After what seemed like forever, I finally booked 3 hours or
so for myself and my bike. In over a
month, the only time I spent on my saddle was a few trips to town for some
errands, which do not count as legit rides (Unless paying bills or buying small
stuff from the hardware are considered adventures).
My Fuji had been a picture of neglect. Nightly, I could almost hear it implore me “Ride
me, please! I’m useless without you.” With
so many things to do and so many concerns to think about, I couldn’t do
anything but deaden my heart and be strong.
I silently ignored it. But from
time to time, I can’t help but peek at its black body, its sheen already masked
by the dirt it had attracted from its last adventure, and the thin veil of dust
that has settled over it during the course of its stagnation. In my mind, I reassure it: Our time would come.
Finally, yesterday I found the courage to tell my wife, “Mahal,
may gagawin ako bukas.” And from the
glint in my eyes, she knew what I meant.
I woke up with a to-do checklist so I could feel that I have
done enough to deserve my date with my bike: prepare breakfast, go to the
palengke, cook lunch, check on the bees.
After I have ticked off everything, I took out my Fuji and brushed the dirt
and grime away with the help of Joy dishwashing liquid before hosing it down with
water and drying it with chamois. I let
it sit awhile before giving all the moving parts a good dose of WD40. We were ready. I had already added 29 songs to my music list
the night before so the soundtrack was simply waiting to be played as my ride
unfolded.
I was off. And the
effect of clean and lubricated chain was apparent instantly as I pedaled
with ease, or maybe I was just too giddy with excitement that my movement felt effortless. Or maybe it was Ely Buendia’s
almost lackadaisical singing style that mesmerized me into a flow.
I have planned my route – a 34 kilometer welcome-back-loop
of uphills and downhills (what do you expect, it seems there’s no kilometer of
road in Lipa that is flat and uneventful).
I was about to turn right to where the road leads to the mountains of
Malarayat when Melissa Etheridge stopped yelling at me to come to her window to
give way to a text message that says: Sir, nasa LaSalle ka ba? Baka sakali lang naman. Wala kasi si ____, kulang ng magpa-panel.
Shoot. I haven’t been
assigned to teach even a single unit the past 5 semesters, but every near-end of
the semester, I already half-expect that my teacher/friends would call on me
for panel duty, which I enjoy by the way because I get to ask and share at the
same time. But come on. On my version of the selfie?
I pointed my bike to the opposite direction. True Faith’s Medwin Marfil was crooning one of my most favorite OPM moving on songs: Park
is empty, beer’s already warm, shoppers have all gone home. Duty calls.
And I’m not even a faculty member.
I had a vision of gliding downhill at a 35-42 kph clip when
I reach the backroads of Santo Tomas with Blues Traveller asking me “Why you
wanna give me the runaround? Is it your
sure fire way to speed things up, when all it does is slooo-ooo-oow me down.
And in this vision, General Public will be mocking me –
Never you done that, yeeahh-ehhh-ohhhh – as I pedal like crazy as I try to use
the momentum created by a very steep drop, where I frantically calculated in my
head my freefall speed and the balance that I need to keep my front wheel from
skidding into a pothole just before the concrete road gives way to a steel
bridge over a densely vegetated stream below.
Every time I negotiate this part of Plaridel, it always comes with a
Hail Mary, that I may carry enough momentum (after making it safely across the
pothole and the steel bridge) to give me the needed pace to climb the cruel
uphill aftermath, and that I would not be caught behind a struggling motor
vehicle which would almost certainly force me to dismount because by then, I
had lost momentum and I would be biking on wobbly wheels if I tried to stand on
my pedals and power through the climb.
If the latter scenario happens, I would also utter a few choice
inanities because the vehicle would also have spewed exhaust all over my face.
None of that happened.
Instead I found myself biking the ramps going to the third floor of the
Noli building where my duty awaits. Normally,
I would leave my bike at the wall climbing facility that I operate. But since I had no plans of dropping by, I did
not bring the key to the gate. I can’t
leave my bike on the corridor, so I opened the door and entered the classroom
together with my steed. The students
presenting were surprised. It was their
first time to see a mountain bike parked inside a classroom.
I always thought that I can go back to the classroom by
earning my “credential” through graduate school. I never realized that I could also do it
while biking. K.D. Lang sings
Hallelujah!
No comments:
Post a Comment