A day remembered

I am at my ancestral house in kerala …I got there after a 7 hour ride on my bike…through the beautiful ghats of wynad.. the route is beautiful, the rice is about to be planted and one is far from the blitz of soft drink ads. the local markets are full of yellow flowers jasmines, sugarcane and the mussel-like fruit of the palm called the nong …I put my bags down and relax on the “easy chair” on the huge portico.

   We have a fabulous dinner after the stunning evening rituals. The colors, the flames, the bells, the songs, the flowers-the senses are filled and the new moon light packed with stars. It’s totally dark. I clink my metal key and ring. Hoping the sound will ward off snakes. i come to the neem tree with its scents and think, ”now I must go right” I step into an abyss have slipped and fallen into a small pit ..Probably dug for some new hybrid..It’s a pretty bad fall but no broken bones except for a few bruises.. i am terrified ..but luckily I find my key and I get back .i knock at the door and is opened by grandma. .what were u doing outside she asks and is immediately horrified to hear what has happened …she comes upto me into my room with a lamp ( a kerala power cut of course!!!),but then I bathe with neem and put antiseptic on my scalding bruises which I cant see. I am lucky to have got off so easily. .all night I keep waking up to see if I am paralyzed. .but at last it is 6.00 am ..my usual waking hour out in the open. a new day has begun ..The cuts on my knee have formed neat scabs, and I am ready to face the day.

Its raining, heavy rain which mixes with the red earth and falls on a tree and a temple pond with a distinctive smashing sound…the house is set in a two acre farm, right in between…all around except for on the right are green fields…. right at the front gate entrance is a pond.. Belonging to the community temple. . and on the back gate as well is a pond privately belonging to our family ….I lie in bed feeling as if I am a bower of green-and the tree outside my room has crept in. i look out and see two old ladies dressed in deep magenta and leaf green hurrying out barefoot in the squelchy mud. A hen looks around as if amazed at the weather, a goat kid bleats scared on hearing a splash in the pond and a ducks quacks and hurries along as though she has to catch the 7.40 local train…i find my watch its 7.30 am. breakfast time ..i get warm water in the natural geyser where firewood burns away with its smoky fragrance  …the water is hot but just right for the weather ..Just comfortably warm I should say.. Outside the local folk are taking bath in the temple pond. . The huge Banyan tree which overhangs the pond is crowded with gnarled knots of suspended roots..The womenfolk’ would come later in the day on to the other side of the pond to bathe and wash clothes….

I am standing in the field.. it suddenly starts to pour.. i return home two hundred meters in the pouring rain and the red earth, the temple pond filling with opal colored water, the surroundings in a hazy with white clouds like smoke ...so so real that I suddenly know that in this place It is possible to be outstandingly happy .i slosh through puddles soaked in a state of bliss –my body cool at last and hopeful……

Nomad...

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Raid De Himalaya...Touring Rallyist..Rallying Tourist..

Riding the Raid – the 10^th Raid-De-Himalaya

Part 1: The days before the start of the rally.

This is a first person account of one man’s passion, a journey and a personal challenge.I am not sure where to begin except at a random point in my journey of life and its association with motorcycles. From my earliest memories the good ones are almost always associated with two wheels, engines, oil, exhaust, heat and most importantly that Zen like “is-ness” of things as you open that throttle and feel like you have wings.

                My first attempt at riding the Himalayas in 2006 on a royal Enfield machine (rented) left lasting impressions of what it really means to be riding in a country that you love and a terrain that leaves you humbled. Prashant, my good friend and a man after my own heart prompted a thought along the way on this tour of ours (at Kaza if I remember right). I think he said something like “we are riding the same route as the raid”. A statement like that doesn’t get erased very easily (even for someone like me who has short term selective memory loss, the keyword being selective) and before I knew it 2007 had rolled around and there I was in Shimla at Motoworld, Navbahar signed up for Raid-de-Himalaya 2007 on a bullet that Prashant had literally given me to ride how ever I wanted and as he describes it “bikes are meant to be ridden, so ride it annae”.  My stint at the 2007 raid proved rather short lived, the bike packing up on day two, hardly 2kms after the competitive stage start at Gramphoo (past Rohtang pass). This was obviously disappointing and only left me with a resolve to come again in 2008 with a better bike and with better preparation. Lessons learnt.

