Telling that to a 9 year old once he has seen it is difficult – so despite *everyone* telling Aasim the same I decided to let him experience it first hand.

I was a bicycle fanatic when I was a kid (well, imagine me as a kid – and imagine 2 months of summer inside the house). And it felt like a different world out there, with more people on two-wheels than four, with no traffic jams and enough hills & valleys to tire us (cycling, alone ?) out before dusk.

But somehow I’ve never been a great fan of geared bicycles. They tend to have more problems than the fixed speed versions, especially after the first few months of use & abuse. Somehow it was always the kids with the geared cycles that broke down half-way between home and somewhere else.

Our present to Aasim was a near fullsize bicycle.

Oh! those fancy “geared” bicycles. I always wanted one when I was in school. I had to settle for a “Hero Hawk”, the sports style bicycle with no gear. The one with the gears was Rs. 1000 more expensive and we could not afford it.