Cycling; a sport, a past time, an adventure or a way of life. There are many ways in which it can be put, but cycling simply is, what many people would call, fun. It is a joy to ride a bike, and to feel the wind rushing through your hair even if you are bald, and just getting in sync with nature. Life might have many thrills for a person, but if the person does not take a trip once in a while to a great nature spot away from all the hustle and bustle of the busy city on a cycle while appreciating the beauty in all the areas the person visits or crosses, then he is truly missing once of the essences of joy that life has to offer. Indeed, ever since the first wheel was made, getting about by manual labor, though tedious but always rewarding, has always made the day for everyone who does so.

There are literally hundreds of how to books, and believe it or not, there are a number of them for something as simple as cycling. One can browse through any small bookstore and find at least one on cycling, even though it is considered as one of the easiest sports in recorded history. People have been recorded to have said ‘I picked up a bicycle and started cycling’ just to show how easy it is. There is very little to know about how to cycle, and even getting down to the technicalities such as how a cycle is made and how to repair it is easy if a person gives it some time, though manual labor might be required. But, when it comes down to the actual cycling, it only takes a couple of tries in order to get to cycling like the pros.

There are a total of three ways in which a person is to remain healthy: Visiting the doctor, maintaining a diet or regularly exercising. Among these, the doctor option is the most expensive and can literally drain a person financially. Diet, on the other hand, can cause malnutrition and similar diseases due to not having the right diet, plus it is difficult to ask from people who cannot control themselves when they see something delicious placed in front of them. Exercise, on the other hand, is something which can be practiced everyday with diligence once a working formula is attained, such as cycling while listening to a person’s favorite songs. Cycling is one of the most rewarding sports ever, exercising the heart better than walking and without the jerks and pounds felt when jogging, though any kind of regular physical activity has been shown to reduce the risk of colon, breast, prostate and pancreatic cancers, and possibly lung and endometrial cancers too.

Cycling can be used most effectively when going from place to place for work, running errands or just for recreational purposes; thus no time has to be lost when cycling. It is also a great tool to use in order to avoid having an idle mind, which gives the person time to fall into depression, as in one place it is said ‘Cycling has a considerable relaxing effect due to its uniform, cyclic movement which stabilizes the physical and emotional functions of the body. This counteracts anxiety, depression and other psychological problems. The exercise also controls hormonal balance.’ It can be used in order to commute at any time of the year, whether a person has a driver’s license or not, and literally for peanuts as compared to other modes of transport. A variety of routes are available for use even when there are traffic jams or congestion on busy roads, which might prove even faster than cars. This, when done in urban areas, also maintains one’s humbleness as it mentally makes a person less prone to say insulting phrases and words such as ‘I am better than you’. And not only on a personal level, but even on a global level is cycling advantageous. It keeps nature green and the ozone clear as it does not emit any toxic fumes, and neither are concrete and asphalt roads a necessity for cyclists as a cycle has a different and in its own way enjoyable feel when being driven off road. Thus, in almost every way it is beneficial. On a similar note, one person also says ‘Bike commuting is a license to dress weird and still feel smug.’ while in the same article the person writes ‘Bicycling is cool. Biking Is Fun.’

Other than being very helpful for a human being, as told above, there are a few problems associated but which are still being looked into. The first problem, as exaggerated by many fear mongers, is that actually has similar risks to traveling by automobiles. This is due to the fact that, most of the times, a person is to travel on the roads and on the same roads, people who are drunk or who don’t know how to control a car when speeding are also present. Due to their carelessness, fatalities and serious injuries have occurred, but that is mostly a matter of which roads a person is driving on and at what times. Driving during the day time, and on less frequented roads as opposed to very busy motorways, it is very unlikely that a person will get hit. Plus this will help you see parts of the city or town that you have never had a chance to visit, and thus improve your geography for when it is needed.

