This post should have been written the day I bought my Schwinn 2012 Searcher or after my first cycle trip. Better late than never, my last 2 blogs were written quite a while ago http://srirambits.blogspot.in/ about my trekking sojourn’s.

From the time Palani joined Infosys, I have been in awe of his trekking escapade during weekends. I still remember the day when he mailed our team for an outing with 2 choices -  A get together at his home or  A trek to Tiruvannamalai. We chose the latter and little did I know that I would be bitten by the adventure bug. We have scaled the hill many times, in bright sunshine, in beautiful moonlight, in pitch darkness and in all sorts of weather conditions mother nature could offer. Each of these attempts was exciting as the one before and thanks to Palani I emerged unscathed and joyous after each trek. I was quite happy with my increasing physical activity and thought that this is it, I will keep continuing as long as it can keep coming.

During one of our treks, he told me about his new found passion – cycling. I was scratching my head initially as to what could be exciting in cycling. I was fearing that Palani might reduce his weekend trek’s and concentrate more on his new found physical activity.

The last time I rode a cycle was way back in 2007 in College, and the longest distance on cycle at that time was to a temple on a small hillock about 7 kms away. Cycling that far made us feel like Lance Amstrong after his seventh Tour de France title!! So when I heard from Palani that he was going to cycle all the way to Tiruvannamalai, my jaw almost dropped at the very idea of cycling that far. I knew Palani was a super fit guy, but I did think initially that for his age this was pushing his body a bit too far. I wished him good luck to his first loooooooong trip and hoped he would complete it successfully. He eventually completed it and the blog and pictures from his first cycling trip did make me think about taking up cycling.

I told my mom about Palani’s cycle trip to Tiruvannamalai and she was impressed. I told her that I wanted to buy one and join him on his cycle trips. She dismissed the idea immediately.  Disappointed at the outright rejection of my proposal, I forgot about my cycling ambitions until Palani reminded me that he is going to Rameswaram by Cycle during Christmas 2011. I tried convincing mom again and this time the very idea of going till Rameswaram itself made me run for cover from her lectures. Again I wished him good luck for his trip and was disappointed on not being able to accompany him.

Cyclone ‘Thane’ which wreaked havoc during the last week of Dec’ 2011 somehow was a blessing in disguise for me. I was tracking the progress of cyclone in the anticipation that it would hit Chennai  and was excited about witnessing the full fury of the storm. My mom who was concerned about the impending weather, asked if Palani still went ahead with his cycling expedition. Thanks to Ragavendra’s and Palani’s regular updates about their position and some of the beautiful pictures uploaded by them, I showed my mom the website and their preparations into the trip. Little did I realise that she would agree on my request for a new cycle and on accompanying Palani and Ragavendra on their future trips.

I was very excited and the day Palani returned from Rameswaram, I called him up and asked him when he would be free to help me choose my cycle. We searched a few forums and read quite a few reviews on cycles. Palani and Ragavendra gave some quick Gyaan and tips about cycle and the various categories. We did an inital reconaissance of few shops in velachery and Pallikaranai. Finally our search zeroed in on Balaji Cycle store at kodambakkam. I was quite impressed with  the speed of Schwinn searcher during my test ride and decided that this was going to be my bike. After shelling out 21k bucks, we packed the cycle into my car and came back home, exited and ready to  begin my journey into the world of cycling!!