What makes some of these local or global creatives tick? In this weekly column, the co-founder of Cycling Bears Tudi Guillamot shares his favourite things.
1. Shared experiences: Despite a busy professional life involving long hours and travels, I make the effort to spend time with my wife, my family and friends. We create privileged moments, share unique experiences, and build memories.
What’s important to me is to keep relationships, where we help one another, give mutual support, laugh together and also push each other to be the best versions of ourselves.
2. His Wife: My relationship with my wife is a daily journey with my best friend, my lover. It is a learning curve for both of us. We enjoy the companionship ride, and the romantic moments, we learn and grow through the shared challenges, breakdowns, and breakthroughs.
It is both humbling and exciting to see that despite the years passing, we still do not know everything, we are still discovering each other with each new experience. I live to be the best partner to Debra and hope to see her as happy as she deserves to be. I think a lot about how I can improve and deepen relationships in general.
3. Social Gatherings: While I am an extrovert, I enjoy smaller group gatherings. They allow for deeper conversations, and for us to really get to know each other better. Small group settings really allow you to catch up with a friend and set up a platform for the other person to open up.
With the stressful environment that we live in, I think it is important for all of us to help each other stay mentally healthy.
Smaller group settings also allow everyone to truly be in their own skin – you find me juggling from the most serious topic to the lamest joke or pun.
4. Language and communication: I love banter, the play of words, lame jokes and learning new languages and cultures. Wherever I live or travel, I try to learn enough to interact with and respect local customs. This allows for communication and discoveries.
5. Food: I am obsessed with food, which is both from my French upbringing and having lived in Singapore for the last 10 years, which further deepened my love for food. This can either be socially sharing a simple meal or having a full-on gastronomic experience.
My staples are bread, salted butter, granola, and pasta in a carbonara sauce. Having said that, I love variety, and everything is delicious until proven not to be. I am adventurous and have tried almost every cuisine.
I am not only keen to travel for the world’s cuisines, but I also enjoy travelling and discovering new places.
6. Travelling: I come from Brittany, the western peninsula of France. As a kid, I have been spoiled with beautiful landscapes sculpted by the elements. Yet I have a deep curiosity and always wanted to see more. As soon as I gained autonomy and could afford to travel, I wanted to see Asia with my own eyes.
I came to Singapore in 2011 for an internship and I have not left since. I had opened Pandora’s box and have been feeding my curiosity since, be it through business travels in APAC. Above all else, I enjoy letting myself be surprised by a beautiful landscape, a natural wonder that I stumble upon almost by accident.
I am not much of a city animal and prefer the wild natural sceneries.
7. Cycling: Cycling Bears would not have been named as such if not for my passion for this! I enjoy both cycling socially and participating in competitions. I also enjoy watching the international races both in person or following them on TV.
I spend a lot of my free time fixing my bike or building a new bike, which I often joke to my wife is my girlfriend. It must be my engineering background – I always find ways to improve my bike, because the better it rides, the better the ride.
8. Fixing things: Being an engineer, I find myself fixing things all the time and this goes beyond just fixing bikes. I like to know everything about any equipment I use. I always approached my surroundings that way. I like to understand how things work.
I take them apart, I fix them, I make things up when a fix is needed, even parts that are not readily available. My wife calls me the “King of Makeshift”.
Once you’re done with this story, click here to catch up with our September 2022 issue!
RELATED ARTICLES
Life, In A Slow Dive