The other problem arises from the fact that, in order to cycle for long distances, a person is supposed to sit on the seat for long periods of time. Most of the seats are ones that are triangular in shape with a nose extending outwards in order to provide a proper hold of the cycle in between the thigh region. This, however, has caused a bit of a problem when viewed among people whose professions require them to ride the machines for long distances and continuously for long hours at a time. The greatest source of discomfort is this nose pressing on nerves and soft tissues. For men, this pain brings the additional worry of impotence, which is caused by nerve and artery damage in the perennial area.

Recent studies show that three percent of regular male bicycle riders become impotent, and many of them felt pain or numbness before the problem occurred. When a nerve is pinched or the blood supply is shut off to the groin, a man feels numb. It is because pressure is continually being applied to the nerves and arteries while seated on the saddle that has a nose which pushes upwards. This can be overcome by a number of different methods, such as avoiding seats with excessive padding as the greater the padding, the deeper you sink into the saddle and the more likelihood that the soft tissue will be affected. Another is to never tilt the saddle nose upward; it should be level or angle downward slightly. One very important one is to not bend forward all the time. The lower you bend, the greater the pressure on your perineum, and also stand up after some while in order to free yourself of the monotony of continually sitting down, which helps in blood circulation as well. But the best option would be to get a saddle without a nose, in order to completely eliminate the risk as then no pressure whatsoever will be applied as there would be no nose to apply it.

According to Sandy Nesheiwat, 90 bicycling police officers from five metropolitan regions in the United States were studied for six months while using traditional saddles and then for another six months using noseless saddles. The results showed that use of the noseless saddle caused a reduced saddle contact pressure in the perineal region, resulting in a significant improvement in penile tactile sensation, and from 27%, the number of men that had not experienced genital numbness while cycling for the preceding six months rose to 82% when using no-nose saddles. It therefore resulted in significant increase in erectile function, and after the study had been completed, 97% of the officers continued to use the no-nose saddle, showing how well it actually worked.

In conclusion to the cycle’s problems, according to the British Medical Association, it has been estimated that the health benefits of cycling outweigh the risks by twenty to one.

Since the rise in number of automated vehicles, the decline in the number of people riding cycles has started, and that too in the form of a landslide. Cars, motor cycles, rickshaws and many other forms of transport, all run by mechanical engines, have made the convenience even more convenient, but at what cost? I accept the fact that a car has a lot of advantages, such as speed and comfort, and they are many times needed in order to reach from one place to another quickly in urgent situations, like in cases when reaching a hospital quickly might prove lifesaving, or when going on long distances in the throbbing heat of the monsoon season, but everything in excess is always disadvantageous. When cycles were one of the only forms of transport, almost everyone anyone knew was as fit and as healthy as could be. A hard worker as well, because cycling is a demanding sport if challenging oneself in a difficult terrain.

In developing countries, another reason is the prevailing factor that cars are preferred as compared to cycles and even motor cycles, even though the latter might be automated and much less capital consuming, though cycles are literally free when taking into account that only will power and a person’s own strength are the fuels needed. But still, when talking about any vehicles, cars are desired, and those too the more stylish and sleek looking ones that have more power and are more expensive. The reason being that the youth of many places, especially that of third world countries such as Pakistan, has had its taste aligned with those of the rich and famous they have grown up watching on their televisions and computers as portrayed by the media. This attitude through which they want to impress other people has had its toll on the very thing that used to be once a part of life; something which gave life a flare that many people now cannot attain.

Cycles, as already said, have lost their appeal with the newer generation. Its picture in the modern community is not what it used to be during our ancestors’ age. It is now seen as a fool’s game or one for those people who cannot own a car along with other such trivial images. Its beauty has been lost except for among very few people. Its advantages have already been stated, and many people even know that these advantages cannot be replicated by almost any other sport, but still they stick to cars and other automated vehicles, which has given rise to problems such as obesity and consequently heart failures as well as diabetes and a range of problems that everyone is aware of which is caused due to not exercising. But it is this image that is hurting people the most, because of which even if they want to, many of them don’t because their group of friends might form a very poor image about the person, thus creating further confidence deficiencies in the person. This can be a tool to break away from those shackles, but unless, as per Pakistani slang, a ‘dikka (forced) start’ is not provided, the herd will remain in their bound condition.

