As might be expected in crit races, sprint finishes were the order of the day at the July edition of the URA-Car Free Sunday Criterium in downtown Singapore yesterday, with all six contests on the race card being decided by a final dash for the line. Race organisers Cycosports only started running the URA Crits in January last year, but the concept has been a huge success, with the road racing community eagerly awaiting the races, which occur roughly every second month. A big part of that success is the fact that Cycosports spreads the racing love, so to speak, by making sure that the crits aren’t just the domain of the elite cyclists. 

Access is only granted to the Cecil Street/Robinson Road circuit for 90 minutes for each edition of the URA crits, yet Cycosports manages to squeeze six separate races into that tight window, and yesterday it was the turn of the juniors, the ladies and the “old men” to hog the limelight. Click here to read the full race report.

An intensive three-week period of championship racing came to a close yesterday when the nation’s best cross country mountain bikers and cyclocross exponents hit the Centaurs Trail at Turf City for the 2018 OCBC Cycle Singapore MTB National Championships. Nearly eight hours of thrilling action culminated with Anthony Brown (Cannasia Absolute Black Racing) winning the elite Men’s Open race and Tsalina Phang (Treknology3) claiming the Women’s Open crown.

Contests to decide who would clinch the Juniors A and B, Masters, Super Masters, All Mountain and Cyclocross national title jerseys preceded the main event of the day, and there was still a big crowd present when the Open and Under 23s racers finally got their chance to strut their stuff around the sweltering Centaurs circuit about 1pm.

Click on this link to read the full race report.

​Seasoned pro Goh Choon Huat (Terengganu Cycling Team) and newcomer of sorts Ling Er Choo (TWC Racing) were crowned the king and queen of local time trialing after triumphing in the 2018 OCBC Cycle Singapore ITT National Championships at the Tanah Merah Coastal Road on Sunday.
 
Goh’s win represented a hat-trick of national champ jerseys as it added to the ITT title he won in 2016 and his road race triumph last year, but for Choo, much better known for her exploits as one of Singapore’s leading Ironman triathlon athletes, Sunday’s victory was her first national title at her first attempt.

Click on this link to read the full race report.

​"Real adventure doesn’t have to be endless travel to remote places. It can just be the local hill and an awesome attitude.”
 
​The above quote from the madcap, endurance legend Ned Phillips last week describes perfectly what happened  when my good friend Bastian Dohling and I embarked on an Everesting attempt last Friday at the unlikely location of Rifle Range Road in Singapore.

Since the concept was popularised in 2014, there have been some 2,283 successful Everestings on inclines of widely varying gradients and distances. Some do it on proper mountains in famous ranges such as the Alps, the Rockies or even the Himalayas, while others living in less vertically endowed locations make do with smaller slopes, often much smaller … like Rifle Range Road.
​
Click on this link to read the full story.

It was going to take a lot more than a bit of adverse weather to stop Singapore’s para-cyclists and their overseas guests from enjoying a rare moment in the road-racing spotlight, and so yesterday’s Singapore International Para Cycling Cup 2018 sparkled despite the persistent rain that threatened to put a dampener on the big occasion.
 
It had been 14 months since the URA-CFS Share the Road Critérium circuit in downtown Singapore had been turned over to the para-cycling community, and what a difference a little over a year made to proceedings.
Click on this link to read the full race report.

Domination was the theme at the elite end of the 2018 Bintan Triathlon Festival action last Saturday as Andy Wibowo and Jennifer Zenker put on swim-bike-run masterclasses to win the men’s and women’s Olympic Distance (OD) races in style.

It was a third Bintan Triathlon OD triumph for Indonesian superstar Wibowo adding to the titles he claimed in 2015 and 2016, and the second for Zenker, as the German successfully defended the crown she won in 2017. The calibre of Zenker’s performance on Saturday was emphasised by the fact that she was the second-fastest competitor overall, with only Wibowo posting a quicker time.

Click here to read the full race report.

Teams from the Specialized Roval Mavericks and the country of Myanmar walked away with the titles and some big cash prizes as the latest edition of the OCBC Cycle Speedway Championships thrilled the crowds during nine rounds of racing at the Singapore Sports Hub last Saturday. However, while the event was as a success, its criterium-relay format – specifically the transition zone where the team handovers took place – once again threw up some problems which saw technical time penalties rather than bike racing skill and speed decide some of the major placing.
Click on this link to read the full race report.

The TriFactor Series returned on Sunday for its 10th anniversary and kicked the special 2018 edition off with the TriFactor Bike and CycleRun Challenge in an exciting downtown Singapore location centred on the Nicoll Highway. From a race card jam-packed with events of different distances and formats, the main multisports winners were Alan Blackie (Integrated Riding) and Vicki Hill (APS) in the Long Distance CycleRun Challenge, while among the pure cyclists, it was Brian Ng (Matador Racing) and Serene Lee (Masslandster International Women’s Cycling Team) who prevailed in the 49km Bike Race.
 
Click on this link to read the full race report. Action photos courtesy of Zan Ang.

Singapore’s mountain bikers enjoyed a double dose of racing action last weekend with Dimas Pamungkas taking the main downhill honours at the Kent Ridge Carnival on Saturday, while Riyadh Hakim struck gold for two days in a row, claiming cross-country wins at both Kent Ridge and Jungle Cross II on the Sunday.
 
With its well-established Jungle Cross series, cycling events outfit Cycosports has provided Singapore’s mountain bikers with a steady stream of competitive action over the past few years, but those races at the Centaurs Trail in Turf City have been overwhelmingly geared towards the cross-country fraternity. However, that changed last Saturday when Cycosports staged the inaugural Kent Ridge Carnival, which saw downhill racing take centre stage.

Click on this link to read the full double race report.

The 2018 MetaSprint Series ended on Sunday with a hugely competitive MetaSprint Triathlon, which saw defending champion Colin O’Shea clinch the men’s title with a scintillating time of 58 minutes and 30 seconds. As fast as his performance was, though, it wasn’t enough to win the Champion of Champions crown, that honour going to Jennifer Zenker, who put in a dominating wire-to-wire performance to not only defend her women’s title but also hold off all the men for the second year in a row.
 
Now in its 11th year, the MetaSprint Series shows no sign of losing its appeal with almost 2,000 competitors and hundreds more supporters and spectators flocking to the race village yesterday on what was a beautiful Sunday morning at the East Coast Park, the traditional home of triathlon in Singapore. As well as the sprint-distance contests which give the MetaSprint Series its name, also on the program were the usual Discovery, Youth and Kids races, and new for this year the Kids Scootathlon. Click on this link to read the full race report.