I got a bicycle. Two days back after a long deliberation I finally made up my mind and got a new 26” Next Mountain bike. So my experience of buying the bike and my first ride in years ranged from bliss, nostalgia to finally as with everything nowadays some philosophical thoughts.
May 1985
My first cycle was a tri-cycle which I think I got by the time I was a year and half or so. I cycled so much that if there was a marathon for U-03 cycling I would have won hands down. It was a red colored mean machine. I don’t know if you have noticed or not (usage credited to Emani), a tri-cycle is a real dangerous toy, you turn your back on the kid and he/she is rolling down a slope at 90 km/hr (feels like). Then your tri-cycles don’t have brakes (really insulting for the 3 year olds, I am sure they can use brakes), so your legs are your breaks and every kid sooner or later figures out how to use ‘leg breaks’. But, my cycle was special, I had head and rear lights, and believe it or not it also had a horn (I am talking about 1986, these things weren’t common). The cycle didn’t come with all this; my dad put it for me. I used to stand in the front when we went on the scooter, as most of you are remembering, I had access to some cool stuff, viz the horn and the head light, so I wanted them on my cycle too. Occasionally I pissed my dad off by putting my hand into the clutch and break and getting my fingers stuck, then howl in pain, then not knowing what to do with the greased hand, rub it onto my pants and his pants, I guess to figured out the rest. So my dad got a torch bulb, powered it with a battery, stuck it to my seat using tapes and also got red LED which served as my taillight. I was a ‘cool’ kid. After my brother was born, I used to take him on rides (yeah we could fit into the single seat).
Oct 1989
Then I got Turbo Sport on my 6th birthday, complete with support wheels to help me learn to balance on two wheels. It was better than the average BSA Champ, because it had Shocks! So I started cycling with it, and even after a month was still cycling with the support wheels. I made the mistake of cycling outside when my dad was returning from his office, it suddenly occurred to him that it’s been a month since he got me the bike and the support wheels are still on. He took it upon himself at 6 in the evening to bestow upon me the art of balancing a cycle. The expected happened, in half an hour he declared that I am in capable of learning how to cycle and that I won’t learn it in a lifetime and the end result was that he removed the support wheels and said; now you have no choice but to learn. Every day for the next week my mother used to hold the cycle and run behind me till I learnt to cycle and at the end of the week dad came and declared that if not for him I would still be using support wheels.
One of the earliest memories I have of the cycle is, with a few elder kids I went pig hunting. It involved taking stones and cycling fast to sling them at pigs (yeah we had pigs on the road). On one such attack I lost balance and as a result lost a pound of flesh… a thing my brother still reminds me of. In two years I had to share the cycle with my brother, and as there were no support wheels, I had to run behind him till he learnt to cycle. Thankfully he didn’t take a month to learn like I did !
May 1993
In 1993 I got a BSA SLR ‘Light & Sporty’ bicycle for Rs. 1200. I thought of getting a Hero Ranger, but my dad said that I won’t be able to cycle with such huge tires. I agreed. Before buying my dad took a test ride; that was the first time I had ever seen him ride a bicycle and a chuckle was imminent. I used that cycle for the next 8 years, had multiple ‘services’, couple of tire changes, numerous tube changes and a whole lot of punctures. Finally when I reached 6th Std, they (my parents) allowed me to take the cycle to school. The advantage of cycling is that you get to keep money, in case you had a flat tire. So the first day, my dad followed me on the scooter till I reached school, which he did for a couple of days till he found out I was doing good. I was given clear instructions to get down at a busy junction, which I never followed. After a few days, my brother who was walking to school, asked me to carry his bag home, the next day with the bag even he was on the carrier. Of course I used to drop him a cross or two before I reached home and we were very happy that my mom couldn’t figure it out.
May 1999
Then the glorious years of cycling came. It was as the legendry Bryan Adams Song goes, ‘back in the summer of 69’, in my case the summer of 99. I had finished my 10th and a long holiday awaited me. Mickey, Malla, Pilli, Jeevan, Bandu, Pashu and myself; sometimes joined by the girls Shruti, Minnie roamed the entire city on our cycles. Sun, wind and rain were disregarded and it was a glorious year of cycling.
My brother had got a new cycle called Photon, a very trendy bike, and throughout the school years we cycled to school every day. He never allowed me to touch it; completely forgetting the years I had shared my cycle with him. After I reached my 11th Std and after a few days of cycling I got a Hero Puck and I thought my cycling days are over. My cycle was given to the college going brother of a daily wager.