                Dec 07, I went to Singapore, walked into Mah Motors, set my heart on a beautiful Husqvarna TE510 (enduro). The thing weighs a meager 114kg, puts out 56 odd horses and to top it off I get a great deal on the price. I pay the dealer, come back and get a middle man to bring the bike into India. To cut the rest of the painfully long story short, the bike, the agent and I get embroiled in the beautiful (sic) folds of Indian bureaucracy and red tape and I spend the next 9 months waiting for the bike to be unleashed from the greasy hands of the system that kills almost every Indian’s spirit. The bike finally gets released 5 days before we are set to head out but luck plays another card and a missing part prevents the Husky and me mating in the Himalayas.

                A parallel story was meanwhile unfolding while the Husky saga was going on. Knowing that relying on the Husky for the raid was a big risk of a no-show, we decide to build a Karizma for the raid and thanks to my “nomadic” friend and his amazing contacts we manage (quite well actually, with the aid of a mechanic that deserves all the praise I can give him) to piece together the Karizma with a complete front and rear end of a YZ250. 

As the days progress towards our departure, everything seemed totally out of control: the tires (Pirelli Rally-cross) that we ordered haven’t arrived, the jet kits (JDjetting.com) for the Yamaha’s get stuck in customs at the great travesty called the India postal service, the larger tank (justgastanks.com) for the WR250 arrives but we find out that it’s the wrong one and we have re-order and wait for it to arrive and more importantly clear customs again. Apart from this Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav has issued an order that trains will not carry goods bogies for the next 20 days. Real panic sets in. We try and figure out alternate ways of getting the bikes and the goods to Shimla. Insane ideas like buying a tempo, renting a tempo, putting it all on a jeep and other such suggestions pass through various phone calls amongst us. It reaches a point when it all looks gloomy and we just sort of step back and tell ourselves that “whatever happens happens, let’s not sweat about the stuff we can’t control”.  As in all panic motivated situations and given Murphy’s Law, things magically fall into place in their own way. The tires land in India, the kits get cleared (money involved of course, are you kidding?) & the larger tank arrives (more money involved) and Mr Lalu revokes the order on the goods trains. In the background there is so much coordination that Prashant is handling with respect to support for the raid, mechanics from Delhi, support vehicles for the raid, paperwork, RC books, insurance for the rally its crazy trying to piece all this together.

Finally the day arrives for our departure. We load everything including the bikes, spares, tools, gear on the 19^th of Sept and get on the same train to Delhi. There are four of us from Bangalore (Bhaskar, Prashant, Aditya and myself). Bhaskar riding Yamaha WR450, Prashant on a Yamaha WR250, Aditya on a stock Karizma and myself on a “Hero-Honda-Yamaha-ShivajiNagar-Motokraft-Karizma” 225.  Thanks to Red Rooster Racing three of our bikes are stickered with the RRR logos and they look nice together. Feels real!!

Getting the bikes and the goods to Shimla from Delhi proved quite easy (thanks again to Prashant). We unload everything on top of the Raid office and we are all quite visually and otherwise excited to be there together, and importantly all the bikes and goods are all safe. The officials at the Raid give us pieces of news that are not very encouraging as we try and prepare to go on a recce. The news all around is that the early rains have washed out a lot of the roads around Shimla and the same rains have dumped snow at the higher elevation and that the passes are closed (Rohtang, Kunzum, Barlach-la). More speculation keeps surfacing and questions of whether the raid will really run or if it does run, how long will it last. I remember 2007 raid and how it ended on the fourth day due to the weather gods. All of us were nursing our disappointments and were praying and hoping that the raid would at least start.

