Day 1 - Perth to Singapore

Written by Stephen Hall with Brett Schniterzling & Glenn Harris

After a particular hard WAR ride a few of the Arbitrage boys (Stephen Hall, Brett Schnitzerling & Glenn Harris) gathered their things late Wednesday night and set off to the airport for the 1am flight to Singapore. Brand new vermarc cycling kits & squeaky clean EMX-3 Eddy Merckx bikes were thrown into a cardboard box and carted along for the ride also. The flight was largely uneventful and apart from the usual antics and stirring everyone was asleep before the first hand of poker.

The team arrived in Singapore airport at 6am to the normal heat and humidity of the small country. We eventually caught our bearings and shook the sleep out of eyes before escaping the airport to explore the city during our long 18 hour stop over. Most of the large shopping malls were still closed so we put some miles into our thongs and found a small restaurant to eat breakfast and waste time. An hour later we eventually wrapped things up with a ‘pick me up coffee’ and a few eggs sunny side up. My wallet took a few serious blows as I launched into some of Orchard Roads nicer fashion stores but the heat was too much in the end and we all jumped a cab to Sentosa Island to mellow out on the beach.

A large portion of the afternoon was spent on the beach laying in the sun , playing video games, looking out for the illustrious ‘lekkerding’ and eating lunch. The weather and water was a beautiful change from Perth’s most recent showers. Glenn decided it would be a great idea for me to get a photo with the thickest ugliest snake on the whole island before we left. My heart rate jumped to 240bpm in about 3 seconds but I managed to hold a straight face long enough to have a picture taken but couldn’t get the jungle beast off my shoulders faster when the ordeal was over. Although I didn’t talk to Glenn for the rest of the afternoon I managed to thank him later for helping me cross ‘hold a snake’ off my new bucket list.

Hungry as usual we caught a taxi to a well recommended outside food court known as ‘La Pa Sut’ which hosted the greatest chicken teriyaki and satay sticks within a 4000km radius. We meandered our way back to the airport and forked out 8 Singapore dollars for a shower before getting comfy in the lobby to wait for the long flight to Amsterdam leaving at 11pm. I personally hadn’t had a day off in over a month so the day off was a nice change of pace before we jump into the intense racing style of the Belgians in their infamous Kermesse races. Still a lot of travelling ahead before we get to our base camp in Dessel, including a 4-5 hour train ride through the Netherlands & parts of Belgium. Should be interesting and we’ll try not to kill each other before our next post.