Derailed Dérailleur

Shimano Alivio Rear Dérailleur

As if the trouble of setting up front-dérailleur (Shimano M191) on my cycle (Schwinn Sporterra Sport) was not enough, during last few rides, I had been experiencing severe problems with my rear dérailleur (Shimano Alivio). Now Alivio is not supposed to let you down within merely 1000kms. It's supposed to be quite sturdy and reliable for long time. But here I was clinching my teeth, Clint Eastwood style, every time the chain slipped or didn't get to the right cog. The dérailleur was acting up.

It was as if it had developed a mind of it's own. Now I am not the sort of person who has problem with things developing a mind their own. After coming across so many people who have lost theirs (thanks to my corporate experience) and having been living in a country where even the prime minister doesn't have his own, things having minds of their own usually comes across as a breath of fresh air. As long as the mind is confident of what it's doing, that is. The mind of this dérailleur was a different story.

Whenever I tried to shift the chain from a smaller cog to a bigger one, it hesitated. And not only that, it kept on hesitating for quite some time. On one trigger from me, first the chain would move to a larger cog, then the dérailleur, low on confidence as it was, would move chain 2 cogs down. Again, out of sheer benevolence, it would move the chain 1 cog higher. Then back to where it came from. And this would go on. As a result the chain kept moving from one cog to the other until I had to up-shift/down-shift drastically, and I kept fretting a lot due to the slipping chain.

When it came to shifting the chain to the right desired cog, the dérailleur was as confused and clueless as Venkatesh Prasad batting against a spin attack. Here comes the ball ... should I go on front foot ... ummm no, I think I should stay put on back-foot ... my team is in trouble and i am the lone warrior standing ... so defend is all I want to do, but it has to be the right defense ... so back-foot it is ... but hey, why are they chuckling? ... oh, the bells are on the ground, it must be a dead-ball ... the bells are on the ground because I am castled? ... what? how? when? ... but how come the ball pass by me without me knowing? ... it went from under my bat you say? ... oopsie-daisy ... today is probably not my day ... but you know, what hurts me more is that that little bugger didn't even say Hi! while passing by ... moron.

When I would climb an incline, the dérailleur stayed busy with its jugglery and as a result the pressure on peddle pulled the in-transition chain off the cogs. The chain would slip and that put me in a grave danger of losing balance and taking a good gracious fall. I would keep thinking about what could have been the reason behind this Alivio going kaput on me. It might be the chain - has it elongated?. It might be that I tightened the quick release lever a bit too much on the rear wheel, which might have caused the cogs on the wheel to go out of alignment. I might have washed out the grease inside dérailleur during last wash and that might be causing it. I kept guessing.

Finally today morning, a situation came when I started giving a serious thought to kicking and ripping the dérailleur open for once and all. But good sense prevailed. I broke my ride, got down and gave it a kind attention with a little bit more patience. But even after moving the dérailleur around and taking a look at it from every possible direction, I understood zilch. And then suddenly, like a stroke of lightening, I noticed an adjustment knob where the shifter cable connects to the dérailleur. There were also the HIGH and LOW screws there. But adjusting those HIGH and LOW screws was out of question because I had learnt my lesson while adjusting the front dérailleur. You don't touch them unless you are committed to the adjustment and you have plenty of time at hand. I had none of it. So I decided to give that adjustment-knob a try. The knob would turn either ways, so I turned it in such a way that it came out, increasing the tension on the cable. And viola! Suddenly the dérailleur started behaving like it was put on a leash. The problem was gone for good. In the next 15-20km ride the chain slip problem caused by hesitant dérailleur never appeared again.

Hmm ... So the frustrating trouble for last 2-3 rides was gone with mere couple turns on the adjustment knob. Phew! Turns out, actually doing stuff and troubleshooting problems on your own (your skill level notwithstanding), is the best way of taming a cycle, irrespective of how many maintenance manuals or DIY posts/videos you read/watch.

Gives me confidence that I will be able to manage that 'holy-grail' ride of future, without a backup. Not to mention, this is the only vehicle that gives me this confidence.

