My First Bike and Why I Still Cannot Sell It

# My First Bike and Why I Still Cannot Sell It

My younger brother rides my first bike to college now. Whenever I go home, I take it out for a ride myself. He gets to use it most of the time, but I still ask how it is running, whether it has been serviced, and if there is anything that needs attention.

I must be a slightly annoying elder brother when it comes to that bike.

It is a Suzuki Gixxer 150, delivered on **2 November 2017**. I do not remember every important date in my life, but that one has stayed with me.

I had finished college, got placed, and was working at Wipro in Bangalore. It was that stage when you have started earning and can finally think seriously about buying something you have wanted for years.

For me, that something was a bike.

I never had one during my undergraduate college days. I had always wanted one, though. Having my own bike, going on rides, making plans without worrying about how to get there—all of that had been sitting in my head for a long time.

So when the Gixxer finally arrived, I was ridiculously happy. Anyone who has waited years for their first bike will understand. You can explain the price, the engine, and the features to someone, but explaining how it feels to finally own it is harder.

Even now, when I think about that date, I remember how much it meant to me at that point in my life.

Bangalore made owning a bike even better. I loved the weather and the biking culture. There were people who were as interested in riding as I was, and so many places around the city to explore. Once I had the bike, weekends started looking different.

Of course, there was Bangalore traffic too. I got plenty of experience with that. The Gixxer saw both sides of the city: the lovely weather everyone talks about and the traffic everyone complains about.

It also turned out that my college riding days were still ahead of me.

While working in Bangalore, I did my master’s at PES University, and I used to ride there on this bike. I had missed having a bike during my earlier college years, so being able to ride to university meant something to me.

The Gixxer fitted into a pretty busy period of my life. I used it to commute to the office, get to college, and go for interviews. If there was a night out, I took the bike. If something came up and I needed to go somewhere, I took the bike.

Looking back, it was there for almost everything.

When you use a bike that much, you stop thinking about it as a purchase. You just reach for the keys. It becomes part of how your day works, and you only realise how much you depend on it when it is suddenly unavailable.

I found that out in the worst way when it was stolen.

Even now, that is an unpleasant part of the story to remember. By then, the bike already had so much of my life attached to it. Losing it meant losing something I used every day and cared about a lot.

Thankfully, I got it back. Bangalore cyber police helped track it, and I am still grateful for their help.

I do not want to turn that part into a dramatic film scene. I was simply very relieved to have my bike back. After thinking I might have lost it for good, being able to ride it again felt special.

It is strange to think that the story could have ended there. Instead, we got many more years together.

And there were plenty of trips.

Nandi Hills, Skandagiri, Shivagange, Kolar, and so many other places around Bangalore became part of my riding life. I explored enough hills and routes within roughly 200 kilometres of the city that, in my head, I had covered almost all of them.

I am sure I missed a few. But I gave it a fairly sincere effort.

I went on group rides and did plenty of solo trips too. I enjoyed the company on group rides—the shared excitement about going somewhere and having people to remember the trip with afterwards.

Solo rides were different. Sometimes I just wanted to get out, ride at my own pace, and have a little time to myself. After a busy week, that was often enough.

The longer trips still have a special place in my memory. There was the group ride from Bangalore to Wayanad in Kerala, and the journeys through Bandipur forest and to Ooty. Whenever I think about those places, the Gixxer is part of the picture.

It is funny how a bike can change your idea of distance. Before owning one, a place can sound far away. Then you start riding, and suddenly you are considering whether you can go there over the weekend.

I was enjoying having that freedom. There was so much around Bangalore that I wanted to see, and now I had a way to do it.

After COVID, when I moved to Bhubaneswar, I brought the bike to Odisha with me. By that point, it had been part of my life for years. I wanted it with me for the next part too.

I continued using it for daily commuting and took it to many places around Odisha. New roads, different surroundings, the same familiar bike. Over time, it became as much a part of my life here as it had been in Bangalore.

That is probably why I struggle with the idea of selling it.

I know it is an old bike now. I know there are newer bikes, better features, and plenty of sensible reasons people move on. I understand all of that.

But when I look at mine, I remember riding to PES University. I remember going to work, heading for interviews, going out, and all those trips. I remember the period when it was stolen and the relief of getting it back.

It is difficult to put a selling price on something when your mind keeps wandering through all of that.

Someone buying it would quite reasonably want to know about the condition and mileage. Meanwhile, I would be standing there mentally revisiting half my Bangalore life.

I would be a terrible person to negotiate with. I might change my mind halfway through.

These days, seeing my younger brother use it for college makes me happy. I did not have a bike during my undergraduate years, and now he gets to ride mine during his.

The bike has already taken me to university. Apparently, it still has some college attendance left in it.

I like that it is being used regularly. It has become part of his routine, and he is making his own memories with it. It feels good to keep it in the family that way.

Whenever I visit home, though, I still love going for a ride. After all these years, it feels familiar in a way that is hard to describe. I know this bike. I have spent so much time on it.

I have maintained it well, and it still runs fine. There is an engine sound that needs to be checked and fixed, so that is something I need to get sorted. I am attached to it, but I know keeping it for years means continuing to look after it.

My plan is to keep it long enough to call it my vintage bike.

That may sound a bit ambitious for a Gixxer 150, but I am serious about keeping it. I want my kids to see it someday and hear about where it has been.

I will tell them about buying it while working at Wipro, riding around Bangalore, going to PES, and exploring places with friends and on my own. I will tell them how it was stolen and found again, how it came to Odisha, and how their uncle used it to get to college.

They might only ask one small question about the bike and accidentally get my entire life story.

That will be their mistake.

For now, it is still at home, still being ridden, and still very much part of the family. There is a little work to get done on it, and plenty more time I would like to spend riding it.

I waited a long time to get my first bike.

Nearly nine years later, I still do not feel like letting it go.