                25^th Sept, More of our friends and fellow riders started showing up at Shimla and the hotel we were staying in was slowly starting to fill up with bikers, biker friends, rally car drivers, mechs and before we knew it the hotel which only had 8 or 10 rooms was all occupied by moto-heads. The negotiation on the hotel charges was done by Bhaskar (in hindi) and I think at some point I also started spouting what I thought was hindi (I don’t think the manager at the hotel understood anything I said, apart from the words, room, rate and friends and “hai” at the end of each sentence). Oh I almost forgot the only other word that can be used everywhere and people really understand is “behanchod”. It doesn’t matter if you are south Indian with an accent thick enough to cut through the aloo paratha. The parking lot at the hotel turned into a hangar of sorts with all kinds of bikes, a rally gypsy (driven by Sanketh) and it was a sight to see riders, mechs and friends all milling around, working on the bikes, helping each other out. The excitement was building and I think you could touch it!!

Before I get into anything more I have to tell you how this rally is organized and more importantly the routes and how its run. Spread out over 8 days covering 2100kms of terrain and landscape that is both awe-inspiring and scary there is nothing in the world that compares to this. The mighty Himalayas really make you question your way of life and in many ways have a harmonious way of making you accept yourself for all that you are.

The rally is based on a TSD (time speed distance) format and is recognized by the international rally bodies and is rated among the top ten toughest rallies in the world. Of the 2100kms about 1100km is competitive. Averaging about 300km a day, of which half of them are competitive you are riding with your heart in your mouth as you make you way through the treacherous mountain sides, turn after turn, checking for traction, on the throttle, jamming the brakes, shifting, balancing and finally ensuring that every part of you is awake. You are fighting the brain’s natural instinct to protect the body by pushing yourself to go faster. (Isn’t that the cause for the high, the rush every time you are on a bike?). All of this requiring concentration levels that would challenge your mind every second and needing the consistency to ride continuous 2 hour stretches of high speed competitive stages. The rally isn’t so much pure flat out speeds as it more to do with consistency, endurance and smarts.  The rally also covers 11 of the world’s highest passes (Rohtang, Kunzum, Barlach-la, Sarchu, Tangla, Fotula, Namikla..) touching elevation of 16,000 ft plus.

A recce is a standard procedure for anyone riding the raid. It’s the one and only way of getting to know yourself, the route, the bike and whether this is something you really want to do in the first place. Before the rest of the riders started arriving in Shimla, Bhaskar and Aditya both decided to do a recce together but as in all cases of coordination they both go separate ways in their attempt to find the start of stage 1. They both come back at the end of the day pretty pooped and I understood why only after seeing the pictures of the route and what they tried crossing…

Soon we had a big enough crowd (Prashant, Bhaskar, Chetan, Aleois, Vivek, Raveendra, Nitin Jadhav, Sanketh and Dheeraj in their  Gypsy and myself) and we all set off for a recce on the 27^th of Sept after having gotten news that two of the stages of leg 1 were open.  We left early and headed onto a gravel road (mashobra to bekhilti, 18kms) which we had earlier used as a test stage even though this wasn’t part of the raid but it helped give us some practice

Bhaskar and Prashi were flying as was Chetan. The stage has an interesting mix of gravel and some fast flat sections towards the end. Everyone finished safe and headed towards competitive  stage 4. We get lunch at Narkanda (no aloo parathas this time!!)  and head towards Khaneoli where we think stage 4 starts. We hang a right at a fork and as we enter the stages things get ugly, small rocks, bigger rocks and then boulders are in our path. Some of us get down to help clear the path for Sanketh in his gypsy, but Sanketh being Sanketh doesn’t bat an eyelid and literally bull-dozes his way over some of the blocks. Not being a car guy I just stand and stare. This stopping and clearing every few meters hardly takes us another 100 meters before Prashi comes back walking and tells us that the road is washed out.

