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5 Random Things I Did This Weekend in Singapore

Phew – it’s been a whirlwind last 10 days! Flying to Australia for the Tour Down Under (with more posts to come, especially some cool behind the scenes bits on tech), and then now just getting back home this morning. However, rather than just fly straight back we made a weekend stopover in Singapore, our connection point. Singapore is one of our favorite cities on earth for the variety (and price) of food. Plus, the weather would actually be nice and warm. Here’s what we were up to!

1) Leaving Australia and the TDU

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After a week in Australia it was time to say goodbye. While the Tour Down under wouldn’t finish for another few days, from the perspective of the tech bits I cover, it had run its course. Plus, we had dumplings to eat.

The flight from Adelaide to Singapore is a touch over 6 hours, with ours leaving mid-morning and arriving mid-afternoon with the time zone change. Of course, the bigger trick isn’t the flight but packing up all the cycling and tech gear that was spewed across the Airbnb that we shared with GPLama and crew. Figuring out whose GoPro was whose, and making sure all the cables (and diapers) were with their proper owners.

After dropping off the rental car at the airport, I noticed the Adelaide airport even has a bike repair station in the parking garage – right next to a bike storage spot. Nice!

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As for Lama, we’ll catch back up again at the Sea Otter bike show in April, where I suspect we’ll see some good cycling announcements this year. Plus, of course, suckering in DesFit too for that!

2) Dim Sum and More Dim Sum

As always, Singapore Airlines was quick and efficient with luggage delivery, and barely an hour after landing we were already at our hotel in town. That meant only one thing: Time to start eating.

Though, it was a bit early for that. I mean, early to go get Dim Sum for proper dinner. So I spent a bit of time at the hotel gym working through the details of the new running and heart rate broadcasting over Bluetooth Smart metrics for the Garmin FR245/945, while P3 got a nap. P1 and P2 stayed at home for this trip, spending time with the grandparents.

Then…then it was time for dim sum!

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We love Din Tai Fung. Sure, they’re a chain – but if you ask most people for a good warm-up option in Singapore, that’s gonna be on their list.

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And we ordered a disturbing amount of food. But it’s so good!

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Afterwards, we walked a long time around Singapore. Because, that’s what you do when you eat enough dim sum for half an airplane.

3) A Singapore Runaround

We went out Sunday morning for a nice run around the Marina Sands area of Singapore. We had P3 in the stroller rockin’ her first official run. This isn’t our usual running stroller, but rather the same double-chaired stroller that I ran the race in last year. It’s also what we tend to travel with (the BOB running stroller is just too impractical for us to travel with).

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Our route was simplistic, along the water next to Marina Bay Sands. It was quiet this morning (likely due to the Chinese New Year), and the temps were pretty decent too!

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P3 didn’t last very long. Heck, she barely made it about 60 seconds into the run before the motion put her to sleep:

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We ran down to a bridge crossing the water. Interestingly, this is the same bridge we started a running race on some 7-8 years ago during another weekend stopover in Singapore. That’s a fun race report time capsule for ya (also, we look about 15 years old then).

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Good run, nothing too long, finishing back up at the same place we started:

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Afterwards, we went to the hawker stalls for proper nutrition. I forgot to take a picture. So here’s (umm…some of) what we had the day before.

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This was actually the third time we’d gone to these hawker stalls on this trip. Yes, third. For example, we went at midnight earlier that day to get some satay:

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Which, are awesome of course. 70 cents each (or about 50 cents USD). And the peanut dipping sauce is free! So good!

4) Action Cam Testing

I was doing a bunch of testing with the Insta360 One R action cam system with the 5.3K 1” sensor. I don’t think I’ve written a post on it yet, but I did do a YouTube video on it. I was capturing some more footage across a few scenarios from sunny to night, running to pool. Got it all! You can even see the cameras sitting in the stroller:

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I also had some ND Filter stuff I was doing with the GoPro Hero 8 too, as well as some GoPro Media Mod testing. I suspect you won’t see the ND filter testing here on the site, since honestly it just doesn’t do well here. But I will likely publish the GoPro Media Mod bits, since that does tend to do better.

Here’s a quick still photo taken, hand-held, side by side between a GoPro Hero 8 Black and an Insta360 One R 1” module. I have actual video footage too, but I’m too lazy to get it all aligned at this second.

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Both above/below, the GoPro image is the one to the left. They were both taken at the exact same second, though each camera has slight delays on how quickly it processes that button press.

