Strange Saturday

MORPHEUS: Do you believe in fate, Neo?

NEO: No.

MORPHEUS: Why not?

NEO: Because I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life.

-          From ‘The Matrix’ (1999)

Although the Indian Railways have earned a notorious status for trains never being on time, few ‘elite’ trains like Rajdhani, Duranto & Shatabdi are an exception; all other trains stop to let these trains pass through and stick to the schedule. So when the Shatabdi I was travelling from Hyderabad to Pune reached full 50 min late at midnight of Friday and Saturday, I should have guessed something was wrong. If not with the train, with me.

I walked out of the station booking a cab on Uber. I hardly get surge pricing in Pune, but that day I was forced to book at 2.2x! I went ahead consoling myself that at midnight even the auto rickshaws would charge a bomb.

Of late travelling had been hectic and so I had a packed weekend of household chores. I decided to start with getting my bike wheel checked; it was losing air every couple of days. I opened my gate and noticed that it had broken off its hinges! I had occupied the brand new house for not even 2 months! I went to the tyre service centre and was advised to  change the tyre as there were multiple punctures. I had not even run 3000 kms on it!

We decided to go to the movies. IMAX had recently opened in Pune and I was keen to check it out. So I convinced my daughter to watch “Doctor Strange” instead of her demand for “Trolls”. For the first time since I started booking tickets online couple of years ago, I got a 10% off “Visa Blockbuster Weekend Offer”! Unfortunately we could get only the front row. Although the IMAX experience was far better than the normal 3D or the 4DX, we had to literally look upward so as capture everything that was happening across the screen. Added to that strange things were happening on the screen like buildings tumbling, flipping over (a la Inception, but on a grander scale) depicting the parallel dimensions and time that the mind and matter can foray into.

After this mind-numbing experience, I decided to go and collect my cycle from Decathlon, Wagholi. I had given it for servicing last weekend & then I had gone on tour. Usually, I cycle to Decathlon give it for service, shop around for an hour & the cycle is ready to be delivered. But this time despite keeping it there for a week, I got a call couple of hours before I had decided to take delivery, that there is a major problem on rear hub & cassette. On arriving at the workshop, the specialist explained that he had to replace the entire rear rim & hub assembly. Now this double wall flex aluminium rim is supposed to last a life time! Also I had not been doing those fully day cycling expeditions ever since my family had shifted to Pune a year ago. Neither was I doing off-roading. I had gone off-roading only twice in my life: Once when I lost my way to Lavassa and forayed into the forests & hills and another when the Hotel in Italy was offering a cycle to go around & I deliberately rode into the forest cos they forbid me from riding into the snow-capped mountains.

So how on earth did this failure occur?! Apart from this he had replaced the rear tube and did a complete “14 point check-up”. He handed me a fancy bill of Rs.3,500! That’s the amount I generally shell out for getting my car serviced!

It was 8 in the evening & I was at the extreme east of Pune at  Wagholi. I had to cycle to the extreme west of Pune to Dehu road, a little over 37 kms. Not at all a demanding task with the cool night breeze and listening to the stand-up comedian Aditi Mittal that I had downloaded the previous day. Half an hour later, cycling by Phoenix Market City, I found the rear wheel punctured! That was strange, with a brand new tube put in an hour ago! I looked around for a puncture shop. There were none. I contemplated pushing the cycle back to Decathlon. I wouldn’t be able to make it before closing time. I decided to walk towards home. I found a few puncture shops for bikes and cars. But none of them were willing to mend it for me, despite me offering a higher price nor by listening to my plight of having to go quite a distance back home. I took a detour off the main road to try my luck in some local basti. I found a proper cycle shop with puncture mending facility. But the service guy had left for the day. It was close to 9.30. My chances of finding a shop open was slowing diminishing.

Finally, as I was walking by Yerawada jail, I found a shop! The young lad there quickly jumped into the job. There were 2 holes – both on the rim side and not on the tyre side! Was Decathlon using sub-standard stuff? I took a mental note of raising a complaint. I paid the guy, thanked him profusely and started. Within 2 minutes the front wheel started wobbling. Another flat tyre!

I rushed back to the shop. The guy was starting to close down for the day. But did the job for me.

I decided against cursing my cycle: It hadn’t cheated on me on more enduring journeys like Lonavala, Lavassa, Sinhagad… And I was determined to do a Pune-Mumbai-Pune soon.

It was 10.30pm. I had informed my wife about the delay. She insisted that she’d come pick me & the cycle. I wanted to enjoy the night ride. After a short debate, I told her to come halfway upto my office.

Finally we met up at the office. I dismantled my front wheel, shoved the cycle into the car and drove back home. After a cold shower, I collapsed on the couch with a bagful of junk food, and started watching ‘Evil Dead’ on television. It was midnight.

Me & Duke

Love wasn’t new to me. It had happened thrice before. And every time, like everybody else, I too believed that my love-story was unique. But the fourth love story was a tad different – it was with a beast. An Austrian beast of a machine.

