saddle up.

Its been a long time since i said those words in relation to cycling.
My first bicycles when i was a kid growing up in opera estate were all hand me downs, with 4 older siblings there was never a shortage of wheels. Some of my earliest memories are of our family going cycling and me being "tompang'd"by my mum. My neighbour Khoon Wee(Ah wee to friends) thought me to cycle without training wheels oh so many years ago, we used to sneak out of the zone we were confined to by our parents and explore the broader confines of our district at least until my other neighbour saw us wandering far afield from home and decided to highlight this fact to my father. Thus ended long distant riding.

By the time we moved to tampines i was once again without wheels and surrounded by friends who had the top of the line bikes, those days were what i like to call the glory days of the BMX.
I dont remember asking my dad for a bicycle, i suppose my mum must have mentioned it to him but one day we drove to Changi Village where i got my very own, and my very first bicycle. I was 14yrs old and it was an Oyama a brand slightly above plastic roller skates but it was mine and i loved that bike. At least $300 bucks less then any of the bikes that surround me that little filly held her own, i hardly had brakes as i never had the money to buy the rubber pads(this seemed to be a prenial problem for me). Punctured tire? it was almost always a home patch job(my father taught me), the thing is its not like we were poor but i just never had the guts to ask for things like this and i think the old man knew it. The Oyama took me and my gang many a mile, one of our fav things was to cycle to changi beach have a bit of a swim get back on the bikes soaking wet and cycle home, that lil bit of fun carried on when our BMX's were retired and Mountain Bikes came to the forefront. My first and till now only Mountain was a no brand monster that was almost 19inchs high, it weighed 3 1/4s of a ton (it cost me nothing but that is another story) and it had this awesome blue and grey paint job that was done by our resident bike expert/spray master Daniel. That bike, man it had some awesome parts, everytime one of the guys did an upgrade on their bikes the old parts would somehow find their way to my bike. Some of the off road stuff we did in those days i would not even think about attempting now. Put through the wringer, that bike died a glorius death when it snapped in two.

GT Avalanche 09 3.0
Now 17yrs later i got myself another pair of wheels. Its all lawrence's
fault. He "presuaded"me to get a bike as he was getting a pricey set of wheels and wanted kaki on the roads. Being a good friend i couldnt leave him i nthe lurch could i? ahem
Techonolgy has left me behind, lefty forks, disc brakes, carbon fiber parts and fully suspended bikes, these were not even dreamt of in my day. I settled on a Hardtail (see the lingo has changed too) with a basic setup,which means mechanical disc brakes and front suspension. i mean no point spending if i aint riding right?

The thing about buyin this bike is this, for the first time in my life i could walk into a bike shop and afford just about everything there, if you have never had that feeling there are no words i can express to tell you how that feels. Within 15minutes of getting my bike it had mud on it, and i had a smile on my face. Will i cycle alot? i dont know, do i have the guts to ride like we used to ? i doubt it very much. Am i smiling as i write this long winded post. HELL YEAH.

sidebar-work has been rough, so if you find any typos and stuff just keep it to yourself or i may just climb the clock tower and we wouldnt want that would we.