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Ultimately, I just got tons of comparison footage and audio across all the cameras I had. As always, it’ll take longer to sift through it all and create side by side comparisons than it will to actually shoot it. It’s one of the things I’ve tried to get better with in terms of my workflow: I take too much video comparison content sometimes that’s duplicate in nature (which just means more stuff to sift through). So I try to limit it to 1 or 2 recordings of the same scene/scenario so I don’t end up with 10 running clips in Singapore to figure out which is which. Especially when looking at the massive file sizes for 5.3K footage!

5) Back home to Amsterdam

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Finally, it was time to leave Singapore. Our flight was at 11:55PM on Sunday, and would fly for just under 14 hours non-stop to Amsterdam, ultimately landing at 6:55AM Monday morning.

We’d leave nice and toasty warm Singapore, to arrive back to 3°C Amsterdam with driving rains. Ahh yes, home.

With that – thanks for reading! Should have a good week of sports tech things coming up over the next few days across a variety of topics, not just limited to cycling this week.

Good times ahead!

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17 Comments

  1. gingerneil

    Great to see The Girl out running again… has she set any goals (other than just run++) ?

  2. CMV

    How was the A350?

    • Nice. I’ve flown on it before, but it’s nice and quiet.

      Ultimately, like most airplanes it really comes down to the interiors the airlines themselves put in.

  3. Andrea Bruhin

    Also: great trail running at MacRitchie Reservoir or in East Coast Park (special separate cycling and walking paths).
    Cycling as RTI (Round The Island) which is super popular and hills, hills, hills in Bintan just 1 hour away by ferry (day trip). Happy training from Singapore, Andrea

  4. Mark

    I don’t know about that bike repair stand at the airport. There’s not enough room to hang the bike up before the front wheel bashes into the bike locker, so you’re left with your bike on the ground, but usually the tools won’t reach that far down.

    If they’d removed that last bollard, the stand could have been shifted over half a meter or so and the stand would have actually been useful.

    • Yeah, it’s not perfect per se – but I think it falls into the camp of ‘if you need to fix something, then any tools you can have are better than no tools.’

  5. Reboot

    Singapore: Night Safari (zoo) and hawker Pepper Crab! (Yum!)

  6. runbaby

    Honest question: is it safe to run with a baby in that kind of stroller?

    This is not at all meant in a spirit of judgement/fake concern… I want to know because we’re having a baby soon and are keen to take them running with us as soon as possible, but I had heard that you shouldn’t take them running until they’re at least six months. I am very happy to be corrected!

    • The main thing for running with babies is neck control, and in turn, stability of the device in question. Which mostly depends on the terrain you’re running on.

      We knew the route and that it was beautiful pavement the entire way. Whereas for example if we were running at home in Amsterdam or back in Paris, I wouldn’t have – because there’s too many bumps/sidewalks/etc…

      P3 was on a bike within a week of being born (again, such is life in Amsterdam), and her next control is pretty darn good. In our case for this run we laid her down (versus sitting up – which she definitely isn’t ready to do), and also double-padded the stroller itself. So basically, it was more akin to bassinet than typical running stroller. It’s still too soon for her to have been in an upright seat for sure.

    • runbaby

      Thanks so much for explaining! We are in Belgium, with similar cobble-y issues, so it’ll probably be a while before we can get out on the streets.

    • Yeah, if you’ve got a nice clean running path without issue – then it’s possible. But if it’s lots of bumps to get there…not so much. For example, I could easily do loops around Vondelpark in Amsterdam as the pavement is super clean all the way around. But getting there is a bit more bumpy.

  7. Ken

    By Jove, you actually stopped over. Should had given us a heads up. Would had benne glad to join you and family for the quick jog and catch up

  8. Sunburn

    There’s a coastal cycle path from the barrage to the airport, which spans the entire southeast coast of singapore. A nice leisurely 25kph ride on weekdays, and there food along the way. But not on weekends, it becomes a pedestrian obstacle course!

  9. Ebenezer

    Hey Ray was that the Venu you had on your wrist for the run?

  10. Thomas

    OMG…CUTE BABY TOES!!!!!! I miss those days.

  11. George

    My wife and I were in Singapore for the first time over new year’s.
    I’ve recognized Ding Tai Fung immediately from the girl’s photo on the newsletter with the characteristic round wooden trays carrying all sorts of goodness! ?
    And as you wrote, we were also tipped to go there by friends who live there.