Monday 29 December 2014

Origins! Part II

Peace!

The last post started with the declaration of the cycling bug's return; ironically it is the flu bug that is currently threatening to keep me company!

After my Pertama Complex and Sungai Wang days, I had a 2-year break from cycling, firstly due to taking an Intensive English Programme at KPP/ITM Subang Jaya, and thereafter 2 years of A-levels at Portora Royal School, Enniskillen. However, my entry into St. Catharine's College, Cambridge necessitated a bicycle. How could one not ride in the Fens? Fortunately I did not have to scrounge up a battered bike from the town, as my eldest had brought home a fine silver Trek 1000 after she had graduated from Illinois. The tires hitting the Cantabrigian roads marked the beginning of its service for the next 6 years.


A similar Trek 1000 (image from 3.bp.blogspot.com)

I still remember pushing the Trek for the very first time into Ben Hayward Cycles located just to the left of Catz on Trumpington Street; the guy working on another bike stared at it - there was no other Trek, to his knowledge, that existed in UK at the time, and that was the first time he had seen one! You could certainly guess how chuffed I was, and the swagger with which I walked for the rest of the day. A quick look at the shop's website today would show that they now proudly carry Trek!


Serving Cantabrigians since 1912

In Cambridge it took me to all my normal haunts - the Cambridge Mosque for Friday prayers and Bosphorous' Kebabs or Chicken n Chips soon after, Shahidan's place near the Schlumberger Centre with his apple tree in the backyard, Comics Showcase for my weekly graphics & prose inhalations, and the art shop near Grafton Centre across Parker's Piece for my architectural presentation supplies. The longest trip was when a group of us went to the Imperial Air Museum in Duxford, though the flat Fens made it fairly effortless.

The Trek continued to serve me well in Edinburgh from 1992-1994 although it was really as an urban commuting vehicle. Though the roads in Scotland's most metropolitan city were much more challenging, the Trek was very much up to it, flying often its often-cobbled streets, especially at the Royal Mile. It's lithe aluminium body made it easy for me to carry it up two stories of the semi-hemispherical shaped staircase of my shared flat off East Preston Street, and ended up being used by my housemates once I had left.

After a 20-year lapse, I caught the cycling bug again. Malaysia might well be considered to have non-optimum weather for cycling, as the sweltering sun, high humidity and oft monsoon-like rains ensured that one would only get to one's destination with copious perspiration entrapped within whatever fabric that adorned one's back! So it was with a pinch of amusement that I noted so many cyclist during one of the KL Car-Free days riding various types of two-wheelers; but what really caught my eye was the folding bike.


A Dahon Jetstream P8 Dual Suspension



Saturday 27 December 2014

Origins! Part I

Peace!

The bug has returned, with a rather tentative vengeance.

I had bicycles before, the first being a shared (with my three elder sisters) three-geared Raleigh Chopper  during my Jalan Young pre-school days, which also survived our family's move to Jalan Damansara in 1975. I think that was where I learnt how to ride a bike, often falling every time I hit the root of the Ara tree in the garden whose reach was fairly substantial. My training ground was a narrow stretch of tar which was always reticent of the glowering grass on each side, every ready to pounce and render it invisible. It tries hard to qualify itself as a driveway of the government quarters which we called home, amidst lush fauna, just over two stone's throw away from the historic Lake Gardens of Kuala Lumpur (closer to Panggung Anniversary side - anyone remember that?). This was way, way before the Butterfly Park and Bird Park decided they should co-inhabit there.


The Raleigh Chopper (image from Wikipedia)
Panggung Anniversary at Lake Gardens

Cycling did not figure much after that, until 1994 when my father bought me my very first racer. I was still living at the Jalan Damansara house at the time (which my father named 'Cendana', after his alma mater Bukit Chandan, Kuala Kangsar). The bicycle was a heavy silver steel-framed bike (probably a Raleigh, I can't quite recall) purchased at a bicycle shop opposite the Coliseum cinema on Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman. With a Shimano 16-speed gear system, I was liberated from only cycling within the neighbourhood; the city beckoned! Interestingly it coincided with my spatial liberation too - for the first time, I had my own 'room', which was actually the TV room with a curtain rail across its width, transforming it into my 'room' after 10pm (after which there was nothing to really watch on the Telefunken 26' anyway).


A similar-looking bike to my silver Raleigh,
A similar Telefunken 26" Colour TV (cutting edge at the time!)









I started cycling to St. John's on Bukit Nanas for activities on Saturdays - it was either voleyball, sepaktakraw or some prefectorial duties. There was a gated bicycle parking space at the side entrance of the school, right beside the lone tennis court. One day, despite being chained to the adjacent grill, it was stolen - my heart sank! I half-skipped and half-ran down the hill to Campbell Police Station to report the crime - and 3 days later I received a call and they found it! Alhamdulillah!



St. John's Institution, Kuala Lumpur

After that early episode, I decided to go cycling every Sunday (when there were no kenduris). From Damansara, I alternated going to Pertama Complex and Sungai Wang Plaza. Pertama Complex was the main hangout for schoolkids my age at the time - mainly going to Victoria Music Centre (or King's one floor up) to make custom cassettes, as well as stopping by Joo Ngan's bicyle shop (could only afford to look - the only thing I bought there was a chain tool). That and looking for Iron Maiden t-shirts there or at Campbell's. At Sungai Wang I mainly went to the magic shop on the first floor, or just looking for interesting artifacts to be found within that cavernous mall. Riding in KL, I was the king of the road, whizzing between the traffic-snarled cars, occasionally kerb-jumping (on a racer, mind you!)


Sungai Wang Plaza
Shops at Old Pertama Complex















To be continued in Part II