“Dreams come one size too big, so we can grow into them” is one of my firm beliefs in life.
It’s less then 16 months ago while working as a Managing Director at South East Asia’s largest bank that I started to dream about a bike lifestyle franchise concept. I knew the world has a huge amount of bike shops, but not many in Asia (and other pars of the world) truly integrate a concept across all parts of the bike lifestyle such as promoting people to ride their bike to work, provide a place to park a bike near the office, provide unique bike lifestyle concept stores in many cities, integrate a professional triathlon team with the business and being involved in social projects to provide hope and opportunity for children in Asia. As I said at the start, my dreams always come a few sizes too big.
But last weekend, I had a quiet little moment for myself along the road of Desaru in Malaysia while supporting age groupers finishing their half Ironman distance. It was a bitter sweet moment as I realized that some of those ‘way too big dreams’ were becoming some sort of reality here in front of my own eyes.
The organizers of the race, Mr. Chan and his daughter Sam from Triathlon Malaysia invite us to all the races they organize across Malaysia. And we love helping them as they are people who demonstrate so much passion for the sport of triathlon!
teamTBB and The Bike Boutique came out to support Mr. Chan’s race with a team of 10 people. We first of all brought two of our teamTBB pro athletes (Luke Dragstra and Mat O’Halloran) to provide some spice to the pro race field. Then we had one of our teamTBB coaches Scott Penny and support staff Alice McClure and AJ Anderson. Terrence, a TBB sponsored age grouper who is deaf and promotes this sport to more people with similar physical challenges came out to perform his first half Ironman distance race. Last but not least we had The Bike Boutique crew with race mechanics Jason Tan and Peng Kah Lau and our TBB promo team with Grace Tow and me. Wow, 1 year ago we supported this same race with just 3 people, no pro team, no social development riders and a lot less TBB staff.
At the race EXPO we all worked on our TBB booth that provided free bike mechanic services to all the race participants. Coaches, pro athletes and TBB staff explained to interested people about our teamTBB training camps in Thailand, about bike fitting and advised on people’s current bike set up, provided nutrition tips for the race and sold last minute products. The booth was a place where the newbie’s, pros and many in between athletes came together and where people with a passion for triathlon were connected to each other. Hmm, I started to think, this starts to look quite close to what one of my dreams I had 16 months ago… “Connecting like minded people to a healthy life style and each other”…
The race was on and with some great results all around for our team, with Luke finishing in 2nd place and Mat in 6th part of the pro race field.
In the age group results our folks dominated with 1st place for Scott in the male 40 – 49 age group, AJ finishing 1st in the male 19 – 29 category and Alice who finished women overall 1st position. Not to forget our Grace putting in a PB for her 21km run and Peng Kah having a great race.
Terrence did a great race and while being a little tired at the end of it, he finished it!! Meeting him a couple of hundred meters away from the finish on the run, to support this last stretch to the finish line is something I treasure very much.
My dream has never been to just build a big business or saving the environment or to run a team of wonderful pros. No, my dream would never be complete without the involvement of people such as Terrence a fully hearing impaired person showing so much will
Power and Passion to perform in triathlon races and overcome the challenges that life provides us. Terrence, you did a great job and you are an inspiration to me and many other people around you!
I hope teamTBB and The Bike Boutique can help many more children and kids in Asia to be able to live their dream in sports and to provide hope and opportunity to those in need.
Finishing it off with serving hundred’s of race participants with ice and sport beans to help them finish the race and their personal challenge, was again amazing. It’s a blessing to be able to see the gratitude people show for a little support while they are suffering in their own race.
Along that little road in Malaysia in the late afternoon of the 18th of August I experienced a moment of total happiness. Many little pieces of a dream started to flash by and suddenly I realized a dream, that some people told me was not realistic and way too big, was happening in front of my own eyes…
Life is beautiful!
Thank you Terrence, Scott, Alice, AJ, Grace, Jason, Peng Kah, Luke and Mat for your great support!!
PS. While the above beautiful experience was happing in Malaysia, at the other end of the world, teamTBB athletes won the IM UK (Bella), Stephen and Hillary finished 2nd in IM UK, and AJ and Nicola finished both 2nd in the Geneva International Triathlon.
Can one ask for more in one weekend? I don’t think so!
