I thought I never had any passion for biking except for few forgotten memories of my childhood which defies my this very notion. Rich students from my class would bike to school or at home, while I yearned for that mechanical device to rest my ass on the saddle and pedal my ways to experience mechanical advantage this device offered. My wish was fulfilled in eighth grade when dad bought me ‘Atlas’ cycle. Happy as ever I rode that cycle to school for almost two years. However, when I got into high school, I had a chance to get another racing bike with thin tyres, dropped-handlebar and a speedometer to ignite my passion for another two years. I would clock 50 kms a day on it with the maximum speed of 43 km/hour. My younger brother gave it away when I moved to Pune for higher studies.
That was 19 years ago, my latent passion had been dormant for 19 long years till one of my co-worker who’s 43 years old had clocked 160 kms a day on a mountain bike and his everyday’s stories about biking managed to tickled my dormant passion for bike. After wrestling with a thought to buy a bike for few weeks, I finally gave up and bought this mountain bike from ‘Canadian tire’ for $199.99 on sale which was usually sold at $ 499.99.
This is Kranked JS2011 model with Shimano derailleur 24 gears and front disc brake. It has very bad reviews online but served me right so far. The only downside was its banana shaped saddle which I have changed to gel saddle to save my ass from getting sored. All-in-all, I took my son along for my first ride in the city and we clocked 20.5 kms. Here’s the map below:
We started our biking from Williams parkway/Chinguacousy rd and hit Etobicoke creek trail. We rested for a while at Gage park before hitting queen st west till Creditview rd. The last couple of kms were really pain-staking as our thighs were burning with the accumulation of lactic acid in them. The highlights of this trip was my 9 years old son first major venture on the road and that’s too 20 odd kms.
My goal is to complete 80 kms in a day on Caledon trailways before this fall. Let’s see if I can do that by then. More updates on next blog.
Binzy's Promiscuous thoughts 