Originally Posted by bluevolt

Hello everyone! Most of you know me as bluevolt on xbhp, the guy who first filled the ‘Ninja 250 is here’ thread with countless comments before he got his bike, and doing all sorts of DIY on his bike and posting them on the forum after he got it. But I never got around to making a proper introduction on this website (bad, bad bluevolt) so better late than never, as they say.


My name is Rahul Chakravorty and I am 34 years old. Some say I look 26, but then maybe that’s because they want me to feel happy and then give the keys of my Ninja to them. (Nice trick there guys, but nothing doing!) . I think I can call Bangalore my home town now since I have been here for the last five years, and I realized that four years was the longest I have stayed anywhere else. In my 34 years, I have seen and lived in a lot of places. My mother is a native Japanese and my father’s a happy go lucky guy from Bihar, so boy, that was some childhood. I spent a few months in Bodh Gaya after being born, and then I spent the next three years in Tokyo with my mother. Then it was aamchi Mumbai for a while, followed by Bihar, Mussoorie, Dehradoon, Haryana, Delhi, Noida, Chandigarh and Gurgaon before moving to Bangalore. I also spent a lot of time in boarding school, where I learnt how to eat superfast so that no one had a chance to steal your desert, and also how to breed poultry. Yes, I bred chickens when I was 11 years old in hopes of becoming a millionaire before finishing 10th grade, but alas, those dreams came to a rather premature end – but nonetheless spiced with tasty country egg omelettes.

I went to Kirorimal college in Delhi and it was there that I developed more than a passing interest in two things – sneakers (sports shoes) and motorcycles. Falling in love with sneakers was easy – I saw a lot of upper middle class kids in college wearing cool sneakers which I admired but could not afford, and it was then I knew that I had to somehow earn my living doing stuff around sports shoes. It did pan out pretty well (with a few bumps on the way though); I went to the footwear design institute in Noida(near Delhi) and did my Diploma in footwear design. It has been more than ten years since that, and today I work with Nike at their head office in Bangalore. Though my job is connected to shoe designing, I do not design them myself. It is a cool job which I love doing, and I also get to travel far and wide on ‘business’ meetings which are all about shoes! Other the other hand, my love with motorcycles started in rather sudden way. During school and college, I was very, very lucky when it came to winning contests. And not consolation prizes like a cap or Rs.100 gift voucher – I mean winning either the 1st, 2nd or 3rd prize, nothing less. My first big win was on a game show called ‘Born Lucky’ on the now defunct Home TV. I went to the shooting location on a whim and walked away with the first prize, which was Rs.20, 000 worth of no- strings attached shopping vouchers, a huge sum in 1995. It was around the same time that I read about the contest announced by Four Square cigarettes – a chance to win one of the four BMW Funduro 650’s after filling a form and writing a slogan. In 1996, the Funduro was the most talked about bike in India and naturally, I badly wanted to win one. I soon became a zombie who kept on filling countless contest forms and then submitting them at the drop boxes. I must have written at least 100 different slogans after spending many days and nights. Though I did not end up winning the contest (the goddess of luck had other plans), I fell in love with motorcycles because of the oddly named Funduro. But god did have a sense of fair play, and I won a 100 cc Hero Honda Street the following year. It was almost if god was trying to tell me, ‘You are too young and inexperienced for a BMW 650GS. I will give you something smaller so that you can learn how to ride.’ So learn I did on the clutch-less wonder, getting to know the very basics of steering and handling. I sold it after a while, but I would always remember it as my very first bike. I recently saw a 1999 Hero Honda street in Bangalore, and became nostalgic, admiring it as I would do a Ducati. I would definitely buy one if they launch it again, for old time’s sake!

When I look at modern life, I liken it to a train running on a schedule. We wake up in the morning, get ready and then go to work. We finish whatever we are supposed to do, and then pack up, ride a car/bike/bus/train/auto and go back home. This continues the whole week, and then we get the weekend/Sunday off when we either spend the whole day sleeping or catching up on personal work. So in a way, even Sunday becomes a well oiled routine. And in no way am I saying that routine is bad; it keeps our life going smoothly, and allows us to make money through our jobs to be able to afford the things we like to buy. But one day at work, you look out of the window, see the inviting blue sky and the sun shining on the buildings, and say aloud, ‘I wish I could just get on my bike and keeping on riding till I disappear into the sunset.’ Then you soon snap back to reality, and suddenly realize that you are past your deadline for work submissions, so you get back to your PC and start hammering the keyboard. That fleeting thought of freedom on a motorcycle is soon pushed back into the hard-to-find recesses of your mind, and after sometime it ceases to exist, overwritten by data from our train schedule like life. Much like a re-writable CD, I bet.
I honestly believe that for that fleeting thought to become an actual ride into the sunset, one needs a lot of motivation and inspiration. Especially when you are doing it all by yourself.

