The Great Indian Roadtrip was a celebration of the lifestyle of biking in India. It was a trendsetter in it's own right. The main aims of the trip being to unite the online xBhp.com ( xBhp means ‘x’ amount of braking horse power ) fraternity in India, to prove that India is one of the best by-road travel destinations in the world, to motivate people to explore the world away from there 9-9 jobs and most importantly to actually give back something to everyone in form of pictures, videos and travelogues. This trip was not limited to the riders, but had the major objective of connecting as many Indians as possible.

The biggest difference between this trip and the previous pan India roadtrips was the technology used in it to deliver the maximum possible content to the audience on the internet and offline media. Technology was not only used in the devices that we were using but also was present in the bikes that were used in the trip.

Many things could go wrong in a trip as big as this, specially when we had the hardware listed below to lug around for 20,000 odd kilometers through all kinds of terrains across India.

Table 1 : The Hardware that we used

Laptops : One IBM Thinkpad R52 laptop ( provided by OkTataByeBye.com ) with wireless internet card ( Reliance Huwahei ). Two Thinkpad IBM R51 laptop ( provided by rediff.com ) with wireless internet card ( Reliance Sierra ). One Acer Aspire 1640 ( with Reliance Huawahei data card ) and One Toshiba Satellite Laptop.

Still Cameras : Two Canon 350D SLRs ( 8 MP ), One Canon 300D SLR ( 6.1 MP )

Lenses : Three Canon 18-55mm lenses, One Canon 15mm Fisheye lens, One Canon 70-200mm L US lens, One Canon 75-300mm US lens and One Tamron 70-300mm lens

Camcorders : One Canon MiniDV camcorder MVX330i and One Sony MiniDV Camcorder DCR HC40E

Removable Media : 20 Mini DV cassettes, 6 x 512 MB CF cards and a 1 GB CF card, One Kingston Data Traveler 1GB USB Drive

Presentation Devices : Four video iPods ( 2 x 30GB U2 Ed. and 2 x 60 GB )

Backup Devices : One Seagate 160GB external HDD 7200rpm, One Lacie 8x dual layer external DVD writer, One Seagate 200GB internal HDD in an external HDD case.

Accessories: USB card reader ( San disk, it is very fast compared to your standard card readers in the market, costs 1200 rupees but will copy a 1 GB CF card on a USB 2 in 3 odd minutes compared to a normal reader doing it in 15 odd minutes ).

Phones : Four Nokia N70s, 1 Nokia E61. The Reliance Data cards also used to double up as calling cards in times of need ( where we did not have GSM coverage ).

A jungle of cables and wires

Navigation Devices : One Garmin Etrax GPS and the good old printed maps ( Eicher India Road Map was our constant companion )

Clicking Pictures

Seriously. I do not have even one decent picture of myself as a child. Only those stupid studio photographs. And now mobile phone imaging capabilities are ready to give the best camcorders a run for their money. But the kind of task we were out to do we would settle only for the best equipment ( or that we could afford to risk hanging down our necks on the road and at those speeds ).

I had been using a Canon 300D for a year before the trip was conceived and I wanted the latest ones for this dream ride. Canon decided to put faith in us and loaded us with enough ammunition to start acting like a pro. None of us had professional photography experience but yes our creative juices could more than rival those expert clickers getting hefty salaries.

Out we went with two Canon 350Ds and a Canon 300D. Those are not exactly top of the line cameras but the results produced were good enough for us amateurs.

Besides that heavy duty stuff we also had compact firepower – the Nokia N70 with its 2 MP camera for those candid shots ( we didn’t click any, swear. ) The Nokia N70 also doubled up as an emergency video recorder in times of dire need ( like the open ventilation window of the bathroom in which my esteemed fellow rider would be bathing, ahem, no I am straight ).

The camcorders were also used but not to the extent that we would have liked to. Handling the still photography department was a big enough job for any of us taking the videography as fulltime on the trip. But anyways we still ended up with 25 odd hours of video and almost 30,000 high res photos.

The lenses were costlier than the cameras themselves. The 15mm Canon fisheye was fantastic in low light situations while the telephoto ( 200 mm ) enabled us to capture objects far in the distance.

