Hero Thunder MTB.

I finally bought a two-wheeler, and I am liking it. The bicylce is a Hero Thunder MTB, all aluminium, light weight, Shimano Tourney 3X7 = 21 gears, Full Aluminium mudguards. It is very nice. I had to fit in a carriage to carry my laptop. The bike itself was around 6.4K and with VAT, a dynamo light, bell, carriage, and lock it came to around 7K. I purchased it from the Madiwala RR Cyles.

The Aluminium carriage was significantly expensive, about 600 bucks, so I went for an iron carraige taken from a hero hercules. It is heavy, but I can live with it; The bike itself is very light weight. Bicycling in Bangalore involves negotiating an obstacle track with boulders, dividers, and short stairs in buildings. The weight makes it easy for me to pick the thing up. It also is very fast and responsive. The bad part is that it bounces a bit on bad roads, but that happens to every bike without shocks.

I had tried something with shocks earlier; they do stop some jerks, but are not all that useful. Also, picking up the bike, having a full-metal mudguard, and carriage is critical for me. Shocks do not give us that, though the new Hero Octane can apparently come with full alluminium mudguards. With rear shocks, the frame is slightly inconvenient to lift the bike for a long time. The Atlas Ryder is available with front shocks, but somehow the MTB felt lighter and better.

The gears are flawless and behave as expected. Their true nature may be evident after a few months of use.

The build quality of the bike could have been better. Reflectors on the pedals have plastic screws, and one of the reflectord broke off within a day of riding. The front reflector also broke, but that was bound to give away some day. It is best to have reflector stickers all over the bike.

The dynamo is self contained, very functional, and does what it is supposed to do - Let the guy coming from the opposite direction know that there is a bicycle somewhere in front. I would prefer to have a dynamo that has a lot less friction, and is more silent, but maybe I shall have to build it myself. I do not know of a place in India that will sell high-quality ones. A few sites with details about dynamos:
http://www.nordicgroup.us/s78/dynamo.html
http://www.freelights.co.uk/
http://pilom.com/BicycleElectronics/Dynamo.htm

I ride about four Kms to work each day - ST bed layout Kormangala to Forum. It takes about 15 minutes to bike. It is less than the time taken for my colleagues on cars, motorcycles.