Well it’s been just over a year. My bikes’ crossed the 10000 km mark during the first week of December this year while riding back from Hypnos with Chris. The best part is that it has blossomed into one of the finest machines I’ve had the privilege of using. It seems to get better with age like wine. And to top it off I’m getting a little cocky on the roads these days. I wouldn’t be too far off the mark by bragging that my skills have vastly improved from the nervous-wreck glancing furtively every time a vehicle comes too close to the more laid-back what-the-fuck come-what-may mofo that I’ve become. Ain’t no two ways about it!
Looking back, there are lots of little incidents that took place during this one year span. I remember the time, about eight months back, when I went to an underground party with Steve. It was around 2am in the morning on Hosur Road. There was a bye-lane that we needed to take in order to get to our destination and we ended up crossing it by around 20 odd meters. We had to backtrack coz there was no way to get to the other side of the road. So we ended up backtracking the way we came, in the wrong direction of traffic flow. I dimmed my lights to just the parking lights reasoning to myself that the truck-drivers roaring down from the opposite direction won’t get disoriented and drive the metal beasts down our throats! Big mistake! There were no other lights in our immediate surroundings. So I ended up not noticing the deep ditch on our side of the road. Eventually while trying to stick to the side of the road, the front wheel slipped at the edge and we tipped over. It was, in retrospect, not much of a fall and we were not hurt either coz we were riding really slow. But the handle-bar ended up getting twisted to an impossible angle. That, more than anything else, freaked me out. You would understand what I had felt then if the ZMA was the first bike you’ve ever had and that too for less than 2 months.
A couple of weeks back, I rode to Ramnagar with Karthik and co for a bout of rock climbing and stuff. There were a couple of Royal Enfield Thunderbirds giving company to my ZMA at an average speed of around 110 to 120 kmph on the Mysore Road. We had an unhindered view of the open blue skies with the sun perched comfortably over our heads, the black tarmac screaming past under the wheels and the wind whistling a tune that can be heard only at such speeds. You have to experience it to know what I mean when I use the word “breathtaking” in this context. There was not a single four-wheeled contraption on that highway that came anywhere near to the speeds we were hitting and the sight of us smoking all those Marutis, Toyotas and Mitsubishis made the ride even more sweet. There is an altogether different way of life existing on the other side of that 100kmph mark and you’ll never experience it in the cocoon of your four-wheeled tin-can my friend!
Looking back, there are lots of little incidents that took place during this one year span. I remember the time, about eight months back, when I went to an underground party with Steve. It was around 2am in the morning on Hosur Road. There was a bye-lane that we needed to take in order to get to our destination and we ended up crossing it by around 20 odd meters. We had to backtrack coz there was no way to get to the other side of the road. So we ended up backtracking the way we came, in the wrong direction of traffic flow. I dimmed my lights to just the parking lights reasoning to myself that the truck-drivers roaring down from the opposite direction won’t get disoriented and drive the metal beasts down our throats! Big mistake! There were no other lights in our immediate surroundings. So I ended up not noticing the deep ditch on our side of the road. Eventually while trying to stick to the side of the road, the front wheel slipped at the edge and we tipped over. It was, in retrospect, not much of a fall and we were not hurt either coz we were riding really slow. But the handle-bar ended up getting twisted to an impossible angle. That, more than anything else, freaked me out. You would understand what I had felt then if the ZMA was the first bike you’ve ever had and that too for less than 2 months.
A couple of weeks back, I rode to Ramnagar with Karthik and co for a bout of rock climbing and stuff. There were a couple of Royal Enfield Thunderbirds giving company to my ZMA at an average speed of around 110 to 120 kmph on the Mysore Road. We had an unhindered view of the open blue skies with the sun perched comfortably over our heads, the black tarmac screaming past under the wheels and the wind whistling a tune that can be heard only at such speeds. You have to experience it to know what I mean when I use the word “breathtaking” in this context. There was not a single four-wheeled contraption on that highway that came anywhere near to the speeds we were hitting and the sight of us smoking all those Marutis, Toyotas and Mitsubishis made the ride even more sweet. There is an altogether different way of life existing on the other side of that 100kmph mark and you’ll never experience it in the cocoon of your four-wheeled tin-can my friend!