May 2002
In the first year of degree (Engineering) I had to cycle for a few months due to a stand-off I had with my dad. He asked me to give my Hero Puck to my brother and promised me to get a Motorbike. But the bike he wanted to buy and the one I wanted strangely didn’t match. So as a result – read till he agreed I cycled to college, which made me kind of cool in college. And it was my brother’s Photon as my cycle wasn’t there. He finally had to let me use it.
May 2009
Now coming to the present cycle. I was walking to office which was at a distance of 3 Miles (approx. 5 kms) and later moved to a place which was 4.5 Miles (approx. 7 kms) away. So I decided to buy a bicycle. The first stop for anyone in my position is WALMART. I went to their website, sports section in that bicycle section and finally sorted the result from low to high value. There I saw the 26” Next Mountain bike for $ 89. I made up my mind to buy it. When I conveyed my decision to GK and Dhake (guys I hang out with in Kansas), they said they too wanted to buy a cycle and that WALMART isn’t the right place, we should look at Bike America or Dick’s Sport (that’s actually the name). So all of us went, first stop Dick’s Sports, it had a wide variety of cycles and the least one cost $ 200. Dhake immediately said, yeah dude we should get it, since you are going to use it regularly, it should be a Hybrid (Road + Mountain). GK kept quite. Then second stop, Bike America where the lowest possible thing was $350. So after all the looking I went back to WALMART, got the $89 bike. We always do this, we I mean Desis. We know where we are going to buy, yeah the cheapest, but we still want to look around, just to satisfy our self that we have the best product which happens to be the “cheapest”.
I got ready for my job, formals and all and got on my bike with a helmet on my head. You guys must be scratching your head, where have I seen a similar thing, don’t think much, if you have seen the movie ‘40 year old virgin’ you have the picture in your head. So after riding for a mile or so, I realized that cycling is a ‘pain in the butt’, in my case it was literally a pain in the butt. The edges of the seat just tore into the soft tissues and it was as if I am seated on pins. Without grousing you further, let me explain my experience. I don’t understand the ‘gear’ concept on a bicycle. Mine is an 18- speed bike and I can’t figure out what gear I am on, what I need to be on, what will make the whole experience better. I had a motorbike for a long time and I have driven a car for quite some time, but I can’t figure out the gears on my bicycle. And I realized that if the slope is more than 40 degrees I can’t cycle up even if my life depended on it (lately I re-learnt that you got to stand and pedal). The worst part about growing up is, I don’t even enjoy riding down the slope any longer. All the time I keep telling myself, ‘oh shit, now while I am coming back, I need to climb this’. This spoils all the fun of just sitting on a cycle and let it roll down. When you are young (comparatively- I am not old), one doesn’t care. If it’s a slope you go down it as fast as you can. The most you will think when you are cycling up is the thought of riding down when you are heading back. Things change and so has my cycling skills. My butt doesn’t fit on the seat, I can’t figure out the gears, I don’t enjoy cycling; I can’t ride up a slope, etc. But the second day felt better and on the third day I could climb half the slope and slowly I am getting back into the groove of riding down the slope as fast as possible so that you go as far as possible without peddling.
Oct 1989
Then I got Turbo Sport on my 6th birthday, complete with support wheels to help me learn to balance on two wheels. It was better than the average BSA Champ, because it had Shocks! So I started cycling with it, and even after a month was still cycling with the support wheels. I made the mistake of cycling outside when my dad was returning from his office, it suddenly occurred to him that it’s been a month since he got me the bike and the support wheels are still on. He took it upon himself at 6 in the evening to bestow upon me the art of balancing a cycle. The expected happened, in half an hour he declared that I am in capable of learning how to cycle and that I won’t learn it in a lifetime and the end result was that he removed the support wheels and said; now you have no choice but to learn. Every day for the next week my mother used to hold the cycle and run behind me till I learnt to cycle and at the end of the week dad came and declared that if not for him I would still be using support wheels.
One of the earliest memories I have of the cycle is, with a few elder kids I went pig hunting. It involved taking stones and cycling fast to sling them at pigs (yeah we had pigs on the road). On one such attack I lost balance and as a result lost a pound of flesh… a thing my brother still reminds me of. In two years I had to share the cycle with my brother, and as there were no support wheels, I had to run behind him till he learnt to cycle. Thankfully he didn’t take a month to learn like I did !