Forgetting the recent decline among the youth, it is continuously promoted by those who know of its impact on the society. Since 1868, cycling races have been held throughout the world, the first being a road cycling race near Paris. Since then, the world has picked the fever and it was naturally added to the first Olympics in 1896. Cycling competitions are regularly held throughout the world in regions and areas local to different countries, such as events in the Asian Games, Paralympics, Pan American Games, Commonwealth Games and more, but the events that all the cyclist enthusiasts, especially those who cycle for a living, are known as the Grand Tour which include the ‘Giro d’Italia’, ‘Vuelta a Espana’, and the most famous of all, which everyone wants to take part in, the ‘Tour de France’. Known to the faithful as Giro, La Vuelta and Le Tour, these are the three big events in the road calendar, with prize money reaching up to 450,000 euros or more in the Giro, as won by the 2010 winner Ivan Basso. For the winner of all the stages in the Tour de France, the person would receive 475,000 euros along with many other additional perks if not more cash, but that is reasonable for the amount of cycling that has to be done in order to attain the prize as in the Tour de France alone the cyclist has to cycle over 3500 kilometers, over 2200 miles in which stages involving only uphill battles are common place. So though rewarding the amount of sweat spent, the races are still very daunting tasks just to complete rather than trying to come first.

Rather than weightlifting, aerobics and ab crunching, aerobic exercises that help strengthen the heart are actually needed such as brisk walking, cycling, jogging, swimming, rollerblading, skating, and cross-country skiing, according to a research. Among them, the best differs from person to person as it depends on the person, which sport he or she is able to continue for many years to come. According to how much is required at least, some medical authorities recommend as little as 20 minutes a day and three times a week while others recommend 2,000 kCal, which would be at least four times that amount, according to one paper. The difference is so that the higher threshold one at least gets people to do some, as psychology reasons that if told of a certain amount, it is approached by many but actually reaching it is done by few, thus it is to push more people to do as much as they can, which is the basic idea.

One person even says, “I find that 45 minutes of cycling six days a week keeps me feeling good, but not great, two hours per day keeps me very strong and controls my weight, and six hours a day on my bicycle trips makes me feel like superman after several weeks.” and he recommends at least 45 minutes of cycling with as much extra as possible for each person, in order to gain as much benefit as possible for life.

Many powerful people of the world have also expressed their views on the matter. Some famous people, who have been recorded quoting a few sayings about cycling, are:

‘What makes a great endurance athlete is the ability to absorb potential embarrassment, and to suffer without complaint. I was discovering that if it was a matter of gritting my teeth, not caring how it looked, and outlasting everybody else, I won. It didn’t seem to matter what sport it was–in a straight-ahead, long-distant race, I could beat anybody. If it was a suffer-fest, I was good at it.’

Lance Armstrong
My Journey back to Life

‘But to say that the race is the metaphor for the life is to miss the point. The race is everything. It obliterates whatever isn’t racing. Life is the metaphor for the race.’
Donald Antrim

One of the most famous story writers, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, had this to say:

‘When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are taking.’

And even the brain of the century, Albert Einstein, on the Theory of Relativity, had this to say regarding the sport:

‘I thought of that while riding my bike.’

Thus, those who cycle also have the pleasure of being in a class of such elite people.