Cycling: Sinhagad Ride - All Torture No Gain

The uphill and dowhill sections of the Sinhagad ride

Why did I go there!? I have ridden almost 800kms now, and never ever till date have I shuddered at the thought of, and during, a downhill. Today I did. And my fears were right, the downhill almost broke open my wrists, jammed my back, busted my hips, cracked my neck and screwed (no pun) my shoulders ... there can't be anything worse. Up Sinhagad, it's a not a road, it's merely a bunch of stones (of all forms and sizes) scattered around as per whim (the stone's) and glued together with - sometimes tar, sometimes, loose dirt! Did I not know that the road was bad? Oh yeah, I did. But last time, when I had been there on my Apache, the bike suspension had kept these intricate road stats at bay, and even though I had cursed the bad road that time as well, actual details of 'just-how-bad-is-bad' I experienced today on a suspension-less near-road-bike - my Sporterra Sport - with it's tiny 700x38c tires filled to the brim with fresh morning air.

Sinhagad ride was on the back of the mind for sometime due to the way it's placed alongside Lavasa (ha!). I wanted to check just how tough it was going to be on a cycle. So in the morning I left, just about time when the skies were lightening up. Thought the Warje road would be better than the always-under-construction-and-dug-up Sinhagad road. But boy, was I wrong! The Warje road is at least as bad, if not worse, as the Sinhagad road; and what with the tiny suffocating gullies stinking of rotten meat everywhere. Uptill Donaje, the road is pathetic to put it very mildly. And from Donaje till Sinhagad, the road is beyond my stock of a gentleman's vocabulary.

As for the ride, during uphill you dont mind bad roads because you are anyway at a snail's pace. So uphill: good road is good to have, not a necessity. Going by the elevation plot, it looks like a mighty inclined one, but the gradient at 4.8%, is less than the 6% gradient of Lavasa climb. All along the ride, I never felt like losing it at any point in time. On Lavasa, it does feel like that during the Lavasa-4 to Lavasa-3 stretch. Here, I was quite at ease during the first part of the climb and carried on feeling quite fresh, no huffing or puffing. To give it to the Sinhagad climb, the last 2.5kms stretch indeed sports a respectable 8% gradient. But all along, it never looked like I wouldnt make it without a stop; except for the last stretch where, after passing on an opportunity to sip some water on a platued road, and then never getting any chance later on due to continuous climb, I was on the edge of getting dehydrated. The wheels were slipping due to loads of gravel on the road, and to make the matter worse, the chain was slipping and the rear derailleur (it's Alivio for crying out loud!) had developed a mind of it's own, changing gears when it deemed fit. I, for once, thought that I would have to take a stop and attend to the issues. But carry on I did, summoning all my endurance. And good enough, reached the top of Sinhagad without a single stop after leaving home.

When I check the stats and look back on the ride, I feel Lavasa gets exhausting in the final climb probably because you need to first ride ~40kms to reach the base of the climb - 2 ghats along the route; while here for Sinhagad the distance is exactly half of that without any ghats enroute. So comparatively you are mighty fresh when you arrive at the base, and then it's not that big a deal to reach the top.

After reaching the top, by the time I noticed a non-piercing boulder to sit and settled on it, I found out the phone battery was dying. So I immediately saved the uphill ride and replaced the battery with a spare one that I had carried. The prudence of spending a thousand bucks on a spare battery finally paid off. More importantly, not forgetting to carry it and then actually having it around when needed, was even more satisfying. So even though the ride is split into two halves - uphill and downhill -, and however much I would have liked to have recorded in a single GPX, I at least could have it recorded.

The downhill from Sinhagad top, has already been given a grand treatment, so no more on that again. But I was desperately looking forward to get onto even a semi-decent road where all my bones wouldn't have to rattle like they were stuffed in a leather bag and swayed end to end; where a vibration started at a knuckle of my toe will not have to end up at the tip of the highest standing hair on my head. But the misery continued till I got on the bypass.

The moment I hit bypass, that smooth surface of tar was such a relief and so inviting, that I threw caution to winds and raced like a man with a mission, outpacing a Maruti Omni enroute. There. Even my cycle has outpaced a Maruti now. You better be not around until I will have to out-run you, you Maruti people ;) The joy of seeing utter disbelief in that Omni driver's eyes, for a moment, made me forget the dusty, trafficy, unsettled, tormenting ride on the Sinhagad road till then.

The nearly same timings for uphill and downhill are an indication of how much I would have cursed everyone and everything that came in a kilometer's distance of being even remotely responsible for the road condition.

