I learnt to ride a bike when I was fourteen on my dad's Yamaha RX100, but my dad was a very regular rider, so I rarely got any practice on it. A few years later, I switched to using my mom's Kinetic and soon after, the car. For almost a decade, I didn't touch a geared bike. I lost interest.

Not having a bike at my disposal was one of the reasons for me not being interested in bikes, but another equally important reason was that all the bikes looked the bloody same. Standard 100-135cc commuter bikes with "bikini fairings", mediocre paint jobs and lousy names like Glamour, Splendor, Passion, Wind, Libero, Gladiator... ugh. None of them looked anything like the bikes in the movies or just any foreign country. The Hayabusas and Ninjas cost as much as a 1BHK flat in the city and that was never going to change anything for me.

But just recently, it did. The launch of the Honda CBR250R was the moment I was waiting for. For the first time ever, I looked online for bikes, downloaded wallpapers and actually started looking at bikes on the streets. They were all still the same, CBR250R would stand out.

It was also because it wasn't outlandishly priced - a starting price of 1.6 lakh is actually manageable, compared to the 3+ lakh for the Indian Ninja.

My dad currently has a red Pulsar 220. Previously, he's had the CBZ, the RX100 and an IND Suzuki (yes, that long ago!). He said might want to switch to an FZ. So after a short bit of looking around at different places for good deals and options, I finally settled in on a nice black Yamaha FZ for my dad. Or for me. We'll swap the bikes at any time!



I've only been really riding for about a week now. I've mostly been riding the bike to work and back, which is just around 10km. I've had a minor hard-braking related fall from the FZ, none on the Pulsar. I've only gone as fast as 50 kmph. I don't really feel the need to exceed that just yet! :-)

So that's me. Hello, hello!