One year into Biking and today I’ve learnt the three gospels of riding at unearthly hours the hard way!

  • Carry a spare tube. PERIOD.
  • Never ride when you do not have the tools handy.
  • Buy a Tube sealant and USE it!

I badly wanted to get myself a better helmet and decided to head to the Hypercity mall which supposedly stocked real cool biking stuff. Having got real good reviews, I decided to head to this place after the Walkathon meet yesterday. The store did have most of the stuff that you’d need but as luck would have it, they’d just exhausted their helmets stock! I did manage to talk one of the sales guy into looking for one in the stocks room but decided not to purchase it for want of a better one. Strayed round the place for sometime and finally picked up a tube sealant and a cool pair of gloves. Reached home at about 10:00pm and did some basic bike maintenance. The Sanghi ride was still ON despite none joining - I stay about 30kms away from the area where the real Biking ‘cult’ stays!

03:45hrs. I’m up and after a quick refresh hit the roads at about 04:10hrs. This was the first time I was heading on this road, this early in the morning. In about half an hour I reach the LB Nagar cross roads and all of a sudden the front tire gives in. That’s when I realise I wasn’t carrying the spare tube! Twenty minutes of some quick work [The Thumbs-up bottle strategy really works!] and the flat gets mended, just that the plastic tire lever breaks. I decide to move on despite being about half an hour behind schedule. But even before I reach Panama godown I have another flat! And now, I do not even have a proper repair kit to set things right. Sigh! I’m compelled to head back home pushing [for the most part of it], riding, inflating the tires[Some real good  exercise for the hands!] and oh yeah dozing for half an hour on the roads! You never get these ricks when you desparately need them. Reach home at about 06:30pm and crash on the bed. One real bad way to start the day - lesson learnt though!

The Sanghi ride is still ON. But before that some serious tire maintenance to be done this week!