-2 metres in front of us. We couldn't see that much because we entered the underpass from inside a brightly lit building and our eyes needed time to adjust to the sudden darkness. But still, my trusty little keychain light is enough to guide us through the steps and emerge on the other side of the road. In this situation, we only needed the light for about 1 minute or so. But that 1 minute of light reduced a potentially clumsy situation into a simple stroll.

My broken at tattered blue Photon III

My dad bought this for me when he traveled to the US many years ago on a business trip and it has been on my keychain since. Fortunately or unfortunately, in Singapore, the country where I live in, blackouts are extremely rare and street lamps are virtually everywhere. But that doesn't mean that we should be complacent and not have a torch light with us! Well, if you have a smartphone, chances are, it has an LED light that works as a flash for the in-built camera and it can double up as a torch light. Given the battery that most cellphones use, the in-built LED light will probably be brighter than most keychain lights. However, turning the light on does drain the battery a lot faster than normal. So, why not bring along an EDC light?

What qualities should we look for in an EDC light? In short, I think something like Photon III makes a very good EDC light.

1) Compact and light: Being small means that it is easy to carry around and it will always be with you whenever you need it. For the smallest form factor, lights that use coin sized batteries offer the smallest package while (usually) giving decent runtime

2) Reliability: Just like an insurance policy, and EDC light is rarely used but it needs to be relied upon whenever the situation requires. Lights with low maintenance are necessary. In this case, the battery plays a very huge role since most LED torch lights do not need much care. Use only lithium batteries as they do not leak, have an extremely long shelf life of 10 years (some forumers say 20 years). Most coin sized batteries are either lithium or alkaline types (not interchangable and their sizes differ). So choose one that can accept lithium.

3) Lock out or auto-off function: A light that is moved around all the time has the possibility of having it turned on accidentally. To prevent this from happening, some brands adopt either methods to prevent the light from draining the battery accidentally.

An EDC light need not be very bright or last for many many hours on a single set of batteries. Anything with a simple 5mm nichia led will do just fine because sometimes a little light is all that is necessary to change a potentially dangerous situation into a minor inconvenience.

I hope this little write up can help you choose your EDC light  :)