My Bicycle

The title seems like a first standard essay competition topic on the likes of My school, My House right. But the purpose of this post is to remind people some little things they can do to make the world last longer (The earth might have a shelf life). This is what people call micro level effort.
Facts first - I bought a bicycle(hereafter referred to as "bike") in July 2008, a Hercules Ryders, with 18 gears and suspension system for front and back wheels. Cost - Rs. 6700. Purpose - Commuting within Bangalore and IISc. I commute between IISc and home on the bike. I also hope to use the bike to commute to any place in Bangalore as I build up my stamina to ride the bike for longer time. I am using my bike regularly at IISc campus.
Now the questions -
Q Why a bicycle?
- Bicycles are "green"
- Bikes do not consume fuel. They run on muscle power. (I std level information, but worth a mention). They are emission free and hence do not make the earth, a greenhouse.
- It provides the daily requirement of exercise for legs. For the people who have a sedentary lifestyle, cycling helps. Cycling builds up physical stamina. With an average stamina (mine is below average still), one can cycle for 20 km at a stretch on peaceful roads, or atleast 15 km on city roads.
- Saves money - Low cost of investment and operation. Cost of a very good gear cycle is less than 1/8 th the cost of a decent motorbike. Operating costs are almost nil. Eg. My home is around 8 km from IISc. To and fro distance 16 km. 20 days a month(excluding weeend) - 320 km, which is 10 litres of petrol. With the GOI and GOK increasing the cost of petrol almost twice a year, cycling is a very good option.
- There is no traffic jam for Bikes. You can always take the alternate route or in the worst case, take the footpath. Bikes can help to ease out the traffic in Bengaluru which is already getting choked by traffic jams. That way, having a motor vehicle does not halp you to save time also. I take 30 min to reach the institute from home on busy traffic roads on a motor bike. I take 40 mins to reach to reach home on my cycle - Only a marginal change.
- Easy maintainence - or in fact no maintainence. Perhaps the only thing we need to to do with the bike is to check its air pressure every week and a service every 6 months.
- Long term thinking - At the rate the fossil fuel reserves are depleting, there would be no petrol or diesel in another 40 years (hope this doesn't happen) or their cost would overgrow the cost of finest precious metal and it is no longer affordable. That is when people will come back to cycling. If you are used to cycling from now, it would be easier to come back to cycling then. So get used to cylcing and build up stamina. (I know this is not a very straight argument and it is a little too much, so I leave it here).
- Cycle culture at IISc - IISc perhaps has half the number of cycles present in the entire Bengaluru. Everyone here uses a bicycle - from professors to students to staff. So having a bike makes you in some sense an IIScian.

Q Why a geared bike?
- Ease and efficiency of cycling - The purpose of gears is to maintain a constant speed of pedalling. A constant pedalling rate of 70-75 cycles per minute is found to be the most efficient. So gears ensure that the pedalling rate and effort of pedalling remain constant irrespective of the terrain in which we are cycling. However the speed of cycling varies. So, lower gears -> constant pedalling rate -> constant effort of pedalling -> lower speed -> Used on positive inclines or the "Ups". Higher gears -> constant pedalling rate -> constant effort of pedalling -> Higher speed -> Used on negative inclines or the "Downs". Hence we can become efficient cyclists.

Q Who are all into cycling?
- Sarvesh, Sunil Khajone, Aniruddha, many people at IISc and the list will grow longer by the time. Keep up the trend. Cheers.

One last suggestion - Use a bicycle for short distances, use a motor vehicle only if it is absolutely necessary.

3 R's - Reduce Reuse Recycle (The standard cliche)

Bhavadeeyah