May 1993
In 1993 I got a BSA SLR ‘Light & Sporty’ bicycle for Rs. 1200. I thought of getting a Hero Ranger, but my dad said that I won’t be able to cycle with such huge tires. I agreed. Before buying my dad took a test ride; that was the first time I had ever seen him ride a bicycle and a chuckle was imminent. I used that cycle for the next 8 years, had multiple ‘services’, couple of tire changes, numerous tube changes and a whole lot of punctures. Finally when I reached 6th Std, they (my parents) allowed me to take the cycle to school. The advantage of cycling is that you get to keep money, in case you had a flat tire. So the first day, my dad followed me on the scooter till I reached school, which he did for a couple of days till he found out I was doing good. I was given clear instructions to get down at a busy junction, which I never followed. After a few days, my brother who was walking to school, asked me to carry his bag home, the next day with the bag even he was on the carrier. Of course I used to drop him a cross or two before I reached home and we were very happy that my mom couldn’t figure it out.
May 1999
Then the glorious years of cycling came. It was as the legendry Bryan Adams Song goes, ‘back in the summer of 69’, in my case the summer of 99. I had finished my 10th and a long holiday awaited me. Mickey, Malla, Pilli, Jeevan, Bandu, Pashu and myself; sometimes joined by the girls Shruti, Minnie roamed the entire city on our cycles. Sun, wind and rain were disregarded and it was a glorious year of cycling.
My brother had got a new cycle called Photon, a very trendy bike, and throughout the school years we cycled to school every day. He never allowed me to touch it; completely forgetting the years I had shared my cycle with him. After I reached my 11th Std and after a few days of cycling I got a Hero Puck and I thought my cycling days are over. My cycle was given to the college going brother of a daily wager.
May 2002
In the first year of degree (Engineering) I had to cycle for a few months due to a stand-off I had with my dad. He asked me to give my Hero Puck to my brother and promised me to get a Motorbike. But the bike he wanted to buy and the one I wanted strangely didn’t match. So as a result – read till he agreed I cycled to college, which made me kind of cool in college. And it was my brother’s Photon as my cycle wasn’t there. He finally had to let me use it.
May 2009
Now coming to the present cycle. I was walking to office which was at a distance of 3 Miles (approx. 5 kms) and later moved to a place which was 4.5 Miles (approx. 7 kms) away. So I decided to buy a bicycle. The first stop for anyone in my position is WALMART. I went to their website, sports section in that bicycle section and finally sorted the result from low to high value. There I saw the 26” Next Mountain bike for $ 89. I made up my mind to buy it. When I conveyed my decision to GK and Dhake (guys I hang out with in Kansas), they said they too wanted to buy a cycle and that WALMART isn’t the right place, we should look at Bike America or Dick’s Sport (that’s actually the name). So all of us went, first stop Dick’s Sports, it had a wide variety of cycles and the least one cost $ 200. Dhake immediately said, yeah dude we should get it, since you are going to use it regularly, it should be a Hybrid (Road + Mountain). GK kept quite. Then second stop, Bike America where the lowest possible thing was $350. So after all the looking I went back to WALMART, got the $89 bike. We always do this, we I mean Desis. We know where we are going to buy, yeah the cheapest, but we still want to look around, just to satisfy our self that we have the best product which happens to be the “cheapest”.
I got ready for my job, formals and all and got on my bike with a helmet on my head. You guys must be scratching your head, where have I seen a similar thing, don’t think much, if you have seen the movie ‘40 year old virgin’ you have the picture in your head. So after riding for a mile or so, I realized that cycling is a ‘pain in the butt’, in my case it was literally a pain in the butt. The edges of the seat just tore into the soft tissues and it was as if I am seated on pins. Without grousing you further, let me explain my experience. I don’t understand the ‘gear’ concept on a bicycle. Mine is an 18- speed bike and I can’t figure out what gear I am on, what I need to be on, what will make the whole experience better. I had a motorbike for a long time and I have driven a car for quite some time, but I can’t figure out the gears on my bicycle. And I realized that if the slope is more than 40 degrees I can’t cycle up even if my life depended on it (lately I re-learnt that you got to stand and pedal). The worst part about growing up is, I don’t even enjoy riding down the slope any longer. All the time I keep telling myself, ‘oh shit, now while I am coming back, I need to climb this’. This spoils all the fun of just sitting on a cycle and let it roll down. When you are young (comparatively- I am not old), one doesn’t care. If it’s a slope you go down it as fast as you can. The most you will think when you are cycling up is the thought of riding down when you are heading back. Things change and so has my cycling skills. My butt doesn’t fit on the seat, I can’t figure out the gears, I don’t enjoy cycling; I can’t ride up a slope, etc. But the second day felt better and on the third day I could climb half the slope and slowly I am getting back into the groove of riding down the slope as fast as possible so that you go as far as possible without peddling.
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