The most manhandled equipment in the trip ( after the bikes ) were the cameras.

Bunny in a naughty mood with the Camera

Shooting in Sonamarg

In Kargil with the third eye

Doing some Macro Photography

In Kovalam

In Pelling, Sikkim shooting from precarious perches

In Gangtok, Sikkim

Some shooting equipment

Backing up those precious photos

Considering our aim of doing extensive photography and videos on the trip I had considered the very real thread of a hard disk crash and dumping those heavy JPEGs from the Canon SLRs’ CF cards. The first answer was to carry as many CF cards as possible but we knew that too wouldn’t be the answer considering the shutterbugs we were. Some days we used to click in excess of a thousand photographs with hope of getting that perfect shot by filtering the bad one’s off the laptop’s hard disk later in a hotel room. The first answer was to use iPods as backup devices, but would not have been a wise choice considering the amount of manipulations, uploading and sharing we required to do every night after intense 8 hours+ riding. We finally picked up external hard disks for backup and they worked flawlessly through the entire trip.

None of the fancy softwares were used for backing up. Every night we used to backup all the photos categorized under names of the photographer into two different hard disks. These photos would be the only evidence that we would have later on to show to our grand children that these men had the teeth ( and the balls ) to go around India in such a grand fashion once upon a time when broadband internet meant downloading at 5 kbps.

Getting the every day experience to the masses

As smart individuals and an online community our aim was not to let the trip fade away as a memory. We wanted to have tangible assets and information from the data ( photos, videos and experiences ) that we collected on the trip. The answer was as obvious as it was smart – blogging coupled with the forum system on xBhp.com supported by emails, SMS and voice calls to the media and members in different cities of India to let them know that we were safe or that we were arriving in their city.

Everyday we downloaded the photos and processed them with text and adjustments before uploading them onto he server and embedding them within our text travelogues in the blogs and on the forums. In addition to this we used to email high res pictures to the media in the next city we were supposed to arrive in. All this and more was done using the laptops and the boon for the Indian traveler – the CDMA Reliance wireless data cards. It was totally unbelievable that we often use to find ourselves updating the blogs at dhabhas on remote highways. We were toally dependent on the cards to stay connected. The speeds that we got were also terrific for wireless cards ~ 10 kbps. I was surprised to know that this kind of fantastic wireless internet coverage does not exist in many developed countries of the world!

We also used the Nokia E61 to store the invited SMSes from the online xBhp.com members in citywise groups, ready to be informed about our arrival one day in advance. This was a perfect example of how we bridged different information mediums for fast and efficient updates.

The phone was no doubt one of the most important players in letting us stay connected wherever we went

The Reliance CDMA Data card was a boon for us. It was the only way we did almost daily updates of blogs and pictures and stayed connected with the members on xBhp.com, rediff.com and okTataByeBye.com

Whenever we used to find time we used to blog. Be it on a roadside dhabha or inside the backup vehicle while on the move.

Sharing with people in situ

While being on the trip it was made a point to meet the maximum number of people and let them know what we were upto in minimal time. Laptops were used to show the the club website and the blogs. If any television was present we used to hook up the iPods with a AV cable and show the best of photos and TV press clips to the curious audience. This had helped us many time – showing stuff to our members and media people in our hotel rooms so that they can better appreciate our cause and the effort that we were undertaking. We gave presentations using laptops coupled with iPods to intelligent audiences in NID, Ahmedabad, IIM lucknow and a couple of international schools and corporate houses across the country.

At a Dhabha checking replies on xBhp.com

Presenting in Corporate houses : Castro’s Head Office in Mumbai

Presenting in Corporate Offices : Rediff.com’s Head Office

Moving Images

If a picture is worth a thousand words then video sure surpasses that kingly level of importance. We used two MINIDV camcorders primarily because of their small form factor and broadcast quality capabilities. Videos ready for upload to the internet were shot by N70s.

Staying Awake and the iPod

Often it was the case when we had to ride late into the night or stay up awake and blog. The iPods used to come to the rescue pumping out high adrenaline music to keep us on the move. Brief videos of Top Gear and stunt videos on the laptops also helped.

