Early bicycle adventure

This entry is written after I read Akmal's blog of him bringing his son on a child bicycle seat and going for rides. I am inspired to write on our own adventure.

If my memory is correct, my parents bought a Raleigh bicycle for me when I was 11 years old. A year after that, I started to cycle to school. The passion was already there then, even with a bike with only single speed, it gave me the wheels of freedom to explore places around the kampung area.

From bicycle I upgraded to another 2 wheel vehicle, this time with engine when I was 17 in Form 5 - a Honda cub C90. That open another chapter of exploration when you don't need pedal power to go places. The Raleigh bicycle was retired until it rusted.

Fast forward a few years later after getting married, I had the first glimpse of a mountain bike when we visited my relatives in Banting and they had a Sanyo brand bicycle. It had fatter tyres with deep grooves. The fork was rigid but that didn't matter at that time and best of all, it came with gears! Wow! It was an awesome feeling riding the bike around the housing estate and having the first taste of off road cycling when I cycled into the oil palm estate. I was hooked!

I bought 2 Lerun mountain bikes later for my wife and I. Both bikes are still with us (sentimental value). A few years after my son Justin was born, I fitted a bamboo child seat so that I can take him along when I go cycling in the evenings. Boy, did both of us look forward to those rides.

Photo taken when Justin about about 3-4 years old

It was about the same time as the photo above when Justin and I were cycling on road one evening and a minor accident stopped all the fun.

I was happily cycling with him in front chatting away being curious at everything when suddenly I felt being pushed off the road by some strange force. We both fell with me incurring most of the injuries as I tried to shield him from the tarmac road. Justin was crying and I was in a daze. In front of me was a motorcyclist who was in the drain and a small lorry stopped further ahead after some passerby shouted at the driver to stop.

The story unfolded as we regained our composure.
The lorry overtook the motorcyclist but he drove too close and something on the lorry's body hooked on the motorcyclist and dragged him off the road. As the motorcyclist was dragged, he got lose but was heading towards the drain and as he passed us, he in turn, pushed us off the road and made us fall.
We ended sideways in the carpark of a restaurant and the motorcyclist was in the drain ahead.

Luckily there was no serious injuries on us including the motorcyclist who survived the accident with cuts and bruises. My Lerun bike which was accident free before was now full of noises as I slowly made my way back home. I never got any compensation from the driver although I contacted him once but that 1 bad incident made me stop our regular evening rides.