Here is a short comparison of a Lavasa and Sinhagad cycling ride (in my eyes) --

Destination:	Lavasa (aah!)	Sinhagad
Distance till Base:	~36kms	~18kms
Climb from Base:	8kms	12kms
Overall Gradient:	6%	4.8%
Top Gradient:	8.1% for 4.6kms (mid climb - around Lavasa-4 milestone)	8% for 2.5kms (final climb till the top)
Road Condition:	Goooooooooooood!!	Horror of horrors!
Will I go Back:	Hell Yeah!	Well, not until I lose my mind ... again.

And here are uphill and downhill tracks recorded and maintained on Sports-Tracker -
Home to Sinhagad (uphill): http://www.sports-tracker.com/#/workout/shreyas/cjb0cf3e6mo4pvem
Sinhagad To back Home (downhill): http://www.sports-tracker.com/#/workout/shreyas/cjb0cf3e6mo4pvem

वासुदेव

वासुदेव आऽऽला वासुदेऽऽऽऽव आऽऽला होऽऽऽऽ
सकाळच्या पाऽऽऽऽरी हरिनाम बोला

खणखणीत आवाज.पण तितकाच सुरेल. लहानपणा पासून कित्येत वासुदेब बघितले, ऐकले; पण असा सुरांची जाण असलेला पाहिल्यांदाच. सकाळी ६-६:१५च्या दरम्यान गाढ झोपेत असलेला मी खाडकन जागा झालो. त्यानं उठा पांडुरंगा म्हणेपर्यंत झोप डोळ्यावरुन पूर्ण उतरली होती. एकदा वाटलं पटकन ध्वनीमुद्रित करावं आणि youtube वर टाकावं पण आळस आडवा आला आणि मी गादीवर लोळत त्याचं गाणं ऐकत तसाच पडून राहिलो.

आवाज इतका खणखणीत की त्याला माईकची गरज नाही. गाणं म्हणत म्हणत तो दूरवर गेला तरीही त्याचा आवाज येतच होता. जून्याकाळी, राजा-रजवाड्यांच्या काळात, ज्यावेळी माईक किंवा amplifiers नव्हते, त्या काळात असता तर ह्याच्यावर वासुदेब व्हायची पाळी आली नसती कदाचित इतका सुंदर आणि standout आवाज.

(वासु)देव करो आणि हा वासुदेव कुणा जाणकार (आणि 'पोहोच' असलेल्या) माणसाच्या कानावर पडो.

Cycling: Lavasa and My First Century Ride

My Sporterra Sport became a month old today. So far, it has run around 650kms. Quite a few long rides in those 650kms - twice to Lavasa and back (~100kms each), then twice over the Katraj Ghat (around 50kms each), and couple times to Pirangut and Mutha ghats (around 30-50kms each). I can feel the stamina and muscle improving. I can feel my heart, lungs and legs getting in better shape and getting stronger. This was not the case when I had just got the cycle though.

Since my last Lavasa climb, I had started cycling frequently. Fresh air and lack of traffic in the morning, opens up quite a few routes around Kothrud/Chandani-chowk area for cycling. One is along the bypass through the new Katraj Tunnel, take a u-turn at Shindewadi and take old Katraj Ghat - old tunnel - Katraj bypass - Pune bypass - chandani chowk: ~50kms. This route can be done other way round as well and that involves old Katraj Ghat climb which has quite a challenging gradient. Another is to Pirangut and back: ~30kms. If you have got time or start quite early in the morning, Mutha Ghat climb is even better and is around 50km ride.

One such Mutha ghat climb, which is around 50km ride, had taken me 3hrs for to-and-from journey and had given me a confidence boost about my improving edurance. I was feeling the improvement and was getting psyched up to tackle the grand-daddy of them all - Lavasa - again.

So I woke up one fine morning, did some stretches (important!) as usual, and started for Lavasa at around 5:30am. There were 2 goals: one was to reach the top in 3hrs and second was 5hrs of total to-and-fro timing. Given the experience of first time, both the goals looked tough and I was expecting around 3:30hrs for the top and 6hrs to-and-fro.  Also, this time I had Sports-Tracker as my ride tracker, and given its excellent power management, I was sure I would be able to lock in the whole ride's data without battery issues.