Finally, I have a few things that I could tell. I have been cycling from when I can remember, and about three years ago, I broke my left heel in three places and another chip fracture in my right foot. After three months of not being able to walk, I literally missed being out on the open roads, taking in the air whether it be sunrise or sunset. One doctor even said it might be a difficult thing for me to play again. Will power was one thing that kept me going, and the first day my casts were taken off, I went on a long walk but that proved a difficult thing for me as I covered a distance in an hour which otherwise always took me less than twenty minutes. I thought to myself that this was not good, and after a few days or so, I got my dusty cycle, got it ready for a run after a few years of it catching rust, and went on my first trip on it through Islamabad. Though I wasn’t able to cover much, slowly and gradually I got the speed and stamina that many people would like to have. My feet would hurt every now and then because of which even walking would become painful for me, but when I used to cycle, I am not lying when I say that I would not feel the pain; whether it was because I was not putting pressure on the affected area or not is a different discussion, but the fact that cycling did not let me feel any loss whatsoever and kept me going was something I will never forget. It has now been three and a half years since the day, and the pain has decreased to such an extent that I can go jogging and running for distances non-stop that even the people who have never had any bones broken say that they cannot do. From Islamabad, I have been to Rawalpindi on cycle, a trip of not more than forty kilometers to and fro, which is not that much for some but quite a bit for others, and in the near future I would like to take a trip across a country such as China, and if everything goes well, maybe even the whole world though that can wait for now. And if my conviction is not enough, there are quite a number of blogs on the net which record the exploits of people who have left their jobs and lively hood for the life of a traveling cyclist ten years running and still going strong.

In conclusion, this is a sport that everyone, young and old, should go for because they will not regret it.

Ethical decisions are made by an individual based on their society’s belief of what is right and wrong as well as their own beliefs of what is and what is not ethical. Factors influencing ethical decision making can include the society you live in, and its belief of what is and what is not ethical, as well as your personal beliefs of what is right and wrong. Other things that could be taken into account include your personality, your life experience, your religion or even the time at which you live.

There aren’t universal ethics, or some universal consciousness of what is right or wrong. People have different ideas of what is right and wrong, and different ethics. If there was a universal consciousness of what is right, there would not be discord as to what is okay and what is not okay. For example, there is no clear message on whether or not it is ethical to keep animals in cages at a zoo, with some people supporting it and saying it conserves endangered species, and others protesting it. Also, Hitler believed what he was doing was right when he ordered horrific things to be done in World War Two, such as concentration camps to get rid of Jews, who he considered an ‘inferior species’. These acts of his are now looked at with horror, and people see these acts as unethical, immoral and awful.

There could be several different ideas of ethics influencing a person’s decisions: personal ethics, the ethics of the society and culture you live in, or even of a religious group. These groups of ethics would not necessarily match up. For instance, you personally may believe it is unethical to eat meat, but your culture or society may say it is okay to do so. Personal ethics can be learned in many ways, including through direct teaching, for example a parent telling you it is wrong to hit people, or indirect teaching. Indirect teaching could be someone impressionable in your life, like a parent, constantly sharing their opinions on what is right and wrong which may cause you to have similar views. For example, if a parent believes that illegally copying DVDs is okay, you may also think it is okay, justifying it by saying that even if you hadn’t gotten it free you wouldn’t have bought it, so nobody is losing money, and that it is victimless. Someone else may look at the situation and see it as very unethical, and the wrong thing to do. Personal ethics could also be learned from life experience of an individual.  Society has a lot of influence on being able to make things conform to their standards of what is ethical. As the ethics of society changed, Cadbury had to change their chocolate to fair trade to match society’s new ethics, otherwise people would refuse to buy their products.

Whether or not a person makes ethical decisions could also be dependent upon their personality. A person who is particularly empathetic may choose to buy free range eggs, or to buy fair trade chocolate, even if it is more expensive. A person with more frugality than empathy in their personality may have a different set f priorities in mind, and could decide to buy the cheaper, non-fair trade chocolate.

What is included as an ethical decision in certain societies can change over time as well. As more information is discovered about the world and people’s perspectives to certain things change, society’s definition of what is ethical and what is unethical changes too.  What was considered ethical 100 years ago is not necessarily considered ethical now, and what is considered ethical right now may not be ethical in the future, At the moment, there is controversy about whether genetically modified food (and genetically modified people, for that matter) is ethical. It is difficult to decide what the ethical decision is because on one hand, changing genetics could prevent illness and make people become better. On the other hand, it is messing up the natural cycle and changing things from the way they were meant to be. In the future, future thought or research may be able to determine a clear-cut answer to whether it is ethical or unethical. So what could be an ethical decision in 30 years could be an unethical decision right now.

