Passions and Love are never created to be pushed in someone, those are somehow born. As a child, I cycled a lot but it never occurred to me that cycling will become a lovable thing someday. I never imagined, It will give a new look at a city which is known for traffic jams and pollution and last thing one imagine is to be on road but that is how stories are woven. The first pedal of bTwin Diaries was nothing but a chance event. While one of us was still saddened about his old bike which was stolen a few months ago while the other was thinking on spending a penny extra on a not so useful thing called bike. But the wheel of time was moving in some other direction, the two of us were on verge of a new passion which we ourselves didn't realize.
After much deliberation, I thought of moving from my liftetime brand of Hero (all bikes till date before this one were Hero) which somehow was marketed as a actor of Indian biking industry to a foreign very much recommended Brand of Decathlon Sports "The Btwin". After finding out that only store in Delhi was in Noida from where they can deliver but i made up my mind considering my past sojourns in Bangalore Biking that i can somehow bike from Gautam Buddha Nagar( Yes, that is true name of this North Okhla Industrial Hub) to the academic greens of IIT Delhi at least one way a day. The wait was still not over since the next issue was availability in store. Many would have given up by this time and bought some thing else but the universe conspires when something beautiful is going to happen.
Somehow the day came, when i and Prathmesh, checked the availability and planned to buy this thing which is going to change our internal energies for some months atleast. We went at around 6 or 7 in evening thinking if not possible , we will stay at a friends place and will come back biking our way back in morning. But the store changed the outlook and our mindset, we were thrilled to see the competence, technical know-how and passion of our sales person at Decathlon Noida. The way they showed us different products and accessories, was one sort of unique experiences which you would find at very few Indian stores. To me, it was clear this sort of marketing can;t be taught at B-Schools but which enthuse itself from passion. We purchased some bare minimum accessories and after having a light meal at McDonalds, we decided to way back home at IIT Delhi from Sector 18 Noida at around 9.00 pm.
With amazing weather around us and a smooth ride which was never imagined before, Prathmesh's joy was beyond limits and i had to somehow control myself and himself to be careful on these scary Noida-Delhi roads. Asking the route back from friends and Google Maps on, we started with the mind free from all worldly affairs, just with our rides and us. We had started just 2 kms back when we realized all answers are not on google and with friends, we are riding on DND where bikes are not allowed and we got to know google maps in India does not have any clue for cycling routes. Somehow, we diverted to a different route and with battery off, we had only one option to talk to people and follow some road signs. A parallel fear in my mind was that Noida is at all safe in night and first goal is to enter the border of our national capital somehow. With being diverted time and again by different people, a beautiful turn was waiting in the story. We reached the India Gate and rode near India Gate at 11 in night, followed to Rashtrapati Bhawan through Rajpath. The reverberations of Pathshala from Rang De Basanti was vibrating in ears and after 20 km journey, this break recharged our batteries again.
After having a brief stay there, eventually we moved through Lutyens Delhi crossing the race course to INA where each spot has a modern history associated with it to reach our beautiful campus. After crossing the traffic, the first pedal you make in campus is so relaxing that you feel this is the only heaven which is calm serene and has no whereabouts of what is happening on a road nearby. We observed and felt that this joy has only one reason, no correlations and that is due to the bike we selected "the My White Bike". On reaching the lab, people were not ready to believe that we cycled from Noida to here but when we checked the route it was not only 20 km which they were thinking, it was 30-32 kms. Everyone present in lab took a ride and felt jealous, happy, joyful and thinking craziness for these two madful bikesters. But many of them were not knowing they will eventually end up joining us on atleast one of trips and be part of the stories which will become Btwin Diaries !