The sky had just started lightening a little when I reached Pirangut descent. This is one of the best descents out there, and it's here where I have clocked my top-speed of 60.4km, which I haven't been able to manage on the descent of any other ghats despite standing up. By the time I reached the point where Mutha Ghat starts, I had taken 2 breaks - one for ATM and another for buying an extra water bottle; just in case. The ghat climb was done without any amount of exertion. In fact I reached the cusp, when I was expecting further climb. I remembered my last time when I was huffing and puffing and desperately waiting for the top. I was in much better form and shape this time round.

View from Mutha Ghat Top down the Pirangut-side Valley

While climbing up Mutha, I saw couple of bikers speeding up and down the ghat perfecting their cornering skills and enjoying the adrenaline overall. Lack of traffic early in the morning, cool air, excellent road condition and the twisty nature of the Mutha ghat makes for a rider's heaven. No wonder these adrenaline-junkies, fully dressed up in protective gear, were whizzing up and down it.

Subsequent descent and Mutha town came by quickly. "Lavasa: 18km" read a board. 10kms more and I was at the Temghar wall. Saw a lot of school-children on the way to school. Oohs and aahs and laughter and comments passing would ensue when they would catch sight of me. The cycle indeed attracts a lot of attention, especially of the younger lot. And the older teenagers out of these school-goers are not always nice. Some of those jackasses pass quite nasty comments trying to attract attention of the girls (walking behind) and win brownies by deriding the urbanites. More power to you hillbilies.

At the Temghar Wall

Reached Temghar dam in next half an hour. Took one final break at the Temghar wall which marks the start of the much awaited Lavasa climb. Sip of water, a little stroll, stretches and I started up. Last time I had climbed, I had wondered if anybody would be able to do it in a single shot, without a break from Temghar wall to the Lavasa top. So this time round, the goal was to do exactly that - go up without a single stop.

I took it easy in the start, trying to conserve energy for that horrible Lavasa-4 to Lavasa-3 stretch. Noticed the same pair of Mutha riders (all helmets look the same), labouring up and down the slopes of Lavasa now. Cornering is a bit more challenging here due to switchbacks.

At Lavasa Finally

By the time I got to the Lavasa-4 milestone, a bit of exhaution had set in due to continuous climb. And boy, the Lavasa-4 to Lavasa-3 stretch was just as horrible, as brutal, as pure-inferno as it was the previous time. But this time, I somehow held up. There were few more leg muscles this time round, which allowed me to partially power through some of the trecherous climbs. I persisted without a stop. And finally, there it was - the cusp! It took me 40-45mins this time to cross the 8kms of climb. The total 'to' journey - from home to lavasa - took 2:36hrs -- 24mins shorter than the goal I had set. There was a tremendous sense of achievement.

On the top, I took some breakfast, and in 15-20mins left for home. The return journey was not much eventful apart from the Mutha and Pirangut climbs, which appeared more gruelling due to some level of exhaustion. On reaching Chandani Chowk, I realised I had done around 88kms and would need 12 more kms to complete a century. Took a detour along Warje, Nal Stop route and got back home after completing 100.7kms in 6:02hrs.

Here is the full GPS track of the ride; and here is the speed elevation profile of the route -

Interesting Correlation

The elevation profile of this Lavasa ride in Sport-Tracker struck as a familiar curve. Initially I thought of it as the impulse response profile of a 2nd order control system. But that curve has an envelope which reflects over X-axis. This elevation profile is on one side of x-axis, i.e it doesn't have a negative elevation. So not applicable.

Then I thought of it to be a sinusoid damped by Gaussian function. Still the Gaussian function curve dies pretty quickly and one doesn't get enough peaks before the sinusoid damps dead.

Finally after couple hours of mathematical and graph plotting jugglery, I could place this curve as - an exponentially damped up-shifted sinusoid, riding a standard normal Gaussian distribution curve. Here is the equation that I came up with -

And here is the graphical plot of the equation -

A Graph That Correlates with the Elevation Curve of Lavasa Route

You will agree that this plot shares a good deal of correlation with the elevation profile of the Lavasa ride. Interesting, isn't it?