In conclusion, a person’s ethical decisions could be based on numerous factors, including the society in which they live and its ethics, their own life experiences, their personalities, what they have been taught and the time in which they live. We are not born with an innate sense of right and wrong, but rather develop one through our lifespan which then can guide us in making ethical decisions.

It’s interesting that your identity can be represented by a small piece of laminated card. My student ID was a gem when it came to cheaper movies and bus tickets, but my drivers’ license only ever stood for the fact that I could legally drive, whether the material evidence itself ever saw the light of day or not. It was like a fine pair of expensive shoes – it didn’t matter if they were ever worn, just owning them was enough. If I didn’t expose my drivers’ license on a daily basis, it didn’t matter. The fact that I had it was enough. It meant I could drive.

That was until the day I turned 18, and all of a sudden it meant so much more. I checked a dozen times that it was tucked neatly into the plastic pocket of my wallet before I entered the liquor store in pursuit of selecting a celebratory bottle of bubbles.

“Can I see some I.D?” The woman at the checkout asked in a bored voice, like the formality that came with this common situation was a chore to her.

“Sure,” I flicked open my wallet and slapped my ID onto the counter proudly. The way that she asked,’ Can I see some I.D?’ amused me. Like I really had the option to refuse.

“I guess you coloured your hair,” she glanced from the card to me and then back to the card a few times, then nodded and scanned the bottle. Now I was thinking, is she just one of those people who never pay any attention to what the date is? If that was the case, then it would be understandable that she hadn’t clicked it was my birthday. Either that, or she hadn’t checked the date at all. Maybe she checked only the year?

As I left the store, only half satisfied, I realized I knew what the answer was. The woman, in her late thirties at a guess, had analysed my ID with her authority hat on. I call it the authority hat, because it’s the same hat that the majority of school teachers and police officers wear. They look for problems. They’re so tuned in to their negative channel that they’ve already decided before they find the issue that it’s there. School teachers scrutinize a student until they find something incorrect with their school uniform. Police pull over a “teenage-looking” car and spend forever searching until they find something to fine them for.

The woman in the liquor shop was so skeptical about my innocence that she’d automatically checked to make sure I wasn’t trying to pull off somebody else’s ID. Never mind checking my actual age.

Now my age wasn’t good enough all over again. I’d spent long enough hanging out to be privileged enough to call myself an adult, and now that I’m actually legally there it’s a whole new issue. If you’re underage, then you’re underage. If you’re of age, then you’re suspected of being underage. If you are visibly of age, then where is the line where being relieved that the assistant hasn’t hassled you by asking for ID stops, and being offended that they think you look old begins?

When you are 18, you are not good enough in society’s eye to be capable of doing the same things that a thirty-year-old does. Maybe legally, but there are so many unwritten social expectations that people tiptoe around for the sake of law. Particularly empoylers. No 18-year-old employee gets treated the same as a forty-year-old. The employee wears two authority hats – not just the one that represents their power over them obviously because they are their boss; but also the hat that exists purely because of age.

The age ego works both ways: young people tend to crack jokes about older people being old, just as much as an older person uses their age to overrule. As far as appearance is concerned, turning back the clock is desired. But having the skin of a young person does not come in conjunction with having the mind of an older person.

                But does wisdom really come with age? When somebody is embarking on a long car trip, sometimes the trip is longer because of all the stops they take on the way, yes. And when they reach their destination, they may have seen more sights and learnt more than a person who just drove directly to the location. But two cars could get there at the same time and one could get there later, even if they all left home at the same time. The latest being the one with the longest journey because of all the stops they made along the way. The early two being one that made no sight-seeing stops and learnt nothing; and the other the one that made stops in towns but didn’t stop for petrol because they made sure they filled up before they left and didn’t stop for meals because they packed their own for the trip.

                Wisdom doesn’t always come with time, it comes with experience. It takes wisdom in the first place to be able to cram a whole bunch of experiences into a short amount of time, but it can be done.

