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.