Yishun Pond and Riding Lentor Avenue Safely

When I first got my Brompton, I opted for the raw lacquer because I thought it was a really cool finish. It was like love at first ride/sight. My heart melted with the "gold" brazing. In the few months thereafter, I've met up with quite a few fellow raw lacquer Brompton riders out there.

Here we have the Raw Lacquer Bromptons assembled for a photo shot at the start point for today's NParks Northern Explorer ride which was organized in conjunction with the launch of the new Yishun Pond.

From Sembawang Park we took the PCN towards Yishun Pond, which was located directly next to Khoo Teck Puat Hospital. This is some fancy hospital. You'll be forgiven for mistaking it for some high end apartment from afar. Definitely one of the good looking hospitals around.

There was a carnival awaiting us at the pond. We had the MPs from Sembawang GRC join us and they got on their bikes as well!

Ok, they were stationary bikes and they pedaled for a good minute or so. Some water works display was supposed to happen but I didn't see anything. Maybe they did not pedal hard enough...

On the ride home from Yishun Pond, I stumbled upon this gem of a path that runs along the entire stretch of Lentor Ave.

Lentor Avenue is one of those roads in Singapore whereby most cyclists would rather avoid. Lornie Road being another. Mainly because it's quite a long stretch without traffic lights and cars tend to go a bit faster. The exits to the SLE and PIE respectively can really be daunting, even for the seasoned cyclist.

This path provides an excellent alternative and acts as safe way in and out of Yishun without having to take the road.

The pavement can be a bit narrow at times, so it might get a little tricky when an oncoming jogger/biker approaches but that's about it.

Do note that the path only runs along one side of the road (alongside the MRT track), so if you're coming from AMK, you have to cross the traffic lights (at the junction towards YCK road) and head on to the path against traffic flow.

To avoid the tricky Lentor Ave, we used to take the train to Khatib whenever we wanted to get to Yishun Dam. I think we might have just found our safe way to Yishun Dam directly.

We'll try it out some time soon.

Yishun Pond Carnival shot credited to KC