I count myself lucky that I did not have to look far for that motivation – I found it in huge doses on the xBhp community. On weekends, I would greedily lap up all the trip logs posted by members and pour over the beautiful pictures and wish I was part of those trips. Besides admiring the prose and the scenery, I also learnt a lot about the essentials of touring which included planning, wearing the right gear, motorcycle maintenance tips, and above all to ride safe.

All trip logs I have read over the last few years on xBhp has inspired me in one way or the other. Be it the high altitude trip to the magnificent Himalayas, or the latest saddle sore attempt, all trips had something unique to team me and be motivated by. After reading many inspiring travelogues over several months , I started getting those fleeting thoughts of freedom more often, till a point when all those small thoughts combined together to become one unquenchable desire to just get out on your bike and ride till there are no more roads left to ride.

My solo motorcycle trip around the Golden Quadrilateral is a result of one such desire.

And why GQ?

I really don’t have a one word answer to that. Maybe somewhere in the my sub-conscious during the night, the brain decided that the four-laned GQ highways and the Ninja 250R were a good match (dating website type thing) so one day when I woke up, I suddenly had this very strong wish to ride the GQ. And I also have not had a chance to ride a motorcycle through the eastern side of the Indian peninsula and also on the Calcutta-Delhi stretch, so a GQ ride seemed a perfect opportunity to do that. And since I have done all my past rides solo, so why should this be any different?

Time began to fly - I started planning my trip in October, and now my trip is now soon going to begin! I will write more about the planning /trip build up in my travelogue which will follow soon in the next few days.

Riding a motorcycle is certainly fun and I will not forget to have fun and discover incredible India as I begin riding the highways of the Golden Quadrilateral! But at the same time, we must not forget that we are a strongly knit community, and I will be riding to represent that community.


A good way of letting the world know of what this community is all about is to spread the word around the two things we strongly believe in:

1. Giving back to the society: There are thousands of families in India who barely manage to eke out a living, stressed by meagre financial resources. The children of these households are deprived of a happy childhood and often have to work at an early age and are abused by the hostile environment they are brought up in. Without the help and support of other people, these children have a bleak future, having no education or life skills. You would be very surprised to know that my few early years in Bihar (I was around 10) were spent in abject poverty due to unavoidable and difficult circumstances, so I know how that feels first hand. I was very young, but I can still remember things as if it was yesterday – the only difference between me and the other kids is that my parents tried their best to give me a proper education which made the whole difference. I believe that those years shaped me as the person I am today, and I am extremely grateful for little things in life which many of other people take for granted. So the spirit of this xBhp roadtrip will be about caring for others – we are supporting an organisation called dream-a-dream (www.dreamadream.org) which makes a difference in the lives of underprivileged children. I would urge members to come forward with their contributions however small – it would collectively make a big difference. On a personal front, I will be contributing a minimum of one rupee for every kilometre which the Golden Quadrilateral covers, which will be close to 5,500 kms. An ideal amount to donate will be the rupees equivalent to the number of CCs your motorcycles is. For example if you have a Pulsar 220, you can donate 220 rupees (or even more if you want!). To read details on how to donate please read this thread.
2. Ride safe: This is the essence of being a responsible rider, and what all of us at the xBhp community believe in. Apart from wearing all the gear all the time – I will also be sharing my experiences and insights regarding riding safely on the highways in my travelogue. And though you must have heard this a million times, I will say this for the millionth and first time – wear helmets. And not only wear them, strap them on securely. An unstrapped helmet which might cost Rs. 15,000 offers only marginally more protection than wearing a baseball cap. Nothing saddens me more than seeing people who ride with their helmets hung around their forearms, or taking off their helmet as soon as they enter their neighbourhood.

That’s all from me for now - I will be updating my travelogue on a daily basis, though there might be areas in the Calcutta-Delhi stretch where I might run into connectivity problems. Let all of us make this xBhp charity ride a huge success!

To spirit of motorcycling - the glue which binds us all, Rahul aka ‘bluevolt’

To Share my ride please share this page with people outside of xBhp: xBhp: The Gift A Dream Ride
Route: The Gift A Dream Ride: 12th Feb - 28th Feb 2010 - xBhp.com : The Global Indian Biking Community

Originally Posted by ironman

Originally Posted by aargee

Lol Ironman - Rahul has already completed his journey & donated about 55K+ to the organization

Originally Posted by bluevolt

Note:Before I start writing my trip logs, I wanted to share this small, short story which I wrote as a prologue to this ride I hope you guys like it!

