Friday. 25th April 2014. The day it all started!
So there I was, sitting in my car, stuck in a bad traffic snarl at the U turn at Mahipalpur, smoking a cigarette, listening to the RJs blabbering on the FM; and generally getting bored to death. And like always my mind was wandering and as it so happened that day I was berating myself for being fat, lazy and generally unhealthy; and not doing a damn about it!
And then it happened!
But back to that later. A brief intro first – I’m 34, 5.7 feet tall and weigh in at 81 kgs with 32 inch a waist line. I weighed 56 kgs till I was 24. Then I went to do my MBA and got used to the good life, gaining weight like there’s no tomorrow. Luckily my weight has remained within a range of 78-85, but I do not feel as healthy as I did before. Workouts have become a fad for me… they come and go from time to time. Even though I feel good when I work out lately it’s been hard for me to keep at it for long. I was an avid runner in school but lately running doesn’t excite me anymore – I find it too hard on the knees and lower back. And I can’t work out in a gym even if my life depended on it. Plus after getting home I want to spend time with my son and it’s hard doing any kind of workout while in the park with him. So overall I rarely worked out and feel really crappy about it. Buy despite all that I crave excitement. I’ve ridden to Ladakh, Bhutan and Sikkim on a RE TBTS, I love trekking and camping, and my idea of a perfect holiday is to drive to the hills without any particular destination in mind.
So anyway, here I was that fateful day… the lights changed and my car (Honda City S
AT 2012 – gives you an idea of how lazy I really am!) crawled ahead. And promptly came to halt in the jam on the other side. And then it happened! This guy on his fancy bike, dressed real funny with a backpack on the carrier simply rides past me! And he’s not really hampered by the traffic; I mean I’m sure he was, but he wasn’t stuck like I was.
I was amused. Funnily dressed guy, biking in the head, dust, smoke and traffic of Delhi on an April mid morning – what’s not to laugh at?! So that was that and I promptly went back to being bored. Luckily the traffic opened up and off I went… on the way I passed the same cycle guy who was parked on the side of the road and was fiddling with the chain. Curiosity got the better of me and I parked and went to chat him up. I really wanted to know what will make someone ride in the head, dust, smoke and traffic of Delhi on an April mid morning?
Alex was from The United Kingdom who is in Delhi on a 3 year assignment with one of the consulting firms. He lives in Vasant Vihar & works in Cyber Greens Gurgaon. He bikes to and fro work almost every day – a distance of almost 16kms one way. He does it because it helps him work out during the time he spends commuting to office, so that’s time well spent! Since we were both in a hurry we said our good byes and parted ways.
Luckily it was a slow day at work and I had a lot of time on my hands. So I started surfing the web and eventually ended up looking at articles about commuting to work on a bicycle. And what stuck me was that it’s the perfect way to utilize those hours spent driving. While that was an interesting idea, my concern was that my commute is 25 kms one way and would I be able to manage that distance, twice a day? And then I went to these fantastic threads on Team BHP (
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/shifti...icycles-thread....),
www.Bikeszone.com (
http://www.bikeszone.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=3268) and a couple of others to figure out if the commute is possible and how? Apart from getting to answers to these, what also stuck me is how supportive the bicycling frat in India is. So, I decided to buy a bike.
In hindsight, this was the easy bit. Being a noob to cycling, I had no clue what to buy. I wanted to limit myself to 10K for the bike & 5K for the accessories since I always end up overspending and wanted to keep a buffer; so went googling basis that. From all the reviews I came across the Btwin Rockrider 5.0 emerged as a clear recommendation from the majority. And so by Sunday morning (27th April) my quest changed to where to buy the cycle from. Decathlon does not have a store in Delhi so had to call up multiple dealers of which 3 said they had it. Was not inspired by the first 2 dealers who would not allow a test ride and their attitude was that I was buying their cheapest bike and it didn’t matter to them whether I bought it or not. Pretty disappointing!
On Monday, I called up The Bike Shop in Yusuf Sarai. Spoke to Gaurav who sounded very knowledgeable and took time to run me through how to buy a bike (over the phone). In fact when I told him I was looking to buy a RR 5.0 his first question was regarding the purpose of my buying a bike. Anyways I landed there at 4 pm where I met Vivek who was equally good. The moment I told him my eventual goal was to commute 40 kms a day he immediately recommended the Firefox Rapide 21S. Now I had read no reviews whatsoever of the Rapide 21S and had only read average reviews of Firefox so was very vary of buying this. So I tried out the RR 5.0 & 5.1, Schwinn, Montra, etc. and in the end very reluctantly got onto the FFR21S. And I fell in love with it. So that’s what I bought – the Grey and Blue colour one. Add ons – RHS RVM, Carrier, Bottle Holder, Front & Back lights. I was done in two hours and the shopping experience was incredible with Vivek taking a genuine interest in my requirements and helping with recommendations. Would highly recommend the Bike Shop to anyone who’s looking to buy a cycle in Delhi.
Day 1 - 14.45 Kms in 58 minutes. Rode in Dwarka on good roads with multiple intersections. And all I felt is a mild stiffness of the legs and a very sore backside.
Day 2 - 18.76 Kms in 1 Hour 8 minutes. Again in Dwarka. Day 3 - 11.4 kms in 41 minutes (Dwarka). Gave myself a rest today.
The bike's performing well - it is super smooth to ride, the gear shifts are smooth and easy and it's super light. However every time I go over a bump or a pothole I miss bigger tyres. But can live with that since most of the roads are good.
Am looking forward to mornings now and hopefully should attempt a ride to office and back sometime next week.
A big Thank you to all of you for the sheer wealth of information you’ve put up that motivated me & made the buying easier. Grateful!
Till later. Cheers!