Bicycling: its a hobby that does lot of good things to you. It is fun, burns fat, saves money and keeps you fit. You take it seriously for a few weeks and it really grows on you.

From Bicycling2012

Here are some useful links for bicycling enthusiasts in Hyderabad.

• Hyderabad Bicycling Club
• The Bike Affair

Happy Bicycling!

One of the best things that has happened to Indian Cricket is V. V. S. Laxman. He steered India to many of the most unbelievable victories in test cricket. For over one and half decades, he made India’s test cricket worth watching. The middle order was never ruled out while he is out there. He is a combination of aggression and patience, displaying those contradicting qualities as and when required.

His exit is untimely, his concerns are very understandable. Just like in his typical innings, he was patient enough when required and turned aggressive on his retirement. That made him more lovable.

We all miss you V. V. S.!

Time to take a look at the progress of my bicycling in the last 3 months.

This month, I crossed the 250km mark. Its not much, but its a good progress in the right direction.

My average bicycling speed has increased. The approximate time recorded includes a few minutes of warming up before the actual ride and a few minutes spent on winding up. Even with those factors, there is an improvement in bicycling speed.

I may not be able to beat these numbers for the next couple of months, given the fact that I am traveling most of the days in the these two months.

Sunday evening’s short (about 5km) bike ride, to test my recently bought used bike.

So far, I have been using bicycles without gears in my whole life. In the last one month, I started taking my bicycle out quite regularly. For more than two weeks, I am doing 6+ kilometers on my bicycle. Based on the positive effect of taking out my bicycle regularly, I started looking at what the local bicycle club members are doing. I found that they are doing anywhere between 10km to 25km on Hyderabad roads, which is quite impractical to achieve with my bicycle without gears. Most areas near my home are hilly and the flat areas a bit farther from my home.

At the same time, good gear bicycles are quite expensive and I didn’t want to invest good amount of money upfront without testing the waters. Unlike in western world, there are not that many pro bicycle rental places in this part of the world. That prompted me to shop around for a used entry level bicycle with gears at a lower cost, so that I get a feel of what would it feel like.

Based on one of the posts in Hyderabad Bicycle Club (HBC) forums, I contacted a bicycle enthusiast who is willing to sell his old bicycle. He recently bought a Cannondale  and he is ready to part with his older one. The deal is done in the first meet and I brought home my first geared bicycle Friday night.

From Miscellaneous

This is a Raleigh Elevation 2.0, an MTB with 18 gears. I took the bike out on Saturday morning and had a very positive experience. I got a couple of accessories fitted with the bicycle (water bottle with a cage and a bell – a must thing in the crowded neighborhood I am in) and got the parts lubed and greased. Now the response of the bicycle is much better. Let me see if I can better my 6km mark with this bicycle. Sunday is the testing day.

The fight for spots two, three and four is intensifying in IPL-2011. The equations are changing by the day.

Last night, I got a glimpse of the way Gilchrist and Marsh played in their match. Amazing strokeplay!

Hope this level of entertainment continues in future matches.