Seven

RIDE, a four letter word, which for many holds equal or more value, as compared to other four letter words like LOVE, SEXY or even FUCK !!! A ride in itself can be classified into a lot of types like breakfast ride, long ride, overnight ride etc. When we ride, our destinations are a chosen few – so few that they can be counted on your finger tips. Many do complain about the same too, because the destinations get repetitive over time. But what is being forgotten here is that it’s not the destination we are riding for, it’s the journey. A journey that consists everything starting from city roads to highways, slow and tight corners to 100+ kmph sweeps and most important – an experience that fits together better than a jigsaw puzzle with single, twin and even four cylinders revving together.

25^th March 07, a day we would never forget for a lot of reasons.

The time period we went on the ride, coincidently is also the time period the movie ‘300’ has been burning the Indian box office. Yes, I know you are already thinking that I’m about to start comparing the ride and the movie. You are right. This idea may sound insignificant and mad. But this isn’t madness, this is RSA J

What happened a night before Sunday, was a RSA Dinner. The regulars were there and a few newbies too. The Sunday ride was planned quite some time before the dinner. Discussions happened about the plan, the probable members who would come for the ride were also being short listed. According to the new rules of the group, Rides and Stunt meets are to happen parallel so that the Stunters get their weekly dose of action and the Riders can enjoy theirs, before mother nature decides to wet the roads later in the year.

The downside of this though is that turnout reduces significantly. Nevertheless, the members enjoy what they joined in for.

As Sunday morning dawned, people started exchanging wake up calls. They all wanted to ride, together. Everyone was very excited about the ride. After gathering at the usual meeting place and waiting for all to do the same, we found that the number of members who had gathered was not very encouraging. Just the way a handful of Spartans went against the rules and prepared for war, we did not let our excitement die down. We had to go ahead with the ride and make the most out of it. Just the way the 300 odd Spartans were some of the finest the land had to offer, the members who had come for the ride and their machines were some of the finest one could imagine riding with -

A bike journo who believes that the handlebar is mightier than the pen – Speedy on a P180C

A racer who wants to undo the fact that the racer should not get his hands dirty in the pits – Kiran on a P220DTSFi

A rider aboard a 1000cc bike that wears the uniform of one of the best racing machines ever built – Sam on a Repsol Replica 1000RR

A car guy who thought bikes were uncomfortable, until he started riding one the way its meant to be ridden – PriyuB on a Karizma

A family man who found his long lost love, away from his family – Morpheus on a CBR 600RR

A tuner form downtown, better known as ‘Mad Bawa’ aboard a technical masterpiece – Mad Bawa on a BMR R1200

And finally a guy better known for his crashes than his achievements, clinging onto the fastest bike in the world – Rash on a GSX1300R Hayabusa.

The start of the ride made the highway sound like an Orchestra Pit, with the seven bikes playing their favorite musical notes in tune with each other. Though is sounded mesmerizing to many, to us it was like the sound of the battle horn. It had begun and there was no turning back. Like the Spartans, we would die but would not be frightened of the hurdles the roads or the ride had to offer us. The first setback came when the Repsol pulled over complaining of a loose right handle bar. But with some quick help from the Tuner-Racer Kiran and the Mad Bawa, the problem was overcome and our march continued. As we took the Katraj by-pass, the open roads were a sight we had been dying for, for quite a while. As the Busa with its free flow ‘can entered the Tunnel, the sound and its reverb was enough to frighten the mortals who were moving around like slaves in their cages. Whenever the traffic used to slow us down, the puny single cylinders would find small spaces to penetrate through them. In this way we could stick together in terms of the road covered. Our next stop was at the re-fuelling station to feed our might beasts. After that every biker was on his own, only waiting to regroup at the next stop – the Toll Booth before Khambatki.

The route to Khambatki is quite tricky. Why I say this is because, though it offers some beautiful high speed sweeps and straights, its often very crowded. As it is the only route from Pune to Bangalore, all the commercial vehicles use the same. To add to that, it is also the route to one of the most famous hill station – Mahabaleshwar and that adds a lot of family vehicles to the traffic. 80 kmph is fast enough for the family cars and legal enough for the right (fast) lane. But for us who like to see the needle above 100 kmph all the time, it’s a hurdle, a big slow moving hurdle !! And this is even before we get down to things like sudden lane changes, improper brake / turn signals, illiteracy of highway ethics and the like. Alas, its better left unsaid. Whenever I take a higher capacity bike on this route, what I generally wait for is the last few kilometers before the famous toll booth. This section offers some of the fastest straights and coincidently I have been lucky with scarce traffic on these sections every time I have taken a ‘big’ bike. What we managed yesterday was 4 gears red-line and 5^th gear 9,000 RPM on the Hayabusa. The 600 on the other hand clocked speeds in excess of 200 kmph. The Busa was very confidently grounded even at those speeds and returned some excellent feedback. But still the sheer velocity was enough to send cubes of ice down my spine even under the hot circumstances. I was the first to reach the toll booth. I had done a similar run on the Fireblade a couple of times before this. But this experience was something that I’ll never forget for times to come. My pillion tells me that we hit the 300 kmph mark, a benchmark that many wouldn’t even dare to think of in our country. I could say nothing. A couple of tears did roll down my eyes, inside the helmet. But that was it, I didn’t have any room for softness. The emotions would have made me weak. There was still more to go. A bigger task in front, that of taking a Tourer through the curves of Khambatki, as if it were a race bike. Kiran and Priyub hadn’t stopped at any of the small regroups that we had in between nor at the refueling station. It gave them enough advantage to cross the Khambatkis before we reached the toll booth. We all regrouped at the toll booth and we rejoined by Kiran and Priyub. Khambatki was waiting for us. It was waiting to throw at us, some very good curves. We were ready to take them with the same affection we have every time. What was different this time though was, gravel on the curves, slow moving traffic on the fast sections and even some slippery coolant on one of the corners that usually has a very fast entry. But we dealt with it with some very good riding, and more important, very good team work. The leader as usual was indicating hand signals wherever required. In spite of all the hurdles Khambatki was conquered in no time and not a single rider was lost. The heat was getting worse as the hands of the clock moved. It was time for some refreshments. The regular Dhaba we sit at welcomed us with open arms again.

