Bike & Accessories Story!

Next day was Pooja day .. so the bike got the required blessings :-) Evening loaded the cycle to my car. Plan was to pickup Sandy and then go to Decathlon store to buy accessories. Idea was to DIY the accessories to get familiarized with the bike.

Picked up Sandy and stopped at ORR Coffee day. Shortly Jason too joined us. It was interesting to see at least 2-3 couples on arranged date here. We had some fun watching them. Dates with their parents or relatives in the adjacent table etc!!

All of us decided to head towards Decathlon from there. Sandy decided to take a spin on the bike and eventually he rode uptil Decathlon! En-route the chain came of the front sprocket while moving to gear 1 [small]. He fixed and followed.

Sandy thought the bike was pretty good. Its only that the seats were not correctly adjusted for his height - the easy release lock didn't lock tight enough to hold his weight. He thought he would buy this bike if only it suited his height.

Eugene at Decathlon assisted us in picking up the accessories - he was quite helpful in explaining and he went ahead and tried to see if it would fit my bike [the accessories are typically for BTwin bikes]

Bought the following:

RockRider Helmet [1700]

Decathlon Wireless Comp [1700]

Lock (set of three) [250?]

Rockrider Rear fender [400]

Btwin Bike cover [600]

Light set - Front and back [850] {made Sandy to pay the same ;-)}

Rockrider Saddle bag [400]

Front fender - Eugene tried the spare ones - it didn't seem to be fitting .. so didn't take it at this time.

Took few more pictures of the bike at Decathlon and left. We had to reach movie hall soon [Wanted - hindi], so loaded the bike back to car and went back home.

It was a long weekend, so Monday was off too!! .. so decided to fix all the accessories.

What followed was very good learning. I don't know whether I have ever used the Allen keys before - even when I had a bike. Most of the parts were removable using the Allen keys. They were so tiny and it took some time to get used to positioning and gripping the same!

Was doing it very slow since the whole thing was new for me! Got stuck while trying to fix the back fender. The top screw of the V-brake kit is suppose to come off so that it can be replaced with a longer screw to affix the fender. But it had been screwed so tight the kit got unscrewed from the frame!! Even singer oil didn't help in releasing this screw.

I had screwed up the front wheel release mechanism as well [ the lock wasn't closing so banged it and bent it]. Had removed the release lever completely and wasn't sure how to put in the springs as well. With whatever fix I did, the breaks were rubbing against the front wheel.

Took some time to figure out why the cyclo comp wasn't reading any speed - RTFM - the magnet and the transmitter are to be at a max distance of 5mm at the time of contact!!, I had happily set it up about 2 inches away!!

So except for this, everything else was fixed at the end of about 4 hrs!! [what would have been a 30 min job for a pro.

Following weekdays were pretty busy and was raining too. One of the days, took the bike back to RR. Rakesh obliged to get it repaired. The service guys had some oil which helped in removing the screw from the back v-brake kit. This time they tightened the kit so that the screw on top is easily removable. That night, replaced those screws with the one which came along with the fender. Finally the fender snugged in neat!

In the shop, Rakesh had confirmed that the RockRider front fender would work fine. But he was asking me to wait until the cyclothon is completed. He thought many people broke their fenders in the initial few days. Met my colleagues there who were planning to buy ACT 110 - Rakesh seem to have quoted 10800 now. And looks like he had another two paces stacked up somewhere!

Eventually it was weekend and the home minister reminded me that the bike is inside the home [literally] and I haven't taken it for a spin yet.