The Joys of Cycling

 

I was never too keen of the cycle. Strange as it may seem, although this childhood fascination of everyone takes hours up of every child’s life didn’t get to be much of a part in mine until later in life. Truth to be told, I didn’t know to ride one; I just couldn’t balance it. And then I just let it be. I only learnt to ride the bicycle after I learnt how to ride scooter and right then, at that moment, I thought to myself: “Why didn’t I try harder and learn earlier?”

It was a new experience for me, pumping energy to push myself forward, the wind shuffling my hair, that pedaling fast for some time just to glide away smoothly, I don’t know what else can replace that experience; no, nothing else can.

So, when I was able to go a little farther (barely), my bro and I decided to go to places cycling, because why not? At the early morning hours, we both geared up and picked places that had relatively good roads to go cycling. Three places came to mind: Kirtipur, Bhaisepati and Godawari, which were quite at a distant yet close enough to explore. Since we had already been to the previous two; we decided to go for Godawari.

The early morning hours helped with the traffic, of course. We literally flew through the city roads. But Godawari was farther than it seemed especially sincere there were so much fluctuated roads that we had not accounted for. And it was so hot; cycling is a really good workout. Needless to say, the ride was long but not one that we did not enjoy. We had our eyes set on the destination: Godawari Botanical Garden.

I still remember my favorite moment from that day. At the time, the movie “Dear Zindagi” had recently been released. And there was nothing more I wanted than to go cycling amidst a road full of leafy trees on both ends and sing “Love you Zindagi” at the top of my lungs, just like in the movie. And that’s exactly what we did. We rode side by side on that road covered with trees as we neared Godawari and we sang “Love you Zindagi” all the way.

We reached our destination; it took us longer than anticipated, but we made it. But something else happened that day; something we did not see coming. We raced on the Godawari roads and I had my first fall from a bicycle. They say that you only learn to ride the bicycle when you fall once. In this case, the event took turn in a different way. And of course, that made the ride back home even more of an obstacle. But I had my bro with me.

We haven’t been to such long rides since then. Do we intend to do it again? Of course, the joys of cycling can never be replaced as mentioned earlier.

Laalee, I can’t wait to go cycling with you again, bro!