I’m not among the lot who falls for worldly pleasures or materialistic gains. For me the definition of a vehicle is simply “something which displaces you from point A to point B.” No wonder my first bike was a Bajaj Discover chosen on the truly Indian “mileage kitna deti hai?” philosophy. So was my first car. A Daewoo Matiz, chosen just to take my then pregnant wife from home to office. Even now my car is a 2008 Fiat Palio, wiped out of the market for over half a decade. But then I’m like “The engine is smooth, the body is rock solid, it doesn’t require hospitalization, what’s the need to change the car?”

On the contrary, my wife is an enthusiast. My mother-in-law introduced me to my wife with an Outlook magazine supplement on biking clubs and the rise of women bikers; she was on the cover page. She began her riding stint with a RE Thunderbird. For her a bike is the second best thing to have between the legs.

My fourth love affair was actually a rejection of my wife’s. When she went back to biking clubs once our daughter was old enough, we got a Karizma ZMR from my cousin, which is still a great sports tourer – good looks, not too aggressive, comfortable riding position… But soon she got bored of the meagre 19 bhp motor. The black and orange Duke was getting popular those days. It was sheer coincidence that my brother-in-law’s friend wanted to dispose a 6 month old 2000 kms run KTM 390. Just for the records, my bro-in-law is a bigger biking enthusiast with another Karizma & a Kawasaki Ninja 650 in his stable. So it was but natural that my wife had to buy this KTM on offer.

This KTM went sight-seeing to most hill stations around Pune – Lonavala, Lavassa, Mahabaleshwar; courtesy my wife. It had packed weekends until it’s rider had a ligament reconstruction surgery and doctor forbid riding for 6 months.

That was when I started dating the KTM390. I just couldn’t let it rust in the parking. Grown on the strong foundation of engineering, economics and efficiency, I was not ready to burn fuel on jolly rides. So it became my office commuter. Once a week.

No. It was not love at first sight. There were too many cons: The seat was too hard. The engine would heat up a lot despite being oil cooled. The 44 bhp engine wouldn’t listen to me below 4000 rpm, always wanting to jump ahead. Slowly, once I learnt the tricks of the trade, I began taming the beast.

And love blossomed.

Initially, I started playing games with it. I would clock my rides to office. The 7.8 kms stretch would take me 10 min. And I haven’t gone beyond 113 kmph, cos I’m always riding in “office hours”. (My cousin borrowed the bike to ride to Mumbai and he claimed to have plateaued at 165!) That became a routine. I was deciphering the racing DNA of the bike. And more avenues were opening up.

Although the bike boasted of 0-100 in 5.4 seconds, I couldn’t do it before 11 seconds on the city rods I tested. The 375cc naked (no fins) engine was built to be in a hurry – the idle rpm is just under 2000! Put it on gear and it roars over to 4000 leaving the other gaping at the traffic signal.

With the shifting of house, I could get a 16.8 km stretch to office. I could play more games. By now I had mastered the logic behind providing twin Bybre disc brakes and Metzeler wheels. The rubber just bites the asphalt while cornering and the ABS sees to it that the wheels don’t lock up and avoid skidding. With this seated in mind, it became easier for me to needle my way between long container trucks and buses – it is cake walk when your bike is listening to you and there is sufficient reserve power. Also the bike has no bulky exhaust pipe – it is neatly concealed under the belly, so you have one less thing to worry while cornering. And humps and pot-holes? Not a hurdle. The mono-shock under my butt and the inverted forks under my hands are trained for off-roading too.

One of wicked games I have come to love playing is with the fellow bikers who modify the exhausts of their Yamahas and Pulsars to get a louder howl, and who feel godly by zipping through the traffic – all this without wearing a helmet. All I need to do is to give a gentle twist of the wrist and I accelerate ahead without batting an eyelid, silently conveying “You don’t play games with a Duke”.

So? Did the bike change my philosophy? Yes, to some extent. Now I enjoy the displacement from point A to point B. No. Cos I still don’t go on joy rides, barring a ride to Lavassa when the car got full with in-laws. I have got a spare set of off-roading wheels – but the time has not yet come to put it to use.

If I have to give a verdict like the ones published in the auto magazines, here’s what I’d say: If you think 44 hp is too tough to handle in the city, you are wrong. Although there is a perpetual sense of urgency, the beast is ready to listen with its ABS assisted brakes and exceptional tyres. Slowly you’ll love the way you can “sleep-walk” at 85-90 kmph. And all this happens at a moderate 5000 rpm. If you are planning to have some fun above that speed & rpm, then the primary task would be to look out for the empty or less populated lane. The bike would simple respond, “Master I’m game, just show me the freeway.” Coming to my foundations of economics: Yes, the hare is meant to burn more gas than the tortoise. But this doesn’t hurt at just over 30 km a litre. The clincher is that at around 250 grand, this is the cheapest monster your buck can fetch. And for that you get almost twice the power of the rage among bikers: the REs or almost as much power of the entry level Harley. But then cruisers are a different ball game – it’s fun can be experienced only on long unpopulated highways. KTM is at home with traffic as much as it is with the highway.

Will it be a lasting love affair? For now, yes. The KTM690 is far from coming to India. And I have to become an entrepreneur to afford the KTM1290.