The iPod is a phenomenon, no second opinions about that. It is such a great invention that it has become synonymous with the generic phrase referring to mobile music players. There are many other players, Creative Zen and what not. But there is only one iPod. I was a little flummoxed before the GIR began as to which would solve some of varied requirements in the trip : a backup device for photographs, a easy to plug in photo viewer, a video viewer and finally a music player for those long rides.

The answer was a multiple choice between a Sony PSP and an iPod. Other options didn’t even figure in my list. I had a Sony PSP since a while and knew that it was the best when it came to display on the rocking wide screen with fluid graphics and unbelievable game play abilities. I was also aware that it did not have enough internal storage space ( 1 GB Sony Duo card at best for me ).

So I got iPods. Two 60 GB and a Two 30 GB U2 special versions. GasolineJunkie got hooked to it from the start with his deafening music which heard like someone was washing utensils and cribbing about it.

I was a little apprehensive in Leg 1 of the GIR about using the iPod for its entertainment capabilities. It wasn’t until Leg 2 started and I had to ride the 1000RR on the Golden Quadrilateral for long stretches at once. I turned to iPod, loaded some fast music and tried it once with me on the mile munching machine and rest was history. I am now totally hooked to it. From lots of music videos to great auto shows, it all there on the iPod.

Plus one major advantage of having it coupled with a cheap video out accessory cable which allows you to connect the iPOD to auxillary of any TV these days and voila! You favorite music videos on the TV. But I had a bigger use for this capability. Whenever we used to check into any hotel and got a visit from any members in the city we used to show them the GIR wallpapers and videos loaded onto the iPod on the TV screen with audio. It was like a mobile presentation center. Now even the laptop is obviated, as far as the need to show people what we were doing goes.

Some might argue the screen is a wee bit small for video, but as it changed my opinion, so it will in your case. Just try it.

This guy wont leave his iPod. People must be thinking it’s a micro mini purse!

Oh nothing like good music besides a lake in Kerela.

The iPod is a true biker’s companion on long rides.

We also used the iPod for presentations in many situations. Sometimes even the tiny screen would suffice.

Finding the way

Unfortunately, we had lost the GPS soon into the first few days of the trip. We then fell back on the printed maps, Google Earth with MSN Live. They served us more than required and we were never lost. Although we did miss the advanced capabilities of the GPS like altitude measuring which added a touch of informed adventure to everything.

In the end the trip was a success thanks to the technology that was available to us in this developing nation of a billion people. We are now returning the favor by developing a website to relive the experience ( www.theGreatIndianRoadTrip.com ), a coffee table book and a short documentary.

Agreed that the age of roadside PC hacking of microcontrollers in the bikes has not yet arrived in India, but no matter how good the hacker is, he cannot show India as one of the most beautiful countries in the world as we did.

The Money Factor

When on a trip of this magnitude we better had our finance sources sorted out. Carrying hard cash was a strict no – no and this is when we actually realized how powerful the plastic money was. India has developed an incredible network of ATMs all across country considering the first shared ATM network was installed not even 10 years ago in 1997. We were totally dependent on paying everything from the Credit Cards ( for the online xBhp server etc ) and Debit Cards ( for petrol, fast cash, hotels etc ).

I even got my ATM card with BHP as my middle name!

VISA Power!

Managing the Electronics

All the gadgets were stored in bags with foam padding. We used Lowepros to ensure the safety of the imaging equipment and other small gadgets. Laptops were kept in leather briefcases and then into foamed bags and finally into a cabinet in the backup vehicle.

The technology in the Honda 1000RR Fireblade

One of the bikes in the trip was actually a track superbike. The 2005 Honda Fireblade is a 1000CC 170 Bhp monster on two wheels which has some of the best technology in it. It has some of the technology derived from the MotoGP arena. This includes HESD ( Honda Electronic Steering Damper ) which has a complex to control the low of a liquid which in turn controls the steering damping depending on the speed the bike is in.

the Honda Ignition Security System ( HISS ) , uses a coded key and a sensor around the lock barrel that prevents the bike from being started except by using the two original keys.

The bike also has a two – rail multi stage fuel injection system controlled by the ECU amongst other host of features.