An account

Here is the account of last weekend's biking trip down the Schuylkill Trail as seen from zambezi's eyes. It was pretty much the same as seen from my eyes, except our eyes were on different bicycles and his were behind Govinda shades which he had mistakenly purchased thinking they were biking goggles whereas mine were behind spectacles worn by normal people who are not Govinda.

So it happened that after an entire summer of lethargy, apple-picking and meadow-strolling, zambezi finally managed to get convinced to go biking with me. Actually, to be fair, he was the one who approached me because his wife was out of town and he wanted to deal with the loss through physical exertion. As expected, he got lost on the way from New Jersey to Pennsylvania and would have made his way to Pittsburgh if I hadn't called him up and asked him to get off the next exit on the turnpike. I was not sure if zambezi would last through the bike ride so I administered a dose of creatine to him before we started.

He did good. We did good. The weather was mild and cloudy and it had just rained before we started. We made it to Manayunk in just under an hour where we had a couple of beers at the Manayunk Brewery on the bank of the Schuylkill. And then we continued on to the Museum of Art. Because the Independence Brew Pub has closed down, to partake of our celebratory brews, we had to do a west to east traversal of the entire Center City of Philadelphia in order to reach the Triumph Brewing Company on the Delaware River side. I ordered the fish and chips which they served in a conical contraption like the one in which they serve bhelpuri on Chowpatty beach. Zambezi ordered the chicken but unfortunately it was one that had been stunted from birth. Don't order the chicken if you are there. And if you do, ask them to bring it out to you before they cook it so you can give it a complete medical checkup. I had the scotch ale after a long time, one of my favorite beers with 7% ABV.

After the food and the beer, we biked back to Market East station where we caught the train to Norristown. Zambezi stretched out on the seat and fell fast asleep. During the ride, I checked his breathing once or twice just to make sure. Back in Manayunk, zambezi had commented to me that he didn't feel fatigued at all and in most countries, that would be an acceptable testament to his awesome physical shape. And I repeat what I told him then, that it is the final two or three miles that are the hardest, when the only thing that keeps you from admitting your leg muscles into the emergency room is sheer willpower and an overwhelming fear of being ridiculed on your friend's blog.

All in all, a commendable feat (33 miles) by a first time biker such as zambezi. Since then, zambezi has been calling me up once every two days and insisting that I compile a celebratory post about our outing and his accomplishment, making his case by declaring that if he had failed in the endeavor, I would probably have started typing even before we reached home. Which is probably true but only because of our warped media culture which tends to revel more in the story of an athlete's downfall rather than his glory.