The Cycling Escapade

Today I am not going to write about politics as the Malaysian politics really sucks and makes me puke after witnessing the crap what is happening at this moment, I am giving it a pass. I found a new passion through a good buddy of mine Yazid ( I hope he is good buddy) well we used to work for the same employee for a while until he left for a better career elsewhere, good for him. Sometime last month he enticed me with the idea of going ‘biking’ and I thought that is nothing as I have cycled during my school days so thought it should be an easy meat to bite. So I met him at his place at 7.30am and was introduced to Arthur who happens to be my colleague as well. So Yazid, his son Yusoff, Arthur and me cycled out of his house, little did I know about cycles with gears so after a few meters we came to an uphill road so using my physical strength I paddled and paddled until I lost view of the rest of them. Shamelessly I stopped and pushed my bike until I reached the top of the slope and mind you we were till cycling around the housing area and once I reached the top I sat on my bike and went downhill, boy was is it fun.
They took me to a path leading towards a hill, and we psyched ourselves and took off one by one and I was the last to go as I do not want to embarrass myself. Little did I realized that it was not an easy feat to do mountain biking, my goodness the path was a difficult with steep slopes going up hill and downhill. It was just too much for me I stopped and started pushing the bike until I reached the half way point grasping for breath. I remembered during one of my Toastmaster Speech competition I talked about physical fitness, when I first started exercising it felt like someone just poured burning charcoal into my lungs. That was exactly what I felt the first time I went up the hill, oh boy..talking about pain, my thighs practically begged me to stop, my bottoms felt numb due to the seat which was hard as rock. I remember that I stopped three times on my way to the mid way point and upon reaching the shelter I sat down grasping for air. I asked the guys if we have reached the end of the trail, they said “Yes,we did just reached half way point”. Oh my god, what did I got myself into, why did I allow Yazid to talk me into this? I must be out of my mind or was it a mid life crisis like the movie “Wild Hogs” starring Tim Allen, John Travolta, Martin Lawrence and William Macy about four middle-aged friends hitting the road to get away from their routine life!
Back to our cycling escapade, Arthur being the experienced biker amongst us was our motivator urging us on saying that the peak is around the corner so we believed him or rather allowed him to convince us that the trail is coming to an end. Little did we know that this is also his first time on this trail that we took. So we went on another round of steep path panting and puffing and as usual pushing the bike again and again whenever we ran out of steam. The most embarrassing part was that Yazid’s son who is only 14 years old had more energy than any of us and he was cooling enjoying the fast ride while his father had to contain his excitement by giving him direction to slow down. I reckon he did not want to be seen beaten by his 14 year old. Talking about parenting! Finally Arthur called it a day once he was not sure where the path would end hence we turned back, good gracious finally we were turning back! What a relief.
The ride down hill was really sheer excitement to all of us, we enjoyed the trip back as it was fast ride through the narrow winding path allowing the bikes to screech . I was holding on to my dear life yet not giving up the fast trip down hill not wanting to miss any of the fun that the other guys were enjoying. By the way most of us did with not even had biking gears; helmet, knee and elbow pad! Talking about living on the edge, we truly did live it, it was both an exhilarating and an adrenalin rush experience. Upon completing the journey, we went to a food court for “Teh Tarik” and “Roti Canai” to reward our achievement for the day. We parted after breakfast promising to meet the following Saturday for another trip to punish both our body and mind!
When I reached home every inch of my body ached as I laid my battered body on the bamboo mat moaning and groaning complaining to my better half! I looked up at the spinning fan recapturing the moments with smile on my face! Looking forward to our next ride.