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.