Of bikes and gears

For long, I have wanted to ride a bike (motorcycle for westerners) through the city roads and past the hills and into some distant lands where we (me and my bike; not romantic, aint it?) are totally isolated from the busy noise of the 'madding' (that's Thomas Hardy's) crowd. I used to feel that it is altogether a divine experience to ride on a bike through the pristine nature, getting lost to the sound of leaves floating in a breeze, chirping of birds and the sweet music of the flowing water.

Reality beckoning, I have to get myself out of the Wordsworth’s world for it (riding a bike) is not as poetic as it is imagined above. A bike is, as I realized, a complex collaboration of mechanical and electrical parts that is fuelled to run faster and turn on your adrenaline whenever you see a deserted road.

Having bought a bike recently and riding one for the first time, I should say it (riding) is not a simple task for a beginner, what with changing gears to attain speed, slamming brakes which couples with reducing the gear, managing hand-eye-ear-leg coordination on road…uffff. It is somehow an experience that helps you realize all your senses.

And for those who haven’t tried their hands yet on a bike, a grave mistake done by the International Body of Bike Sciences (not sure if such a thing exists) is that it hasn’t produced a single gearing mechanism that all bike producers can follow. So it will not be your fault if you are to confuse with the order in which the gears appear (some bikes have decreasing order for gears neutral, 1, 2, 3 & 4 and some have it the other way and some have neutrals appearing in between all numeric gears). Here you go; when your bike stops midway on road, you have an excuse (only if you manage to survive).

Add to this complexity, the people and other vehiclers (now, I coined that word…hehe) on road who have no sense of the traffic and seem to wander in their own world. It is as if you are destined to hit atleast one and it is just a matter of time. Here’s where the horn comes into play. As much as I hate someone blowing horn for seeking a way through, I love honking at others to let me through (this is one of the pleasures in a beginner’s learning experienceJ). And there are few people, who honk away to glory, getting carried away with the feeling that honking elevates them to the status of king, signaling their arrival on road.

Painful as though it may seem, I have found a liking to trot a bike in the lowest of gears in a heavy traffic. Now and then, I would want to challenge myself expecting not to ground my leg(s) for support and in the process (it is a nice trick to learn coz this is how one might have to travel in almost all places in our country) looking for gaps to squeeze through the LMVs and HMVs. It’s a pity that no one gets a degree for this new found knowledge.

Finally, after a couple of weeks or so of probation on road, I believe I have mastered the art of riding a bike without having hit any of my fellow road-mates (so far).

After all, the Wordsworth’s world is not far away from reach. :-)