Currently I am in Bintan Island, which is 55minutes by ferry from Singapore. Its a beautiful resort island where the 2010 Tour de Bintan is being held. The weather here is very hot and humid, very different to rapidly cooling Hangzhou (it was only 14 degrees Celsius yesterday!). The racing looks to be tough with stage one tomorrow covering 156kms and 1,700m of elevation gain. There is no real climbing involved, just lots of short lumpy hills. It is a very solid circuit and I predict a time anywhere between 4.5 and 5hrs for the category one race (which I am racing). This morning I went out for 40km to check out parts of the race course and to gauge how I will feel. The hot weather has impacted noticeably on my heart rates, in some of my sprints I hit a max of 189bpm!

As you can see from the above picture, it looks very tranquil and relaxing; something that I will be looking forward to after an action packed tough 156kms in the heat and wind.  Check on cyclingnewsasia.com for the daily race up-dates and also to this website for my own perspective on the racing.