I have left cycling around 15 years back , those days i used to cycle a lot , i miss my first bike the BSA SLR. Today i want to get back to this activity mainly for the fun of biking and keeping fit .Today biking is the trendiest thing with all the global brand being available in India. I want to try out different models before i invest on a expensive bike .Do we get these bikes on rent in Bangalore?? so that i try them out. Since i have been out of action for long time i want to be convinced that i dont have any health issue like knee pains etc before i invest.

Any suggestions….

Like many posted on your blog, I left my cycling 15 years ago. The last was on a used multigear MTB i had bought in Canada when i moved in there. I wanted to teach my daughter cycling and we had got her a quad bike a while ago, while she rode in then in our independent house terrace, the moment the side wheels came off, the bike got pushed to a corner and time ran by. I couldn’t have taken her outside as we lived on a busy street and i was not too comfortable having her learn there.

We recently moved to a apartment complex that has a huge area around. This raised my enthusiasm and i got her old bike greased and cleaned up to get started. The moment she got on it without the side wheels, she didn’t want to go nowhere and without support wheels and I went and got new support wheels added in the shop nearby. After coming back home and when she tried it, I realized that the support wheels were much lower than they should making it hard for her to peddle. That’s when the idea of getting he a new bike came in. Besides this i felt she had outgrown her bike that she got few years back, she is just about to be 8 now.

So began the search. I stay close to Metro and had a membership, i figured let me go check there. They had a few BSA bikes for her but nothing was quite in ship-shape to buy, the folks in the shop took my number and said they are expecting new stock and would call me in a week two weeks time. This was Diwali time then. My next stop was Decathlon. I went there and checked out the bikes. They had few that was of her size, but none with support wheels. I took her with me and she just wouldn’t get on them as they didn’t give her the comfort.

Finally, after few weeks of wait, i went back to Metro, didn’t know of BOTS or any other shops then and saw a tall enough bike from BSA with side wheels. As nothing else was available, i debated for a while and went ahead and bought it at ~4K. I found a local cycle shop on the way and got it overhauled and got it ready for her to ride. As support wheels were there, my kiddo was excited to try it out and she took it around the block for a few days and i saw her confidence in peddling well while holding the handle straight. One evening, we decided that we would get the side wheels removed and I promised her that she would be able to bike on her own in under a week. Hesitant she agreed to go with my plan. And it was a sunday the most shops to remove were closed. The folks from the building maintenance came handy and they helped remove the side wheels. The security office folks has a pump that was useful to inflate the tyres and so we were ready.

What followed for a structured training program, i initially tried to hold the carrier at the back while she tried to peddle and soon enough i realized that my back was going for a toss so came a brilliant idea to hold the handle bar in the middle and help her peddle. i have never taught biking to anyone before and i learnt on my dad’s old cycle eons ago just on my own. Luckily this worked like a charm.

Each day we tried to do 5 rounds around the block which is almost 5kms. There were all variants (flat, uphill, downhill). By day 3 i could let go of the handle and she started pedaling few rounds before screaming for me. and by the end of day-5 she was on her own. Phew…mission accomplished.

It has been two weeks since that and she has been doing great completely on her own. I run behind her just to be sure she is okay, but she does not need me for anything but to carry her water bottle. i also had her do some circles in the garage area so she gets more confidence and that she is doing quite well. This is when i started to feel that may be i should get myself a bike so we could go biking together.

I like adventure stuff like hiking and all and am into it well enough, but biking is something, i have not been keen on. My work place is 30 kms away (one way) and with the allergies i have got i am not sure i could get to use bike to go to work. more over i am not confident as yet that i could. I think i am relatively fit, but my regular swimming habit has come to a stand still after moving to the apartment. Though there is a private pool nearby, its seldom clean and there is less motivation to go there. Having gotten into hiking a bit and getting to the everest base camp early this year, i have more plan in the coming summer and i feel i am not getting my body to stay fit.

So, like most who wrote, i started looking for bikes, thought MTB could be a better start, also felt perhaps getting a used bike is better and kind of made my mind to spend 8-9K to get a decent used one. Logged on to Quikr and all to see if i could find a good one, no luck there yet. I already have too many vehicles in the house, with 2 cars and 2 bikes, trying to invest into something on a bike that too like 15-20K will surely come under budget review in the house and will get shot down as I myself am not sure that i would be able to go biking such long distance. I hope i do, but its too early to say.

Also, some folks said firefox is not great it rusts, you should get a trek or a cannondale or something like schwinn. These are all new names to me and a quick check of BOTS website tells me that the price of a bike starts of 25K. I am not sure i am there yet to go make such an big spend on it.

I like someone’s idea to rent bikes over weekends and try it out, which i will do. I wonder what your thoughts are on a used bike, still in good shape and maintained well, how hard are they to find around here in bangalore.

I would appreciate some thoughts on this from you and folks who are reading this.

1. Between the bike that you bought and Trek, which was more comfortable? Had you chosen over Trek just because of the price difference?
2. Does Dcathalon store also sell Trek?

Thanks in advance

Regards
Krishna

@Aditi: BTwin is good brand too. You too can have a trial run in Decathlon located at Sarjapur Road.

@Namit: nice blog and good to share your experience cause it really helps a lot others to take one step forward to buy the cycle

Met this guy at this restaurant yesterday who came in a Btwin cycle(never heard of it before that , Hero and BSA is all that I knew about)
Had a long conversation about his bike and why he chose this new brand.
I was thinking of dropping by to BOTS that you have mentioned at jayanagar. But it looks like BOTS has only firefox there?
The guy I met yest told me that Btwin makes better cycles that firefox. Correct me if I am wrong here.

I am currently in a rush to search for a good cycle.