Cycling: Lavasa Conquered

It was just a week since I had got the cycle. I had been on some initial training rides of 10-15kms daily, but never had been on a long ride before. The cycle was new, and the overall experience of riding it so far was way better than the one I used to have in my childhood with a Hero Jet first and then a Hercules MTB, Both of them were fixies with reversing paddles. This one on the other hand was a hybrid with gear, and tilting more towards road-bike category with tall gearing, lack of suspension and roadbike style saddle. Quite light, it raced with wind downhill and was not a big deal to drive up a climb, provided you chose the right gears. I was enjoying it so far and was itching to test myself on some mountainous ground. So Lavasa, being touted as quite a tough climb in the cycling community, was always on the back of mind as a challenge to take up as soon as possible.

On Sunday, 2nd Oct, I left home for Pirangut around 9am. It was not that hot, and even after reaching Pirangut, I didnt feel tired. So went on towards Mutha ghat. The idea was to turn back when it stops being pleasant. The Mutha ghat climb was quite an arduous one. Lack of training and you start feeling exhausted quite early. Sangli is laid out on a plain with hardly any elevation change throughout. So I was a total newbie to ghat-climbing ovrall, and naturally I struggled. I took couple of breaks and reached the top with quite a bit of effort.

The descent to Mutha town felt very pleasant due to the cool breeze that accompanies speed. On reaching Mutha, a roadside board announced Lavasa was mere 18kms from there. Too close to turn around from a tempting challenge. Lavasa, I had heard, was a pretty hard climb. I had been therer on bike and in car, but had never appreciated the toughness of the climb from a physical-energy perspective. So I marched on.

After pedalling for around 10kms, I reached Temghar dam. There was quite a bit of crowd in front of the Temghar wall. All weekend public. Loud music in the cars, trendy show-offs with slicks and goggles and fake accent, and quite a bit of fresh plastic garbage around. Not to mention the 'water-sports' going on in the released water. This waterfall and getting-wet fetish people have is beyond me sometimes. One drive on a rainy Sunday in the Tamhinis and you will understand why my cynicism borders on the lines of disgust.

Right after the Temghar wall started the real climb. From Temghar wall, Lavasa top is around 7-8 kms. All of that is energy sapping climb, with a kilometer of pleasant descent till the Lavasa gate once you reach the top, thrown in as a reward. In the first couple of kms itself I started realising how grim the climb was getting. It was gradually getting tougher and tougher. I had to take a lots of breaks - for water, for catching my breath, for stopping my lungs from exploding any moment and for keeping my leg muscles from tearing apart. There were quite a few on-lookers - bikes, cars, buses, tempos, who were craning their necks to have a look, with a combination of who's-this and what-the-heck questions written all over their faces. Some of them smiled, some waved, some of them had a cheerful word while passing by.

It was all misery nevertheless. Especially the climb between "Lavasa-4km" and "Lavasa-3kms" milestones was absolutely brutal on me. There were switchbacks which were inclined so terribly that if one would stop pedalling, he would start rolling down immeditely. Later on I figured, this particular climb is part of a stretch that gains 372 mtrs (~1220 feet) of height in mere 4.6kms! That's a freaking 8.1% gradient, and it kills. A point came when I couldnt take the bicycle over even a single climbing switchback without panting for breathe. These switchbacks were getting severe and I had to do something about it, since turning around was not an option, and I didnt want to push the bike even a centimeter to blot the final achievement. So I altered the riding pattern a bit. Rather than taking break just at any point, I would ride till the base of next intimidating enough climbing switchback, and then take a break for sometime. Would freshen up with a sip of water and then would 'attack' the climb with all the gathered energy. It worked.

Those 8kms of climb took me an insane 1.5hrs. By the time I reached the top, I was as miserable as a wet dog. Exhausted and hungry, I took a sumptious lunch at one of the hotels near the entry gate. Idled for about an hour, sitting on a chair outside, taking in the views and the movements, and wondering how in the world was I going to make it back to home. I had come till there alright, but home was still ~50kms from there; the only saving grace being there was no other Lavasa climb on the way back. Took a look at the GPS track from My Tracks android app which showed I took ~5hours for home-to-Lavasa journey. That was a long time, and it was a long way back home now. Unfortunately, the battery had depleted and I had to switch off tracking and the phone altogether, during the return journey.

Once the lunch was settled, I got back on the bicycle and started towards home. The Lavasa descent is not *that* pleasant due to the same dangerous switch-backs where one has to slow down or skid off the edge.

