Excruciation and Exaltation –My Good Old Cycle Days!!!

The very word ‘BICYCLE’ reminds me of my good old school days. I still remember how desperate I was for owning a cycle. Thanks to my uncle who gifted me a wonderful bicycle. Well, I guess, I was at the incipient stage of my 6^th class, when I had been gifted this. It was the very first kind of cycles having a shock absorber (A mechanical damper; which absorbs energy of sudden impulses). So you know, it was like neighbor’s envy and owner’s pride. I used to take Unreasonable and inordinate self-esteem (personified as one of the deadly sins) every moment I was on it. It was more then a girlfriend to me at least perhaps at that point of time.

 

Long years ago, when my grandfather used to cycle, cycling for workout would have been a ludicrous idea. And it was broadly or extravagantly humorous; resembling farce. It is no more as people zip around in nippy cars and vehicles and worry about ways to puncture their waist tiers.

Today for some reason I felt like taking my twelve year old gift, pump up the tires. And very few puncture shops exists now a days. And hit the pedal of exhilaration. Without the claustrophobic helmet, the chill winter air is a breath of exhilaration that cannot be imagined.

As I hit the pedals after ages, the biker habits come into play. No matter how hard I resist, the right hand tries to rev up the non existing accelerator. Then I forgot cyclists don’t have accelerator. It’s funny!

A workout has to be fun, going to office is no fun, and midway I decide to pedal to charminar, (whose name is synonymous with Hyderabad). But then due to sealed reasons I changed plan, but the U-turn is yards away. Big deal, lift up the bicycle and put it down on the other side of the divider. It looks like weight lifting but it works your biceps. Text books would suggest that cycling is exercise for calves and thighs, but in Hyderabad it is good for wrists, arms and shoulders. I couldn’t believe till the road became pathetically bad as I neared charminar. The potholes and the dug up patches on the road, sent shockwaves of energy down my hand (my shock absorbers started behaving as shock receptors) and just to keep the bicycle going straight is an exercise that will melt all the fat in the arms.

Yes, cycling made me aware that Hyderabad is in Deccan plateau as I had to keep changing the gears in the undulating landscape.

Cycling is not just exercise for the body, it is soul food as the pedaling gives u ample time to think, to look around the beautiful city, and beautiful bus stops…yaa indeed beautiful stops …lol… and size up the monuments you never knew existed. I see the lanes and by lanes near charminar which I thought never existed. But cycling or for that matter any other workout is fun as long as it is being done, the impact is fell the next day when the body recoups and all other aches, pains and the creaking bones in untraceable  places start calling for attention