That the race even took place was a minor miracle, such was the global drama concerning the coronavirus, including news reports just two days before the event that residents of Singapore, the source of the majority of the competitors, would be barred entry to Thailand. But not only did the fifth edition of the three-stage race proceed as planned from March 6-8, it was generally accepted among the participants to have met or maybe even have surpassed the high bar set in terms of organisation by the 2019 event. Click here to read the full story.
Two different approaches were used to clinch the main titles at the 2020 Cycosports Tour of Phuket and Phang Nga yesterday, as Jambaljamts Sainbayar had the support of his powerful Roojai.com team to help him win the Men’s Elite Open contest, while Chelsie Tan (BikeLabz Racing) had to do it all on her own as she defended her Women’s Elite crown with aplomb.
That the race even took place was a minor miracle, such was the global drama concerning the coronavirus, including news reports just two days before the event that residents of Singapore, the source of the majority of the competitors, would be barred entry to Thailand. But not only did the fifth edition of the three-stage race proceed as planned from March 6-8, it was generally accepted among the participants to have met or maybe even have surpassed the high bar set in terms of organisation by the 2019 event. Click here to read the full story.
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Singapore's premier off-road cycling series, the Cycosports Jungle Cross, kicked off its fifth full season yesterday at the Centaurs Sports Park and while the main headlines go to the familiar names of Riyadh Hakim Lukman (JD Development Project) and Luqmanul Hakim Othman (Team Harding) for the dominating fashion in which they won the Men's Open Mountain Biking and Cyclocross titles respectively, perhaps the most significant news coming out of the Turf City venue was the inclusion on the race card of the first-ever Jungle Cross Trail Run. Click here to read the full race report. The 2019 Singapore racing calendar came to a close yesterday with the fourth and final leg of this year’s Cycosports Jungle Cross series at the Centaurs Sports Park, and it was a real celebration of what is a vibrant local off-road scene inhabited by a diverse and inclusive community of riders. The format for the finale wasn’t the usual string of short and sharp individual cross-country races, instead Cycosports decided to put on an extravaganza of endurance and camaraderie, tasking the local mountain bikers to team up with their friends and ride round the ever-improving and ever-growing Jungle Cross trail as many times as they could within a three-and-a-half hour window. Click here to read the full race report. The second edition of the Cycosports Tour de Kepri finally got under way last Friday, and after three days of hard racing in the Indonesian island archipelago that gives the race its name, the haze-induced postponement from September was a distant memory. The stand-out performances of the weekend came from Liam Kelly (Specialized Roval Mavericks) and Andrea Trindler (Anza Cycling) who clinched the respective Men’s Open and Women’s Open titles in dominating fashion. The major consequence of the delay was that over 100 of the race’s original registrants couldn’t make the rescheduled November 1-3 dates, and so the fields for each of the categories weren’t quite as deep as they would have been on the original dates. However, a race is a race no matter how many participants there are, and just under 200 men and women still took part across the competitive and gran fondo categories in the 2019 Tour de Kepri and it was a great success. Click here to read the full race report. Despite the weather not fully cooperating, the inaugural Haute Route Qingcheng that concluded last Sunday in the mountains of Sichuan province was a big success, vindicating the decision of the Haute Route organisation to bring their prestigious brand of stage racing to China. Other countries had been considered for the first Haute Route in East Asia, but the opportunity to help develop the vast, largely untapped market for top-end cycling events in China was too big of a lure to ignore. With that decision made, the Swiss-based outfit that has transformed the amateur road racing sector since it debuted the Haute Route Alps in 2011 then had to find an ideal location, and from a large list of potential locations they settled on the city of Dujiangyan to host the October 25-27 event. It proved to be a good choice. Click here to read the full feature story. Flat Spoke Media founder and editor-at-large Alan Grant was recently invited onto the Endurance Asia Podcast to talk about some of the long-distance challenges he's taken on over the years. As its name implies, the Endurance Asia Podcast seeks to pick the brains of people with a love of endurance sports. "Endurance Asia celebrates everything about endurance sports, from Ultra Marathons to Mountaineering, from Adventure Races to Ironman. We hear from athletes, explorers and race directors from or based in the Asia-Pacific region. Hosted by endurance enthusiasts based in Singapore, we celebrate ordinary people achieving extraordinary things, going beyond the limit of what they once thought possible." Click here to listen to Alan's full chat with Endurance Asia chief Scott Pugh. The phenomenally successful global cycling series known as Haute Route is venturing into East Asia later this month with the inaugural Haute Route Qingcheng, a three-day event set in the mountains of Sichuan province in China. As well as breaking new ground in terms of geography, the October 25-27 event will be the first Haute Route event to take place on completely closed roads. The Haute Route Qingcheng delivers over 5,000 metres of climb ing over its three stages and promises to be a fascinating event offering something completely different in terms of culture and terrain from previous Haute Route challenges. Click here to read the full preview. Conditions for the third round of the 2019 Jungle Cross series at the Centaurs Sports Park in Turf City yesterday were perfect, and Singapore’s off-road cycling community produced a string of exciting contests on a race-card packed with something for everybody. Leading the way were the familiar names of Anthony Brown (Cannasia) and Bastian Dohling (Specialized Roval Mavericks), as they turned on the style to clinch the elite Men’s Cross Country MTB and Cyclocross titles respectively, while among the female racers, Tsalina Phang (Treknology3) took top honours by winning the Women's Open XCO contest in a sprint finish. Click here to read the full race report. Nuts. Crazy. Madness. Insanity. Just some of the words thrown at me after I posted a ride on Strava in the wee hours of yesterday. And I agree completely, but sometimes it just seems right to do some things, no matter how strange they might seem. The session in question was an “Everesting” on Singapore’s Mt Faber. For the uninformed, “to Everest” on a bicycle is to climb the equivalent height of the world’s highest mountain (8,848 metres) on a single hill, in one ride. No sleep is allowed, but thankfully breaks are permitted, indeed encouraged, by the keepers of the rules of Everesting, an Australian mob known as the Hell’s 500. It took me 16 hours and 51 minutes of riding to hit the target, plus about three hours of downtime to eat, charge lights and Garmins (yes, plural, it’s best to have a back up for an Everesting), apply chamois cream and contemplate the existential meaning of life. I covered 333km. Click here to read the full report. The SCF Challenge @ Sportshub returned to the criterium circuit at the Singapore national stadium on Sunday and after 25 thrilling rounds of action, Victor Michel (Specialized Roval Mavericks) and Chelsie Tan (BikeLabz) were crowned the points racing king and queen. Sunday’s superb morning of racing was the second of a new four-date series that is the SCF Challenge @ Sportshub. Run by the Singapore Cycling Federation and events kingpins Cycosports, the series is a no-frills competition put on for the local cycling community but with heavy involvement of clubs and teams within that community. The inaugural SCF Challenge @ Sportshub in June was sponsored by Anza Cycling and on Sunday for Round #2 it was the turn of the Integrated Riding club to stump up the logistical costs associated with closing a portion of the road at the national stadium. As well as earning the gratitude of Singapore’s road racers as a return on their investment, Integrated Riding got to choose the format for Sunday’s event, and they opted for a “points race”. Click here to read the full race report. |
What we doWelcome to Flat Spoke Media, which was inspired by its editor-at-large Alan Grant, a man who eats, sleeps and breathes cycling. As such our main aim is to explore and write about all things related to the pedal-powered world. Archives
March 2020
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