The Cycling Diary of The Blue Boroi : Entry 1. Day 10.

I've been cycling nearly every day for the past 10 days now. Since I noticed most fitness geeks keep a log of every freakin' thing they do, I thought what the hey, it might be of some motivation for me to keep on going.

I'm gonna keep it concise and short, relevant and insightful. Maybe some day it may spawn some other weakling such as myself to also take control of their lives and health. As the parking ticket machine in Wangsa Walk Mall always says..."Change Is Possible!"

So here goes....

Day 10 of cycling

Thigh and calf muscles don't hurt as much. Either I'm getting stronger, or the pain inflicted on my balls from my awesome professional bike seat has numbed my whole nervous system.

I feel like : Hugh Heffner

But I still look like : Paul Giamatti

End of Day 10.

The Road Less Traveled

I’ve just started cycling again. My shiny blue & white Polygon, complete with blue gloves and helmet, blue digital chronograph watch and fake Oakleys from Batu Ferringghi (blue as well) makes me look like a smurf when I roll out on my lazy Saturday morning.

Every day as I pass by my parked shiny blue bike in my front porch, it felt like it was calling out to me. “Ride me, you Viking” it would whisper. It was like an elegant wench, always in a ready and bent position. It was also my Excalibur, a weapon of mass destruction. And by mass I’m referring to the mid-section, specifically.

I even created an alter-ego of myself. The Blue Boroi. A mythical cycling God that can only be seen by the lucky few on alternate Saturdays of the month (best I can do for now). The Blue Boroi rolls out of its cave, awakened by its weeks of slumber, motivated by the nasi lemak stall by the bus stop that always ‘habis stok’ by 830am.

Geriatric joggers tremble in fear. Stray cats in danger of spitting pebbles. Wild dogs stunned into submission. A whizzing mass of blue and white may seem pretty unnerving to the neighbourhood folks of Taman Melawati.

Whilst I was childishly playing trigger finger on my gears last weekend, pretending I was Luke, on the last run deep in the steel canals of the Death Star, with R2 in the back. I chanced upon a pack of multi-colored spandex wearing, co-ed middle aged tribe of cyclists. No, not middle aged. Close to retirement. They looked amazingly bright and flashy, yet mind bending when you try to imagine all the folds of old people skin trying desperately to breathe through the scientifically designed cycle suits. They moved in unison, silent and focused. I on the other hand, was a lone and solitary bulbous blob that winces at even the slightest undulating incline on the road.

Yet they were composed. Looked fit. And oblivious that their chaotic color coding frightens little children and squirrels.

I decided to pace my attention back on my burn session, veered in the opposite direction and continued my self-torture.

After about 16 kilometres of pain (verified by Endomondo on my HTC Desire S) and crushed ball sacks, I glided to the local kedai runcit for a bottle of Tangy Tangerine 100 Plus (because I truly believe I outdid myself) I sat next to the Reverse Osmosis water dispensing machine, flanked by the kelapa parut machine, on the steps of the kedai. Time for a fag (which coincidentally is also a pack of blue Lights).

Suddenly they appeared. Like a scattered pack of Skittles, they descended upon exactly where I was, and decided to park, hang out and grab some drinks. I paid no attention to their chatter, or the fact that I had sweaty, wrinkly legs in ball-hugging spandex around me. In various shades of crazy.

Then I also noticed that at the mamak stall opposite, there were other packs of two-wheelers, equally gay in colors and shiny materials, but different age groups and demographics. There were the husbands and wives club (which I suspect is actually a swinger group by night), the yuppie brigades (since I saw their Touaregs and CRVs nearby with roof and rear rails attached. And they also called each other Bro a lot) and also the hardcore, lean machines that were obviously serious cyclists. They were all in packs, and I was all alone.

Was this a cultural phenomenon that I’ve missed out on, having just initiated into a world of cycling without knowing the do’s and dont’s of the two-wheelers’ code? Will I be a social pariah in the world of cycling, alone and amateurish? Should I step up and say hello to one of the groups and make friends? Find strength in numbers? Modify my wife’s old swim suits and fashion myself a belly hugging jersey?

And then, as I was still deep in thought, 2 little boys walked past and into the store. As they came out, they were giggling something about ‘Telur’ and ‘Geli’.

And I felt good about myself again.

And so I dedicate my unwavering insistence to ride solo for the rest of my days, in normal man sport shorts and plain ‘ol rugby jersey, to a dear friend named Robert Frost, who wrote :

Two roads diverged in a wood and I –

I took the one less travelled by.

And that has made all the difference.

Thank you Rob. Thank you.

Now, time for that ice pack. Someone down there needs some TLC.

Crux

Self realisation can be an awful thing. I stood in front of the mirror one day and took a good, long look at myself. I realised there and then that though I’ve tried every conceivable hairstyle known to Esquire magazine, the problem actually lies on my f*ckin thick, triple-chinned neck, and portly belly.

Am I merely shifting blame to another sad excuse to why I’m not as good looking as Colin Farell? Maybe, but call it what you want, it’s one of those self realisation moments that hits you and hits you hard, and forces you to accept it one way or another.

To my wife’s annoyance, this has led me to one of my man-pondering moments this whole week. There was much more to discover. I felt like putting on a single white glove and shrieking out Man In The Mirror fiercely in front of her dressing table just to keep me in the zone.

Looking through the looking glass, a world of paralleled yet opposed dimensions started opening up to my consciousness. I viciously jotted everything that popped into my head, like when Sam Witwicky started getting bizarre visions from the Allspark that was trying to communicate with him, projecting bizzare symbols only know to the Ancients of Cybertron. Or more like a blind man trying to fill out a deposit slip at Maybank.

Did I save on that 20% discount, or did I lose by spending that 80% unnecessarily?

Did all the pants makers in this world sneakily manufactured size 34 and labelled them 36?

Have all my clients banded together and adjusted their clocks 15 minutes faster?

Did they purposely make all karaoke minus one versions 2 keys higher than my kontrol macho voice?

Did the earth’s rotation slow down to stretch every second by 15 times whenever I’m in bed, leading to my mere 33% achievement rate according to a global survey?

Did I really do what I did or did the whole club hallucinate me taking off my clothes on the table at Chinois?

I took a good long look at my list. And it wasn’t a pretty sight. Summing up the answers to those questions led me to the self realisation that I was gullible, fat, always late, a bad singer, bad in bed and a lightweight at the bar.

Have I always thought that I was pleasingly analytical, with an OK bod, more or less punctual, with the voice of an angel, the stamina of Ron Jeremy and the drinking capacity of 6 vikings?

Apparently I have, and perhaps, just like all of us do, never really looked at the real crux of why our girlfriends, wives, bosses, clients, strangers at the bar - nag, bitch, complain, gossip about us whether we like it or not.

So here’s to you, MJ, cause from now on, I’m gonna turn up the collar on my favourite winter coat, and let the wind blow my mind. Cause no message, could’ve been any clearer, if I wanna make the world a better place, I’ll take a look at myself and make that change.

Shamone!