RIDES IN 2002 – WARMING UP YEAR

MY FIRST CRASH

My daily routine was fixed. Morning college, then evening at a friends place, then NIIT and then home. 8 am to 10 pm. One such day, I was speeding home from Nungambakkam to Tambaram late in the night. Well, its only fair that every new bike rider has to crash to learn the related dynamics associated with an accident and also gain some wisdom on when to slow down. And I too, learnt things the hard way. There is this stretch in GST road between Pallavaram and Chromepet where the Sodium Vapor Lamps don’t work for a few hundred metres. I was clipping at a speed of a tenth of 1 Mach ( 1 Mach is the speed of sound, 330 m/s & one-tenths of it is 118 kmph.. heh heh) in the darkness when suddenly there is a bloody fishcart dead in front of me moving perpendicular. I crunched into it dead straight and flew over the cart while the bus which was coming a bit behind me also screeched to a halt. I landed on my back and luckily absolutely nothing happened but for a few bruises. The bike was in a pathetic shape. The fishcart guy fled the scene and I was wondering what to do. The forks was bent & cracked, there was no evidence that there was ever a headlight and front indicators on the bike. The instrument cluster was completely broken and in the process had turned my bike key to ‘off’ position and broken the key leaving half of it inside (the odometer reading was about 3000 then) I just tugged off all the wires thus isolating the engine and kicked it to life. Rode with great difficulty and reached home, happy to be alive. Then learnt the process of insurance and stuff and got my bike ready..
Somehow, from that day, I was skeptical about night rides and got a mental block that I had to absolutely be able to see where I am going. I lost this fear five years later on a very special night ride, which I will write about soon!



KODAIKANAL, Dec'02

My first long ride. Me & Vijay on the P180 and Kaushik & Ajith on K’s Machismo. This was the time when cell phones were becoming very common. I activated ‘roaming’ on my RPG number to go for the trip. We started off by noon and reached Trichy in the evening and halted for the night. Next day, started off and the Bullet starts giving all sorts of problems. Engine head problems! After half a day and a few thousand rupees in Dindigul, we set off and reached Kodai. Had lots of fun there. No, digital cameras then.. The pics are in a printed photo album now. I remember, we had a free coupon for accommodation for two. So, we took a cheap lodge outside and swapped the rooms between us for the two nights we spent there.
I will never forget the ride back. Kaushik had sped off in the front from Kodai towards Vathalagundu. I was approaching a left hairpin bend on the downslope. I turned my head to the left and took a good look on the road leading to the hairpin bend and was almost sure there was no vehicle approaching it. Took the turn in a good speed and had drifted to the right side of the road. The bike is at a good foot peg scraping angle and voila! There is a mini bus dead in front of me. There is no way I can bend further to let the vehicle pass on my right and so I straightened up and swerved right letting the vehicle pass me on the left. All this happened in a split second and before I knew whats happening, I had hit some boulders which was surrounding a deep pit and nose-dived into it- bike first, then me, then Vijay (pillion), his rucksack and then a few of the huge rocks also. Under the muddle I can move any muscle when the people in the bus came to our rescue. Within a minute I was pulled out (in the reverse order of the entities which fell in, of course). I checked myself. Nothing broken. Not even a scratch. One lady offered me water. I was too embarrassed to even remove my helmet or even answer the questions which were sure to follow. I gently pressed the electric start, he started as smoothly as ever! Thanked the people hurriedly and sped off !!!
My disc brake, master cylinder yoke on the handle bar was broken. This was the day I lost my rear view mirrors and never used them till my road trip to Ladakh in Jun’08. (have mentioned this crash when I wrote about the time I was fixing my mirrors in Delhi) Rode back really fast and crashed in my relatives place in Pondicherry and reached home the next day.

TN 22 T 5530

He turned One Lakh! Yes.. Odometer has Crossed 99999.9.. Born July 12, 2002 he is over 6 years old and going strong.. I owe a lot to my faithful partner – Pulsar 180 classic. A lot happened in the last six years, from when I was 18 to 24. A very important period in any person’s life, I am sure. I finished my engineering, my MBA and started my career. All the while, he was there with me, wherever I went.

Many unforgettable/memorable ‘firsts’ happened in/on/with/because of my bike.

In the next few write ups (or is it writes up?), I would like to briefly reminisce about a few of my memorable rides in bits and pieces with scattered photos with whatever comes on the top of my mind so that the I can drift away into the past later on..

The Value of 1 Day..

The news is out.. A five day week has been announced for the factory in Chennai owing to economic and industrial scenario with huge inventory and low production. And just because my office building is attached to the factory, the same rules apply. Now, I ll have Sundays and Mondays off rather than just the Mondays off. Now, I ll have no worries on Saturday night outs that I ll have to get back home early, not drink too much and get some sleep just because I have to work on Sundays. Now, I ll be able to watch all the amazing English movies dubbed in Tamil on Vijay TV and have a ball of a time laughing. I will have one whole day extra to relax! For more than a year now, with only one day off, it used to fly off without giving the satisfaction of having had at least sometime to be absolutely idle.
But, everything has a price. No free lunches anywhere. The extra pay that I used to get for working the 6th day will suddenly vanish. My zero balance bank account will truly live up to its name at a faster pace. Well, don’t we all plan our expenses on wafer thin margins every month?
Now I have the extra time to hangout but lesser spending potential.
My hypothesis: Free time X Spending power = Constant

The 'ME'

Alright, my first blog was sort of a journal. The next one was an incident. What next? By now many people have asked me, why I am not updating my blog and why no new further posts. Relax guys, I work a freaking 6 day week, with my weekly off on Mondays. (As of now it is monday. It has changed to tuesday twice now and reverted back owing to power shedding rule ordered by by TNEB). Hmmm.. If a 6 day week- Monday off doesnt sound interesting enough, wait till you hear my work timings! It is 7:30 am to 4:00 pm and my office is a good 20 km north of Chennai while my house is in the south of Chennai. I travel close to 100 km everyday. My bus comes at 5:45 am to pick me and 'IF' I get to leave on time in the evening I am back by 6pm. So, why the hell am I still working there? Well, being a Mechanical Engineer and an MBA in finance/operations, Ashok Leyland-Strategic Sourcing seems to be the perfect place to kick off my career.
Every sunday morning for more than a year when am at my desk at work by 7:30 am, I wonder if there is anyone I know who would even be awake by then. And, I would have missed the party last saturday night just because I have to go to work the next day and that too so damn early. Well, the good news is- we are soon moving to our new office in the city, which will cut my travel from 3.5 hrs a day to less than an hour a day! Moreover, it will be a 9 to 5 timing with Sundays off.. Eagerly waiting for a new lease of life to begin this October.
Now, I will be able to do all the small things that I always wanted to, like go for a night show! ha ha.. and go for night rides with the guys, have monday morning blues like everyone else rather than tuesday morning blues. And I dont have to wonder what the hell to do on my Monday holiday when everyone else is busy and am the only jobless idiot, sitting at home and watching the stock market.

As for more blogs.. I have a few half written ones at work and at home, but I only have half a mind to publish them. Why does everything have to be offensive to someone atleast and why do I give a damn about it, I do not know. I do not want to plagiarize anything in my write ups, dont want any sentimental stuff and dont want it to be about my rides alone. But, as I see it, this is gonna end up becoming a journal of all my past and future rides.. heh heh