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A group of cyclists in Singapore has successfully traced the meanest-looking 60km Godzilla cycling route on the face of this island.

They did so by cutting across multiple housing estates, business and shopping districts, as well as nature areas on a whirlwind ride that lasted 14 hours.

Their masterpiece was logged in the Strava app and shared by Gerald Cacas on Oct. 9, 2021.

Strava allows one's running and cycling route to be tracked using GPS and shared with others who also want to embark on the same trail.

Dino route? Nah.

According to Cacas, he and his friends wanted to embark on the existing dino-shaped route, which was previously created by other cyclists.

However, the 39-year-old cycling enthusiast and his friends thought the better of it, and decided to one-up what has been done: By drawing their own route from scratch to create something original, which turned out meaner and more impressive, which in comparison, makes the dino look derp.

Cacas told Mothership.sg: "We were supposed to do a dino-shaped route, but then I thought it's been done before, so I plotted out something that hasn't been done before."

How they did it

The cyclist said he first had to draw a dinosaur shape on the Singapore map and use that as a guide.

With the shape down pat, he had to search for the nearby roads, bridges, park connector networks, open fields, and any available area the group can traverse across as part of their route to keep the integrity of their Godzilla outline intact.

The cyclist then had to check the possible traffic volume at each turn, as the last thing they want is to hold up other road users or having to brave heavy, unpassable, or unpleasant traffic.

This was followed by simulating the trip using Google Street View to see it was actually doable.

All this while Cacas said he did the route-drawing on Google Maps.

Before embarking on the trip proper, Cacas had to calculate how long the entire journey would take, so as to plan pit stops along the way to refuel.

Working backwards, and given that the cyclists wanted to end up back at the western part of Singapore by dusk, they had to embark early on Saturday morning from Toh Tuck Avenue just so they can go back to the same area by the time the sun set.

Based on these calculations, Cacas said he decided on cycling clockwise.

This route took them north to Hillview before proceeding to Bukit Timah, and then going as far northeast as Seletar, before tracing the mouth and teeth of Godzilla in Sengkang, and then proceeding southwards towards the Central Business District, and lastly, making the final stretch back to the west side by cutting across prime real estate.

But a bit of tidying up of the image is needed.

Cacas said there was a need to turn on and off the Strava app at certain points or else the actual shape of the Godzilla would look more unwieldy.

Pandemic-induced cycling hobby

Cacas also revealed that he only started cycling in July 2020, due to Covid-19 lockdowns that shut down badminton courts.

He and his friends then decided to take up cycling as a substitute activity.

But one thing led to another and they have now embarked on a journey around the island and creating art in the process.

Cacas said: "I didn't think that after a year we'll be changing from foldies to road bikes."

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