                So now my age meant nothing extremely worthy, and it prompted me to wonder who else’s did either. I know a beauty therapist in her thirties who looks like the average thirty-five year old, because she has always known how to take care of herself. People are always mistaking her for younger, so just because she has been alive for fifty years, does that mean she should be thrown into the fifty-year-old category?

                It gets under my skin, to think that the majority of what makes up our day-to-day life is determined by our age only.

                On my 18th birthday I came to the conclusion that everybody else decides our age, not us. And we let them. Age is a barrier when you’re young because there are so many legal boundaries. When you grow older, however, you have the freedom to decide how old you want to be by social standards. If you have been alive for 80 years and can’t go out because you sit in you chair all day and have brittle bones, then you did that to yourself and society accepted it because of your age. If you have lived for 80 years and run a successful business to this day, then you are congratulated. Because you haven’t fallen into the pattern; the stereotype of what a person of that age is allowed to be. We have the option of choosing what age we are. How old are you? If you have been alive for forty years, that doesn’t mean you are forty years old. If you have been alive for ninety years, it doesn’t mean you have lived for ninety years, if the last ten have consisted of nothing but daytime TV and feeling sorry for yourself while you wait to die.

                The thought of a whole planet living day by day on what their age says they should do and what they should be makes me want to go around shaking people.

                My ID says I’m 18, and that will change as the clock ticks on. But man made clocks, and man made my ID. How many years I have been alive is only a fact, and that will also change with time. But age is just a state of mind and man did not make my mind. When somebody says, “act your age”, they mean it. Because that’s all it is: acting.

‘Spring Dreams’ painting by the author 

An old, unabridged dictionary points out that Middle English gives us ‘forgi fan’ as the root words for the contemporary English word, forgive. Those root words mean, literally, ‘to put away from’ or to create permanent distance from an injury or emotional pain. Distance from pain or injury was ‘hard-wired’ from our earliest, evolutionary, tribal beginnings to identify differences, to identify ‘other.’ A couple of million years ago ‘other’ meant threat to survival. Threat to survival, that atavistic, tribal, evolutionary hard-wire carries over into the present by whole peoples finding reasons to judge and, unfortunately, to despise anyone or any belief, geographical region, culture or people whose ideas and practices are different… Difference no longer necessarily equals a threat to survival.

Much of my own life was spent, albeit outside my awareness, by practicing occupational cultural mores without ever thinking about where my beliefs came from, if those beliefs were spiritually correct or what their long-term consequences would be to me. Thus, fueled by envy and anger, I burned away about three decades with nothing to show for it except a first and second mortgage, the makings of a heart attack from stress, and lots of soured residue from my resentments.

Then life itself, my own dis-ease and my own poor choices got me almost physically crippled from an auto accident and financially crippled with debt. I changed careers and three years later had to be hospitalized for alcoholism after which I had to start from the bottom to rebuild that career again. Next, I literally lost everything to a divorce…everything… and had to start from financial Absolute Zero. Finally, I had an emergency triple-bypass surgery and had to deal with permanent disability.

I know all that sounds grim but, things have worked out better than I could have ever planned myself. I’ve learned what’s important and it is tolerance and love…

I have forgiven all circumstances, people and institutions that I felt ever did me wrong. I have put away from me all resentments, anger and envy. I even enjoy the benefits of growing older because I found a deep appreciation of simple things. Here’s a poem I wrote that talks about misfortune and hope. I hope you find it moving:

Promises

     It was at the very beginning of the Autumn of my life
that I became a furnace lit by sorrow.
     Throughout the Earth’s Fall and Winter of that year
I burned the volumes of my life, page by page…
ashes and ashes…
     When fields and forests burn to cinders,
to fingers of charred sticks upright upon the ground,
new seeds wake and burst,
and then carpets of green and saplings soon cover
all that was before.
     And so I thought about today
full of gentle winds to tousle my hair
and flutter my loose garments
like a flag;
     yes, I thought;
sleeping promises lie beneath the Winter at my feet,
beneath the ashes in my heart…

February, 1997 – February, 2009