31/03/2017
I faintly remember my first cycle, a baby tri-cycle passed on to me by an elder cousin who was now too big to use it. Three hard plastic wheels with a hard plastic bucket seat, The color red had faded to orange with us keeping it on the terrace attached to our small 1 room accommodation. I don’t remember how it disappeared, I assume it was sold to Kabadi who’d have torn it down to bare materials and then passed them ahead to re-cycle (pun intended).
My second cycle was a proper two wheeler slightly smaller for a 13 year old kid, I found it in the veranda one afternoon, it belonged to the same cousin, he was now too big to use it, me and my younger brother didn’t know how to ride a two wheeler cycle, our dad tried hard to teach us to ride in the minimal time he had off but it wasn’t enough. We started looking for those tiny helper wheels which you attach at the back, and could only get it after making multiple visits to multiple cycle repair shops for a month, they were not new but they were good enough. Me and my brother went on numerous rides on it, he often running behind me for a chance to ride it. We had designated sections on roads to ride it, but then I was the elder bully, I ended up riding it more than him, and then at some point started moving around with him on the carrier of the cycle, soon the helper wheel had stopped making the grinding noise of hard plastic rubbing against the tarred road because we had figured out the way to balance on two wheels. The helper wheels were removed and put into the store. Me and my brother were ready to ride the bike without any help now but that didn’t last long, the cycle was stolen on a winter night when my mother forgot to lock the back door , along with it a few blankets were gone too. Me and my brother along with my dad made inquiries at all the cycle repair shops just in case someone tried to sell it, we never found it.
Read the complete post on:
http://www.chintugiri.com/2017/03/my-cycling-story.html
I am looking forward to make this a series of crowd sourced stories, If you're an avid cyclist and have an interesting story to share, tell me all about it, and I'll convert it into a mini cycling-biography for you!
