Saturday, October 1, 2016

The Old Hero

My old Hero got a new lease of life from Someswar. It has new wheels, tyres, forks, gears, handle, brakes, seat. In fact except for the frame every thing else is new but the parts are perhaps the cheapest option available in the market. I took delivery of it in Chenku's house last night. Today I came home riding the bike. It is a full fledged MTB now.

It is rolling well. Much better than earlier. The gear has to be turned like a throttle. It is a 6x1 Shimano Tourney gear/derailleur/shifter set. Upshift is fine but down shift takes effort. I think one has to get used to it. 

Everyone is asking me why I invested money into the old bike, particularly when I had a new road bike. Well, first of all, the old bike had become unusable. It was gathering dust in the old house. When Someswar said do you want to give me a free hand to modify it into a proper MTB? I said take it and just do as you please. We put it in the car and I delivered it to his home in Shalimar. 

The other reason for making it road worthy was to have a bike that is easy to ride on the rough roads of Calcutta in a relaxed way. You cannot ride the Merida in a relaxed way. You have to be involved in the process. Here you can ride the cycle and observe life around the road. I love doing that, particularly on the winter mornings and on old familiar streets of South Calcutta where once upon a time I used to walk as a child. 

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