All of us turn around and go back to the fork and figure that there is an alternative route that has been sketched out by the raid officials. We head another 5 km and hang a left down a dirt road and before we know the road ends, whole mountainside washed out. Some of the guys get down and walk over the rubble and head further down towards what we believe is stage 4 start. After some brief bonding with the locals and some calls to the raid officials (yes we were also the recce team for the raid officials) we had back towards Rampur. As we head back, its getting dark and everyone’s kind of tired, we run into a another major landslide on the main road that connect Luhri to Rampur (where the hotel is). That takes 3 hours to clear and time passes with us watching the JCB entertain us.

                What a day, 180 odd km and not a single stage completed as a recce.!!! A dorm is found and all ten of us snore our way to the morning. We wake to a beautiful sun light morning and as we decide to head back to base camp a few of the guys head down to the Sutlej river bank for some fun.

 With the fun over we get back to Shimla and call it a day. Three days to go before the rally starts. Who cares if the rally is on or not, we are having  fun!!!

Are we touring or rallying? Not sure!..

End part 1

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Target Fixation

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The bike goes where you look aka "target fixation"

Although this was written for the track, this applies to riding in general.
All of us know this and this is all the more true on a track at high speeds. The bike will go where you look. As you enter a corner (even on the street) we have all faced a moment of realization where we know we are going to hit the cycle/tree/ditch. How does one know? ESP? predictions?

The answer is target fixation.

What do you do now that you know this?

The obvious : Set your eyes on where you really want to go. Its difficult but doable. This will only come with practice

Cornering:

All of us learnt to respect corners one way or another. On the track this is more important than ever given the speeds that you are going through in a corner.

Typically any rider attacks the corner using the "point and shoot" method. This is where you go into the corner, brake, point the bike, accelerate, brake, point and accelerate until you are out of the corner. Obviously not the right way to do this. There are folks who also shift while in a corner. Common mistakes and sometime deadly ones.

Smooth cornering :
Lets define three parts to the corner. The entrance, the Apex and the Exit.
The entrance is the point at which you start leaning into the corner, the apex is the highest point on the inside on the corner and the exit is where you are almost in a full upright position.

Lets start with a left hander.
Getting into the entrance depends on a few things. Firstly the speed you are carrying, the kind of corner it is (more about this later), your optimal braking point (or brake marker as it is called) for you to carry through that corner.
On a left hander as you are coming in, stay to the outside right and find your brake-marker, make the "shift-blip-brake" routine so that you are in the right gear at the right rpm. This is the point of starting your lean. Move your body out to aid the lean. As you find yourself hurtled into the entrance, start by looking into the turn (the most important thing in your life, you will notice this on any racing photo, where the racers head is turned further into the turn than the rest of the body). and start the counter steer. [Countersteer: The bike leans to the same side as you push on the handlebars. So a push on the left handlebar will tuck the bike into a left hander]. The further ahead you are able to look into the turn the more confidence you have.

Now you have entered the turn, you are in the right gear/rpm and you have assessed the turn and you are leaning into the turn, looking into the turn. No sudden moves now!!. At this point you have traveled from the right side of the track to the inside of the track taking the shortest route
Keep the throttle smooth through the entrance into the apex.

As you approach the apex, you are at full lean (knee dragging the ground, your ) and at the apex you are able to see parts of the exit. At this point (exiting the apex) the throttle is finely controlled to start a slow but steady acceleration.

And you are on your way out the exit of the corner. At this point you want to use the whole track to get the most benefit and as you accelerate you will find yourself drifting to the outside right of the track. As the rpm's pick up, shift up (depending on the turn). Again remember the bike goes where you look.

All the above contributes to "finding your line". As you go through the same corner over and over the line becomes clear, the brake markers are known, the speeds improve.

All of the above is commonly referred to as the "slow-in, fast-out" method.