It was a day in February 1610, and a solitary horseman rode towards Delhi on the newly constructed Grand Trunk road, which he knew as Sadak-e-Azam. He had been riding for the past few weeks now, and his limbs ached after being in the saddle of his horse for many long hours on that particular day. Mughalsarai was only a few kos away, and he wanted to make it there before sundown. But he was tired and thirsty, and so was his horse. The traveler soon stopped at a small caravansarai, the highway inns constructed by the Pashtun emperor Sher Shah Suri. He saw a trough of water and a bundle of hay, so he led his horse there and tied it to a post nearby. He then went and sat on a smooth rock nearby, stretching his limbs and sucking in the fresh air.

His thoughts went back to that evening last month, when he told his friends he was going on a horse ride from his home Sonargaon in Bengal to the great plains of Punjab.
'You must be mad! ', one of his friends exclaimed. ‘Yes’, said another. ‘We must find him a nice and homely woman for him to marry and settle down.’ The young traveler did not reply. He long had this urge to get out and travel far and wide on his horse. At first, it was just a passing thought, but over the months it grew and grew inside him like uncontrollable hunger, till he could bear it no more. So one day, just like that, he packed his supplies over the night, got on his horse at dawn and left. But here he was today, miles away from home with just him and his horse. He hummed a happy song, his voice only disturbed by the occasional clatter of bullock cart wheels on the freshly laid cobblestones.

He looked at the afternoon sun, and knew that it would be only a few hours before darkness fell. He decided that he had rested enough, and must continue riding. Before leaving, he walked a few paces to the newly constructed Kos Minar, edifices along the length of highway which served as milestones to travelers. ‘What a clever Emperor’, thought the traveler. ‘Without these milestones, traveler would never know how far or near they are from their destination’. After spending a few minutes admiring the structure, he started walking back to his horse. It was then he saw the sapling. It was of a bright green color, shooting through the fertile soil, inching up towards its brand new life. The traveler knew it to be fledging Banyan tree, and went back to the inn to get water in an earthen cup. ‘Drink well, young one,’ said the traveler as he watered the sapling. ‘One day, you will grow up to be a great Banyan tree, and many birds will make you their home. Your branches will spread far and wide and many travelers will enjoy your cool shade long after I am dead and gone’. The little sapling could not speak to thank the young man, so it mustered all its strength and let out a tiny breath, its young stem quivering. The young horseman smiled.

The horseman got back on his horse after thanking the innkeeper and handing him a copper sovereign. He looked at the deserted Great Trunk road disappearing into the horizon. ‘What a wide road. I wonder how much fun it would be to ride something which goes ten times faster than my horse.’ He immediately chided himself for thinking such impossible thoughts, and hurried his horse towards Mughal Sarai. He had to reach there before dusk.

A blaring truck horn jolted the young rider out of his reverie. It was early 2010, and the ancient cobbled pathway which the horseman once traveled on lay buried under several layers of soil and concrete. This traveler did not have a horse, but he was riding a machine which was much, much faster than a horse. He had been riding from Calcutta since morning, and wanted to reach Varanasi by sundown. But he was tired and thirsty and wanted to stop for a few minutes for a water and snack break. He saw a huge tree on the roadside ahead, so he soon pulled over to the right and parked his motorcycle in the shade of the tree.

Someone had constructed a cement bench beneath the huge Banyan tree, so the rider rested his tired body on it and drank water out of his plastic bottle. The cool water was soothing. He looked up at the tree, admiring its gigantic trunk and roots which spread all around the tree, opening up the earth in a sinewy, twisted kind of a way. ‘What a magnificent tree’, wondered the young rider. ‘I wonder how old this guy is. But it is incredible that something this big would have started its life as a tiny sapling.’

He saw a small sapling a few meters away from the bench, so he walked across and poured some water around it. The rider smiled as the young sapling eagerly lapped the water around it. He walked back towards his motorcycle, but he did not see the crumbling Kos Minar behind the tree. It lay neglected, surrounded by a small fence put around by the government. Most of the bars in the fences were gone, plundered by vandals looking to make some quick money. A small, rectangular rusty metal board with flaking paint had a brief description of the Kos Minar. But no one wanted to know what it was, or what it did. On the smooth four laned highways, the small embedded slabs of white, yellow and black told the travelers how far they had come and how near they were to the next city. No one cared about the Kos minar anymore. Yet many people stopped to rest beneath the giant tree, and a few people had tied holy threads around its trunk as a mark of respect and gratitude.

The young rider got back on his green motorcycle and switched the engine on, and all of thirty three horsepower came to life, growling angrily as the rider wringed the throttle with his right hand. ‘What a shame,’ he said aloud. ‘Only if this road was wider, I could have gone much faster.’ He quickly sped away towards Varanasi, trying to be there before sunset. He hated riding in the dark.

The great Banyan tree could not smile, so it rustled its leaves, startling the sparrows settled on its branches. The tree had overlooked the highway over last four hundred years and it knew that it did not have long to live. But the old, wise tree looked down at the freshly watered sapling and was at peace, knowing that one day it would grow up to be a fine, magnificent tree.


@others: Remember this is a donation ride, look here on how to donate: