Restoring an old Mountain Bike

13 years ago, my mom bought my bro a mountain bike which she claims costs around 1k. Ever since my bro has been done with it, it has been rotting at the front porch of the house up till now.

If I'm not wrong, the mountain bike is a 2001 GT Aggressor 1.0 Model. Here's a picture of it taken last week :

13 Year-old Mountain Bike (Unrestored)

It's really damn cui. Tires are all flat, hand grips are decayed, gears and chains are all rusted and filled with moss.

My family got a bicycle mounting rack for the car and we brought it down to an uncle shop to see if they could do anything about it.

I was quoted $395 for a full servicing and for the replacement of all the parts which needed to be changed. (Seat, gear shifter, stand, paddle, tires & brakes) I thought it was quite reasonable, to be honest I expected it to be more expensive seeing how every part of the bike looks spoilt. Luckily we made the choice of going to an uncle shop as compared to some commercialised bicycle shops which was probably gonna cost a bomb. The uncle shop seemed really reliable plus they've been around for a really long time and still going strong! So just trust them lah huh.

The place is called Alywin Cycle Bike Shop (Blk 137 Teck Whye Lane)
Here's a link to their website : http://alywincycle.blogspot.sg/

Just picked the bike up and here's how she looks now :

 

Look at dat beauty!

 

 Back View

Front View

To be honest, I was very impressed with the servicing. The bike literally looks as good as new! The uncle commented that the condition of it before was really dam cham and he had to wash it down like 3-4 times before he could get all the layers of dirt off.

The works included a paint job, servicing, tuning and replacement of all the spoiled parts.

He also explained to me on how I can maintain the bike and some riding tips as well! =D

Took it out for a spin once  and she's a beast, very responsive. Feels like even if I put her through rough terrain, she will still come out strong.

Can't wait to start riding this to nearby places to eat/ Bukit Timah hill and test it out on the trails there.

Wildstar - Finally reached lvl cap

After a grueling few weeks since release, I've hit lvl 50!

Huzzah!

Got the ding when I turned in the last quest left for me on the map (nice timing). 

Check out this message I got:

Reminding me how much of a life I don't have. Hahaha

Overall, the experience was pretty good. It can be tiring at times especially when I'm really fixated on lvling that I just skip all the story and lore stuff which made it feel very grindy. Looking back, I should've just read the quest texts to make the experience a lot more interesting.

Can tell that a lot of effort was put into the game in terms of lore and story-telling. 

Community has been pleasant and helpful most of the time, which is really one of the rewards of playing a P2P game, the kids are all being filtered. :D

Getting max level in these raid-oriented games have always been a stepping stone for most people. Still, it is really not as fast as I thought it'd be. A good amount of time in-game was spent traveling to quest locations which was quite a chore to me, but then again it's cause the world is so damn big.

Really excited to embark on my end-game contents such as vet adventure/dungeons/raids and even pvp!

Yowamushi Pedal

There's this anime about cycling called Yowamushi Pedal. I stumbled upon it randomly on an anime site, it looked lame but it turned out to be really nice!

Yowamushi Pedal

Basically the anime paints a picture of a regular nerdy otaku, Onoda that cycles everyday to school/other towns as a form of transport. He does this so he can use the money he saved from his bus fare to buy Gachapons. Unknowingly, he nurtured his ability to cycle through his countless years of 'training'.

When he got into high school(Sohoku), he encountered a hardcore cycling freak, Inaizumi and a competitive and yet friendly guy, Naruko who randomly helps him with his cycling techniques.

Sohoku Team Members

After a few series of events, they all ended up joining the school's bicycle racing club. They trained really hard and had to overcome many obstacles along the way.

Japanese producers are really damn good, the way they portray the whole training process was really interesting and entertaining. Basically it was a try-hard explanation about the complexities of cycling which is probably true in the professional levels. Don't get me wrong, this is by no means a bad thing. In fact, I found it really interesting and entertaining!

After a long and gruesome training camp, game was on at the Inter-High bicycle racing tournament.

At the Inter-high tournament, they showed many formidable opponents from several schools, with the main one being the past reigning champions, Hakone High School.

Characters that were introduced all had their histories and backgrounds, adding a lot more flavor to the story line.

Hakone's Izumida

Just looking at 1 of the guys, Izumida. Look at those fuckin' abs man. I know it's an anime, it's just drawings and it's fake but FUCK it's gorgeous. Apparently this guy names his Pecs (Adam & Frank) hahaha. This guy's not even the main character but he sure as hell caught my eye. (no homo)

Currently the anime is at the 2nd day of the Inter-High, this is definitely one that I'll be following.

Sudden craving for Fried Chicken

It's a super random craving that I'm getting as of recently and oh, it is strong. I've no idea why it is happening but for now I'm so obsessed with it now. OMG.

How can you not love that?

Some may say that it looks disgusting and unhealthy and I can see why, but still I want to sink my teeth into it so bad and devour it! :O

I'm like a freakin fatass wanting some of dat shit!!!

I may be going a little crazy...

Update :
Everything's back to normal now. Haha, I still wouldn't pass up the chance to have some though if I could.