The D Word – Uncut and Untouched

Just got back from a 100km ride at Desaru, Malaysia. It was quite busy with at least three distinct groups riding: Triathlon Family, Crazy 2Tri and a rag-tag team of enthusiastic mountain-bikers and roadies.

I was reflecting on the occurrence of discipline around me today. The obvious demonstration of it was punctuality, and everyone arrived without fanfare at the immigration-counter on time. Thereupon, we briskly cleared checkpoint, and loaded our bikes on the sturdy bumboat. The human chain exercised extreme caution when loading these costly and treasured iron horses on board. No bicycles were harmed in any way during both passage of way.

My riding mates Clifford Lee and Matthew Wong took turns to be sweepers for our new riders. This required that they deliberately slow down enough to allow the struggling riders to gather enough momentum to mount a new slope ahead. The discipline in riding long is to ensure that you keep to a manageable heart rate, while attending to your nutritional needs: power-gels, power-bars, water, sports-drink. An ill-disciplined rider who tests his energy system may run into a red-flag situation whereby he will experience fatigue rapidly.

Our road discipline also included that we stayed alert to the holiday traffic. We kept close to the shoulder of the road, whilst accommodating to the urgent speeding of overtaking vehicles. It also meant that we held back our anger when an impatient motorist drove his car precariously close to us, or horned at us incessantly. Flipping the bird was an option we chose not to exercise. Staying close as a group also offered the benefit of safety in numbers. Sure, we had to be disciplined in our actions for the consequences may be ugly if we flout basic traffic rules, and basic human nature.

Just in case you are wondering, television celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay wrote a book called ‘The F Word’, which of course refers to food, and not his preference for using the commonly associated expletive.