While the food and drinks came, we were all very excited about the way the ride had progressed so far. What had been planned earlier was, multiple laps of the Khambatki and back home. But because the ride till now was done in good time, we started toying with the idea of marching further into the Wai ghats and conquer some more land. Without doubt, the idea was soon turned into practice and we set out for Wai – Panchgani. As we approached at the at the foothills of the Wai ghats, its was time to refuel the beasts with gasoline. With the riders and their beasts refreshed, it was time to set these ghats on fire as well. Unlike the Khambatkis, these ghats offer an even greater threat – two way traffic. As you climb uphill, there is a much faster army of illiterate family cars and public transport vehicles heading down straight for you on the narrow road. If you intend to go fast on these curves, you need to follow a fast line, which is very difficult considering the oncoming traffic follow none. The route till Panchgani was finished at a very fast pace with not much traffic attacking us. What was going to be difficult now was the route to the final destination – Mapro Garden. The Sun was slowly getting over head as noon was approaching. The route to Mapro is tarmac laid through woods. The tall trees and their arrow headed branches and leaves were blotting out the sun rays. We had to ride in shade. Such scattered shadows can be very dangerous particularly because its gets very difficulty to analyze the curves, their banking, the bumps, the pot holes etc. which are some of the worse enemies when it come to high speed riding. But we were not to be beaten here. We took the road and we took it fast. I was red lining the Hayabusa even in the curves and my pillion was hanging on for his dear life. Every bump and pot hole was sending enough rebounds to lead to tank-slapping, but we were still going flat out tackling them with as much strength I could use in my wrists. It wasn’t a different story for the others riders as well. The rest of the body weight was being used to tackle the steering of the bikes as the curves got faster and faster. The traffic was increasing and so was the denseness of the shadows. As the reading on our trip counters was increasing, the reading on the Mapro milestones started decreasing. We reached Mapro finally. So far so good. Along with me, it was Priyub who had reached. The CBR 600 followed. Kiran and Speedy were racing each other and went all the way till the end of the Wai ghats stampeding everything that ‘didn’t’ move. As I, Sagar (my pillion), Priyub, Morphues and Yatin (his pillion) decided to settle, we got a call from Mad Bawa. His brake hydraulics had suddenly failed and he ran wide on one of the curves. He was a little shaken up and didn’t want to ride further. Sam was with him at that moment. I and Sagar mounted the Karizma and went back to look for them. Thankfully, we found the rider and the ride standing on their feet. There was no physical damage on either of them. It was Mad Bawa’s confidence that was majorly damaged though. I rode the Beemer back to Mapro. On the way we saw Speedy and Kiran coming back for us. We regrouped and returned to Mapro.

At Mapro, Bawa opened his tool kit and started healing his beast while the rest of us decided to grab more refreshments. Speedy was busy ogling at the beautiful Oracles the great Mapro-land had to offer. Loki (another pillion), in the meantime, had decided to take Bawa’s case and was enjoying every bit of it, while Mad Bawa hated every bit of it. After some good time at Mapro and some good refreshments, we decided to head back to mother land. I was the first to leave among the group as I accelerated through the straights connecting Mapro to the ghats. After some ‘Isle of Mann TT’ kinda ride through the ghats, down to Panchgani, I was stuck in traffic. Kiran gained advantage over me and joined me in Panchgani. The Hayabusa had developed some altitude sickness till then. She had started fluttering and was not delivering much power. However, she had enough power to hit the road downhill. I and Kiran were feeling like kids with wooden swords. We fought all the way downhill. Sometimes like kids, sometimes like pilots in a dogfight and sometime like racers on a race track. We reached back to the foothills safely. My wrists were paining as if they had gone trough some third degree police torture. Talking of police, as soon as we reached down to foothills, some traffic police had caught some over-loaded people carriers. We parked in the shade of a tree and got off the beasts to relax till the others came back. The cops came, not for any legality, but to check out the bikes, the armor we were wearing and the likes. They were overwhelmed to see such stuff. By the time they back to the ground, the other bikers reached. Finally, Wai had reached the same fate as that of Khambatki. What followed after that was quite and slow ride back home. The roads had been conquered, unbelievable speeds had been reached and great team work had been showcased. Once again it is proved, that what has been written or said above, cant be understood easily, until you RIDE WITH THE ANGELS.

The SEVEN riders and the beasts