The things to watch for while cornering
1. Look into the turn
2. Countersteer
3. Be smooth. (no abrupt moves/shifting/acceleration/braking). The speed will come later
4. Find your line and stick to it.

There are various corners like double apex corners, decreasing radius corners, off-camber corners etc. We will deal with them in due course.

Again this is my humble attempt of putting together what I know. There are authorities on this who will have more to say.

More questions/comments welcome!

Stealth Riding..

Stealth Riding in India

Peripheral Vision

Riding a motorcycle in India is actually easy if one spends some time thinking about it. On the face of it, everything seems chaotic and one always wonders how people get home everyday without getting hurt or killed.  There are two parts to riding in India depending on whether you ride in the city or on the highway. In the city it’s about defensive driving. You are constantly shifting gears, accelerating, braking, accelerating, maneuvering, cursing, weaving and bobbing through traffic. Defensive riding becomes part of your riding skills and in more ways than one this becomes your riding style.  This has its positives and its negatives. The positive is that you feel safer riding in the city but once you get out on the highway or the back-roads this becomes annoying and stressful. (old habits die hard)

When you are on a long distance trip in India I use what I call “stealth riding”. To put it in simple terms it’s where you use your peripheral vision more than you usually do. It becomes mandatory that you constantly scan not just the road ahead of you but everything on either side of the road and make some calculated changes to your riding style to be prepared for anything.  The idea is to train your mind to “look out” using your peripheral vision so that it becomes a habit that flows naturally. I follow some simple rules that help me when I am on the “long road”. I have found that there a few usual suspects to watch out for in a long distance trip. First are the local cyclists, secondly dogs, stray domestic animals, third the loitering villager and fourth the “daring villager on his two wheeler”.

Let’s start with the first. Let’s assume I can see a cyclist ahead of me going in the same direction as me, I try to keep a “peripheral eye” on the front wheel of that cycle. The moment that front wheel changes direction towards my riding line I back off the throttle just a bit to be prepared (just in case).  Similarly when I notice a dog or an animal loitering on either side of the road I tend to hold throttle or in a position that I can snap it shut while also having a finger or two on the front brake lever.  The slower the animals natural running speed the more you can relax, but to keep Murphy’s law in mind is best.  The last of these is the “daring villager on his two wheeler” who in my opinion is the most dangerous. You catch sight of him standing there on the side of the road even half a km away and you think to yourself that nothing can go wrong..and out of the blue he lets his clutch out and into your path.  What is he thinking? “let me see if I can cross the road and prove that I am invincible” or “let me see if I can scare the living daylights of the guys on the highway?” or better yet  “lets see if his brakes work?”.

There are other known hazards that invariably keep popping up which are easier to deal with, the truck that pulls out only at the exact moment when you come by, the pot-holes, the speed breakers (or neck snappers), the slow auto that’s a long distance trip, the fast auto who thinks he owns the road. The good thing about these are that you can predict this for the most by paying attention to the front wheel of the vehicle, making eye contact with the driver of the vehicle when possible, the general speed or lack of speed of vehicles way ahead of you  and keeping your wits about you.

Scanning the road using your peripheral vision and preparing yourself for a road hazard is mandatory in India. It’s easy as long as you keep doing this and it becomes second nature to you.

Happy Riding!!

