The Road Shakers

My 1st ride with the road shakers, i.e. the Pune based Royal Enfield club. I attended their meeting on Wed, 30th September, 2009. Manish kothari, seemed to be the boss. His rules, or the rules of the club seem quite stringent. I am required to have a gear, first of all. Knee, shin, elbow guards. Then a good outdoor jacket. A good pair of gloves, outdoor shoes, etc etc.

The 1st ride was on Sunday, 4 October. We were supposed to move to Lonavala, from our meeting point in front of the BU bhandari showroom on Pashan Road. I left home quite late; at 6:50 AM. Whereas I should have moved latest by 6: 30 AM, since we were supposed to leave at 7AM. Luckily I reached at 7: 10 AM, before Baljeet reached. Now Baljeet is one of the senior members of the club. He has been riding for quite a while now. He has done Kanyakumari to Ladakh, and that itself demands a lot of respect from me.

Coming back to the ride, when I reached BU Bhandari, only one other rider was there. Kamlesh, who seems to have joined the club a few weeks back. He was even wearing all the guards, obviously intimidated by Manish. He owns a 2008 standard bullet. And had hooked it up with quite a few accessories. Saddle bags, and stuff. Baljeet and Sikh guy, who’s name I still don’t know, reached at 7: 30. We waited for a few minutes in case any other rider wanted to join us and then decided to move.

So, the 4 of us left at 7: 35 or so. Baljeet was leading the pack, I followed, after me was Kamlesh, and the Sikh guy was sweeping. Baljeet drove really fast. He was riding a 500 cc Machismo. He must have been driving at 100 kmph at least, and at that speed I felt my bike almost give away and fall apart. It was vibrating quite a bit. And I wasn’t wearing a pair of gloves either. I am always used to hearing the sweet harmonic musical thumping of my bike's engine when I drive it at a reasonable speed. But at 110Km/Hr, the sound it was producing wasn’t much to my liking. It was difficult to keep up with Baljeet. At a particular spot I fell behind by a few seconds. And against the norm, Kamlesh decided to over take me. I decided to go with the flow and not overtake him after that. So we continued in that manner. We stopped at a HPCL pump so that I could fuel up. I would have liked to do it at a BPCL petrol pump, but then again it doesn’t really matter, does it!

The scenery was simply breathtaking. The roads and the surroundings were comparable to those I saw during the trip I made from Huntsville to Ruby falls. Black clouds were rolling all around. Beautiful green mountains rose in the horizon. There were valleys of flowers on the way. The roads too were a joy to drive on. And as usual I was hoping that I had bought a camera. I cant seem to wait till December to get the camera. The views were worth capturing.

And so we drove through. Motorbikes are not allowed on the Expressway, and so we bypassed it and had to go by the old highway. All this while it had been raining lightly. The jacket I was wearing was alright for the weather. But then it started pouring heavily. I thought Baljeet would stop. But he showed no signs of doing that. He stopped after 10 odd minutes under a shed outside a hotel. By this time my jeans were drenched, and so was my jacket. The 4th rider had fallen behind when we stopped and he caught up with us only after another 10 minutes. Baljeet clicked a few photographs, and then we decided to move on and stop at a dhaba. Visibility was very poor. Since it was raining heavily, we thought it better to stop and eat, and wait for the rain to stop. But then again Baljeet just drove on. Kamlesh and the Sikh guy had water proof jackets and lowers, but I did not, and neither did Baljeet. So by the time Baljeet decided to stop somewhere, I was drenched to my skin.

We stopped at a nondescript dhaba. There was no way I could have spotted it. It was a bit away from the road. So hats off to baljeet. It was owned by a Punjabi. I quickly stripped off to my t shirt and spread my clothes around for drying. Not that it could happen in that weather. It was raining heavily. My shoes were filled with water, so they too had to be removed, and so we sat the 4 of us, almost in our undergarments, trying to keep ourselves warm. Luckily the place had aalo paranthas, even at 8: 30 in the morning. I was dying to have some for a long time. We ordered some tea as well, while Baljeet decided to get a high on Thums-up. So we sat eating aalu ke paranthe wid butter and chane ki daal (that was all he had :p), recounting our riding experiences.

We had decided to ride back as soon as the rain stopped, even though we were near Lonavala. It finally reduced to a drizzle and we put on our gear to start moving again. The Sikh guy’s bike was giving quite a lot of trouble. So we had to stop quite a few times on the way. On the way back, again Baljeet was leading and this time I was sweeping. 15 minutes into the ride, I was dripping wet. It is in moments like these that I love my bike more than ever. Because it was going to get me home through the bad weather and the worse of roads, back to my home, dry clothes and a warm bed. Unlike other rider’s bikes, my bike was giving me 0 trouble, and I was extremely proud of me n my bike. Kamlesh separated ways with us on the outskirts of Pune. The rest of us contined to Camp, and then I, alone, to Hadapsar, to my flat, dry clothes, and my warm bed. :)