The reverse Mutha climb (towards Pune) is even more arduous, than the one coming from Pirangut. But climbed it without a single stop and took rest only after reaching the cusp of the ghat. Mutha descent is pleasant on both sides, and it doesnt take much time to Pirangut after that. The Pirangut ghat, while climbing towards Pune, is mighty exhausting. But did that without a rest too and took rest at the top. Small challenges like climbing ghats without a stop or timing the climbs make things interesting and take your mind off home and hunger.

By the time I reached home, it was 6pm and I was again very hungry and exhausted. I had left Lavasa around 2:45pm and that meant I took around 3:15hrs for journey back home.

Surprisingly, there were no pains apart from the exertion pains, which are actually pleasant in a way because they indicate evolving muscles. I had a fear that the knee pain I had developed during Katraj-Sinhagad trek would show its ugly head. But thanks probably to my prudence of maintaining good cadence throughout, no injury (re)occured.

Here is the GPS track (one way till Lavasa) on Sports-Tracker. And here is the speed and elevation profile along the route -



I had used My Tracks android app for tracking, and it recorded the GPX file well. But it was a battery hog and compared to it, Sports-Tracker offered much better features and eye-candy plotting (the one you are seeing above, is from Sports-Tracker). So I uploaded the GPX file from My Tracks to Sports-Tracker. I tried some other apps as well, including Endomondo, but chose Sports-Tracker finally, despite few of its irritating niggles (like slowy slow UI). So far, it hasn't crashed on me mid-ride, touch-wood.

Going Green with .... a bicycle(!)

my Schwinn Sporterra Sport - as on DayOne: 25Sep2011

Finally my search for a bicycle ended on last Sunday, on a high note. I bought a Schwinn Sporterra Sport 2011. The bike comes with 24-speed gearing, quick release on both the wheels, a lever for quick saddle height adjustment, and good components overall. The bike is very light-weight, runs mighty smooth and is a pleasure to ride. I rode it for around 12km, all the way from Shivram Sales to Kothrud, and deliberately chose non-traffic route with some serious ups and downs. It was 12pm in the afternoon that I started back to home and it was hot like anything. Still, I wasnt exhausted when I got back home. In fact, and I dont mean to drum it up, but I was still feeling quite fresh after the ride. That was a bit surprising since I was riding a bicycle almost after 6-7years.

Along the way that I had chosen, there were few testing inclines. But the gearing turned out to be very helpful while negotiating those inclines. My first time riding a geared bicycle, and I can already see why people actually love cycling.

It was not all rosy though. The front derailleur was out of adjustment it seemed since it kept faltering while shifting between 1st and 2nd chainrings. Next morning, I could fix it after a few turns of barrel-adjuster along with couple of high-low settings on the dérailleur.

Apart from that, two of my body parts were quite uncomfortable with this change in vehicle. First were my wrists and lower palms. And second - were my bums. After couple of rides, the soreness in palm and wrist started to recede. The bums on the other hand, were so sore that even sitting on a highly cushioned chair felt like sitting on a pair of spears. The saddle, like any other performance bicycle saddle, is a hard one and makes for uncomfortable riding. The pain has receded after a couple of rides, but it's still quite uncomfortable. So it looks like, as people recommend, a lycra bib or at least a short with chamois reinforcement is a must for riding such cycles.


Gearing: Gear Inches and Shifting

Gearing Chart

The cycle has 24-speed gearing (8 cogs in the rear and 3 chainrings in the front) with Shimano Alivio as the important rear-derailleur. Before I decided upon buying Sporterra Sport, I went through the drive-train setup of various cycles, including road-bikes. I felt that the sporterra sport's teeth configuration of 48/38/28 on the chainrings and 11-30 on the rear cogs made perfect sense for a beginner like me. I didnt count individual teeth on each of the rear cogs, but assumed a standard configuration as - 11-13-15-17-20-23-26-30. And then with Sheldon Brown's gear calulator, got an idea of what the gear inches will be for each of the gear and how they will change from gear to gear. Here is the chart that I got there, and I have highlighted what gears I will be using while shifting up and down.

As can be seen, even though the cycle is 24-speed, one can hardly use more than 10-12 gears out of those 24. Using the non-highlighted gears can quickly wear out the chain/chainrings/cassette.


