The first pedal

What comes to your mind when you hear the word “bicycle”? For most, it might be easy to picture your dad giving you a push, hoping both your feet stay above the ground………cheering you on from behind as you go on your first real “drive”. For most, it might be easy to remember how it felt to be free, the realization that there is no hand guiding your path, to feel the wind in your hair…..how it all culminates in essence, to feel as close to “flight” as one can at that age.

For me, however, things were a teeny bit different. I mostly remember my dad huffing and puffing behind me, waiting to let go as I kept pleading him not to. He was always armed with Band-Aid and Dettol, ready to come to my rescue after the inevitable fall. All that medical preparation was due to the fact that it had been almost two years since my dad first started to teach me how to ride a bicycle. I realized the futility of it pretty soon and laid rest to my hopes of ever riding a bicycle without those irritating support wheels; remember them?

Atlas Cycles, a company based out of a town called Sonepat in Haryana, a few kilometres from the capital of Delhi, was one of the best known bicycle manufacturers then in India. My brother had one. If there was anything he dreaded more than the thought of bogeyman, it was that of me riding his bicycle. During the summer vacations, I used to get so bored that the idea of falling on hard concrete or asphalt seemed to be too trivial to be noticed. So, I jumped on to my brother’s Atlas and went on a “human bone Vs stone” mission. The outcome……..I learnt how to ride a bicycle………..that very day.

Of the 8 times I have broken some bone or the other in my body, it has never once been while cycling. That, however, does not mean that I never fell off one. Some of the most beautifully preserved memories I have are those of flying of my bicycle……so elaborate that I can even remember what I saw on those few seconds that I was airborne. The funniest of them was when I was riding a BSA Mongoose which had stunt pods. I was so engrossed in trying to impress my friends that I failed to notice an approximately 10 square feet hole in the ground. I landed face first with my bike on me and oh, my big ego as well.

A few years and a lot more falls later, Hero Cycles launched one of the most beautiful machines I had ever seen. It was 1999, the year when Intel Pentium-3 Processors were launched in India; those PCs sold for Rs 80,000. This machine, I would rather call it a beast, was named the “Ranger Swing”. Available in SRAM Grip-Shift and Shimano drivetrains boasting 18 gears, Shimano V-brake components and dual suspension………it was by far the coolest thing in INDIA…….yes, that’s exactly how I felt. At a price of Rs 5200, I said to myself “I have got to get me one of these”. In marketing terminology, there is something called “Pester Power” and I was somewhat of a guru in this technique by then. My dream came true……….In a weeks time, I managed to break through my parents' defences and made them yield and rode around inside my neighbourhood head held high. I can never forget the first time I heard that clicking sound made by the shifters, the feel of dual suspension and mostly, the expression on others when I creamed them in races.

An Engineering and an MBA later, I feel the same, like a kid………without any worries but what lies ahead on the road. A clear head and mind, ready to feel the wind just like I did back then, ready to drench myself in the rain like those good old days, ready to feel free, to fall only to pick myself up and start all over again……..for that is what the Mongoose Tyax Comp has afforded me. My Bicycle. Cheers