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Where bikers dare

 The 20^th of july.2002, 8.50 am..I was standing on the worlds highest motor able road..khardung-la at an altitude of 18380ft above sea level .with my bike a green Royal Enfield of 1969 vintage….a big board proclaimed a welcome by project Himank..and another board on my left welcomed me to the highest temple in the world khardungla-baba.Incidently I was the first member of our group to reach the pass. Myself and my bike had been in top gear coming on the 40km ride from leh..as we went around the hairpin bends …both the wheels fighting it out to keep themselves firm footed on a single plane.. As I passed fellow friends pushing their bikes up…as I fought for balance…we were having fun…. going around the corners and  having a blast. As I gunned the throttle the wheels moved about with a will of their own… digging in angrily into the gravel ,throwing up a huge cloud of dust ….. as we took each and every small shortcut through the unforgiving mountains, risking it a bit…but with confidence levels  at all-time high levels. In the next one hour we had more and more bikes coming in bringing up the number to a 70 odd bikes ..the highest ever number of motorcycles to make it on the pass…..we were 102 people in all including all our support members, also the highest number of civilians on the pass ,we were told by the army personnel…a festive atmosphere hung in the air. As the army personnel distributed free tea, people were dancing and rejoicing, cameras were on a  major clicking spree…the “Been There ,Done That” picture. for everyone there except for me it was a mission ,successfully completed….but for me the journey had just begun !!!! I was to travel all the way from there to Kanyakumari the southernmost tip of India a good  7,500 kilometers away, on the route I had planned to take .Having already done 3,800 kilometers from Bangalore to reach  on the top of the world…it was a huge figure to accomplish .

    

  The 16^th of August,  27 days later ,the 39^th day of my journey... .i count off the remaining kilometers, feeling something swelling within me as it drops to 50..twenty ten...expectancy? Satisfaction? Joy? Relief?. And then at, 5.30 pm i am there lands end. the blue band of ocean slices my vision in half. and the tarmac can go no further. From my right the vast semi-circular ripples from the Arabian sea meet the bay and fuse with the Indian ocean, I was sitting in Kanyakumari on the beach, waiting for the sun to set ..we (myself n my bike) had successfully completed our mission….riding around 12,000 kilometers ..Through 14 states…. 39 days of living on the road…through forbidden terrain….unfavorable weather conditions, like scorching heat in Delhi, freezing cold in Kashmir and pouring rain on the coast for 10 days ..we were exited on have achieved something……I celebrated with a great feeling within me to have survived the whole thing….

 

  My idea of nirvana has always been nature…waking up with the sun shining on my face…listening to the bike thumping away as the birds chirp in my ears ….eat away with the pleasant aroma of the food exiting my taste buds as they get cooked on a crackling fire beside me. The smell of the flora and fauna around me rejuvenating me .A wonderful siesta in the cool shade as the digestive juices work inside my stomach to digest the meal. forget of an instrument called the “watch” and how to use a calendar .sleep peacefully as the moon stares and the stars wink at me……..

 

         Its been an amazing journey and an awesome ride ever since I left Bangalore on the 7^th of July till I returned on the 17^th august 40 days later after riding through 14 states throughout India. Meeting fellow bikers all over the country….my journey traversed through the less frequented roads between heaven and earth crossing the  highest ever motor able road in the world ”khardungla” in ladakh  and the southern most tip of India “kanyakumari”  .A whiff of cultures, lifestyles, traditions ,hospitality and food of a wonderful country called India …in short I returned to Bangalore …after a taste of a beautiful country called India… A melting pot of cultures, colors, flavors and smells, full of spirits. all bundled into one ..Adventure at its very best….

 

   Its been a journey of a different kind…unlike taking away on a holiday cocooned in a musty bogie of a train, or the “semi-sleeper” of a bus or the air conditioned comfort of a Boeing 737.,flashing  around a couple of currency notes and deciding what i want to eat for breakfast or dinner…..and look around and decide what kind of ambience i want to have in the place I was going to stay… this was of a different state looking for adventure at its raw state, believing that adventure begins where the tarmac ends…and not minding rattling mountain paths ,tyre slashing rocks lurking under glacial melts flowing in full force, hairpin after hairpin leading into some of the worlds highest motor able passes. all generously tossed with a dash of low oxygen, fog cold and lack of everyday facilities on desolate stretched for days together…the Himalayas was just right for me. yes that has been what the ride in the Himalayas have been…and I did survive it all... bringing in the true spirit of adventure within me …   I returned home with a great sense of satisfaction and achievement. with memories to cherish for a lifetime……Prashant