How many of you watch the TOUR DE' FRANCE every year and dream about owning one of those exhilarating trendy bicycles and going on a ride on the quite and beautiful countryside? i hope 90% of the respondents will say "yes we do". Great, because i too had the same dream in my childhood days and i still remember going on solo rides on my hercules MTB to the narrow roads connecting my village and the one next. But the beauty lay in the surroundings and not on the road, huge mountains but horizontal roads, dense forests interspersed with vast paddy fields, deserted pastures with intermittent solo thatched houses. I felt being on the perfect country side , only thing that was missing was Lance Armstrong and his horde to follow or lead. :) .
Who knew 10 years down the line I would be owning a Hercules rodeo turner that has 21 gears and double suspensions when residing at the heart of Bangalore. The desire to own such a bicycle at such a stage in life primarily bore out of boredom and secondarily because of my adventurous nature and go green attitude. The bicycle keeps me engaged on weekends for at least an hour when i go out on target 15kms rides. The maximum that I have done till date is only 12kms and fortunately that was today.The excitement to ride at top speeds of 20kms per hour on metaled roads ,that would be amongst the busiest streets of Bangalore in a couple of hours is one thing , but getting a breather from the hectic office schedules throughout the day is the only thing I can cherish. The suspensions are a delight if I suddenly run onto a pothole or a speedbreaker and the gears make every road feel the same. If someone had ridden a gearless bicycle, just recount the thought of going on an uphill ride and the effort multiples by 10 times , isn't it? But with the geared bicycles, just a change of gears and you needn't put extra efforts to climb the mountains. and the best thing is you neednot get up you saddle and put effort on the pedal to force your way through it.
The shimano gear switch looked sublime to me and effortless. Maybe the bicycle is on the heavier side and if you aspire to blast away at 60-70mph , this is not a good buy, but for weekend enthusiasts and beginners this would be a handsome thing to own. The colour is silver black and shiny.I am enthusiastic about exploring bangalore on the back of my "royal enfield", the bicycle i had always wished to own.