Experience with Dealers

There are quite a few cycle dealers in Pune. Some are old timers, selling cycles for ages. Some are new comers, trying to tap into the booming market of enthusiasts with deep pockets (thanks in part to the IT industry). I initially went to the Track-n-Trail dealer - Surendar Cycles on Karve Road. In my couple of visits there one thing I strongly realized that this guy is all about sales and marketing talk. He tried to upsell, he tried to patronize me, he tried to be smart, he bragged, he berated other dealers, and even tried the classic FUD when I mentioned I might consider other dealers if I don't get a fair deal there. This blog is not a place to go in details about bits and pieces of the conversation, but suffice to say that - by the time I left his shop, I was disgusted with him, had not even an iota of trust in that guy, and had decided I wouldn't buy from him, come what may.

I went to Shivram Sales, on Satara Road, one of the dealers he had berated and had tried FUD on. Within half an hour I was out with a brand new Schwinn Sporterra Sport 2011 model, at a much lower price-point, with complementary basic accessories like stand, bottle-cage, lock and a bell; and as per regular practice - 2-free-maintainances and 1-year guarantee on the frame, handle and fork. All of which, this Surendar Cycle owner had written-off as "absolutely-not-possible" in a kind of virtual chest-thumping.

Moral of the story, stay away from such upsellers, and crooks while buying a bicycle in Pune. Look for a better deal with other dealers. These cycles are from international brands, and are not supposed to fail on you. Besides, these other dealers also offer the same maintainance and gurantee that these branded stores will offer. So dont fall for the FUD that these crooks are intent on spreading.

Lifecycle mall, by the way, also offers similar high prices, but they seem to have some ethics. They at least dont brag and berate other dealers, or brand of cycles that they dont keep. I had enquired about Fomas Roadking Deluxe and was told that they dont keep Fomas, but pleasantly enough, upon probing about the bicycle, I was told that apart from the weight issue, roadking deluxe is not a bad cycle for that price. The Surendar Cycle guy, upon enquiry, had told me snobbishly "we dont sell junk". I should have crossed him off my list at that point itself.


Way Ahead

I had thought about quite a few intersting plans around cycling, before taking the plunge and buying this Sporterra Sport. God-willing, if my left knee (which I had hurt during the Katraj-Sihagad trek last year) holds up, I will hopefully be able to realise those plans. Let's see how it all goes. Exciting times ahead. 

Power, Religion and Social Inhibitions

I have been wondering this for quite sometime now. Why do we have such a huge premium on morality? Where does it connect? Why is a girl/guy who sleeps around, looked down upon with disgust? It's just a physical need. What's wrong with satisfying it? Do we look down upon people who eat dinner at one restaurant and sweets from another? Why do we have this big taboo surrounding anything related to sex? Are we as a society so immature that we cannot handle openness about sexuality? Are we bound so much by religion and religious preachings that we haven't thought about alternative way of life, and fear that way might lead to chaos? fear of the unknown?

We are a land where Kamsutra originated. We are a land where Khajuraho was sculpted. Our Ramayana and Mahabharata are ripe with stories with hidden references, like Ahilya's story, and Yayati's story, Indra's lust, Kamdev's adventures etc. Considering all these, it's difficult to understand why we have inhibitions about sex and sexuality? Are we being controlled under the pretext of religious preachings?

All the powerful and creative people behave uninhibited. May those be actors, diplomats, celebrities, musicians (case in point is an 'illegitimate' child of a Sitaar maestro), sportsman. I wont even mention politicians.

Why then only the middle class considers that staying 'pure' is a way to save the culture? Europeans had a culture as well. The French, for example, come across as some of the most outgoing and free-est people when it comes to openness, sexuality and life. French directors have been handling taboo subjects way ahead of their times, since the mid 20th century. The subjects were controvertial, and sometimes tilted towards soft core porn as well. But they had the openness and courage to try it. Their society didn't burn them for that. And despite this, their culture isn't going anywhere, and is as intact as it was before.

I have an inkling that these probably sound like randomly hewn fabric of crude thoughts, but when you see an Emmannuel exploring her sexuality, or when you see some Dreamers enagaging in acts that border on incest, or a when a Laure lets go off social inhibitions and engages in exhibitionism and free sex, you can't help but appreciate the ahead-of-its-time boldness of French cinema, and lament the fact that even a simple and practical concept like live-in relationships doesn't find acceptance in our society.