The Great Indian Roadtrip 2006 : Complete Blogs

When I first met Sundeep Gajjar, it was at a photo shoot where we were shooting one French girl on a Comet and another Indian girl on a Karizma. Sundeep himself was on the once fastest production bike the Honda Blackbird. That was exactly a year ago, in late August 2005. Little did I know then that under that curly hair of his was brewing a plot, a great story was taking shape, a story that today has started to materialize and has taken shape in the form of The Great Indian Roadtrip.

Three years ago Sundeep Gajjar aka Sunny formed xBhp.com which was a virtual place where like-minded and differing bikers could meet. Over three years this virtual site has organized more real life get-togethers amongst people, have brought people of spread out cultures together, inspired people into writing, photography and sharing experiences through this virtual space of xBhp.com with 23000 members today.

In the last year, Sunny has planned out the Great Indian Roadtrip and today it has taken shape through meticulous work, good choice of people around him who have helped only for a passion, the passion of biking. There is nothing else involved in it. Through a national selection, he has brought together a team of core riders, four of them who will be involved in the Leg 1 of the two-Leg saga of the Great Indian Roadtrip. The four core members of the GIR riding team; Ashish, aka, Gasoline Junkie, extensive tourer and a roaring off-roader, coming all the way from Hyderabad; Gurpreet, aka Skyscraper, the stunt master and wheelie king from Geeta Colony, New Delhi; Sundeep Gajjar, aka Sunny, biker and computer graphics designer by passion and CEO xBhp.com by accident, and yours truly, Krishnendu aka Ken Cool, experienced rider across continents and superbike test rider, have finally got together. They are now putting the final pieces together to what is going to be once in a lifetime experience for all of them; the xBhp.com’s The Great Indian Roadtrip.





These are extraordinary men in the fact that they have taken out 4 months out of their lives and careers to do something that no one has done before. In what way is the GIR different from countless Roadtrips that people have done over the years? There are various reasons.

First and foremost, these guys will move across the huge subcontinent of 3.287 million square kilometers, meeting people, talking to them, inspiring them to get up from their couches and go and discover the world that we live in, rediscover the joy of freedom, get out of their daily mundane existences and break free.

They are doing that on different vehicles, on two wheelers, bikes, big ones and small ones, so exotic that they have rarely or never seen by Indians; the Kinetic Blaze a moto-scooter and the Kinetic Jupiter a maxi-scooter, both fast and comfortable touring vehicles, the Hyosung Comet in association with Kinetic, the first performance V-twin bike made available to the enthusiast in India, and of course the famed beast, the CBR 1000 RR Fireblade, a 170 Bhp of a monster easily capable of crossing the 300 barrier. These are branded vehicles by mega corporate sponsors with whom Sunny had long drawn conversations to convince the viability of his dreams.













These guys will be accompanied by back-up vehicles which will be a mobile communications center with internet connectivity on the move, blogging, writing texts, uploading pictures and videos, having screenings in get-togethers in all towns and cities where they stop, interact with the people that they meet, and inspire them to discover the meaning of freedom.

All this is finally taking shape. Today the 15th of August, 2006, the 59th year after independence, the official meeting and take off took place between xbhp members and the GIR core riding team. These four men are going out to meet the rest of the country, bring them together and reach out to tell them, that there is more to life than 9 to 5.

This Seems to be So refreshing..
Swinged all the way back to the day when this happened,,, Thanks Ken da..
Very Nicely Framed supported byt B'Ful pics...

Cheers
-LP

Interesting set-up. Excellent backdrop!
Just dying to know more!

Old memories.... it wa an awesome trip man....

The Great Indian Roadtrip : Day 3 : August 17th 06 : Delhi-Chandigarh

I dont like riding at night. No matter what, we are not going to ride at night. Me neither, I have a lot of problems riding at night. Yes, at night I get blinded by the glares of the oncoming vehicles.

This was how the conversation went about a month before the GIR started during a meeting between the three core riders Sunny, Skyscraper and Ken. Gasoline had not yet arrived. What happened finally when the GIR got underway was way off the mark from what had been decided by the riders. Almost 100% of the highway riding was done in the night. But before we got there a lot had transpired.

As I said the Great Indian Roadtrip was supposed to be accompanied by a backup vehicle. When the backup vehicle arrived, the driver was explained where we were going. Hearing our programme about Ladakh, Kaza, Kunzum, no later than 20 minutes after we arrived, the driver fled. With the vehicle. At the last moment we were left with four riders and no backup vehicle. It was impossible to move in such a situation.

A second backup vehicle was arranged. This time the driver was given no briefing. He smelt something amiss and started slinking away. Finally he said that he would go only till Chandigarh. Okay, till Chandigarh then it was decided.






We packed our stuff, clothes, laptops, backup devices, ipods for photo backups, cameras, videos, a backup motorcycle, Red Bull crates, a crate full of spare parts and accessories, tripods and a rear end full of three young backup photographers. This meant that at least the first day, rather the first evening, we would not have to stop often to click. But there were other things to stop us.













As we started rolling through the city towards the exit, we were stopped every 100 meters by cops for a fine for driving a commercial vehicle at ungodly hours in the city. Then we realized that our driver did not have a license to drive. The vehicle also did not have a pollution under control certificate. And at every stage we had to explain our aim and objectives and pleaded the police to let us go. This took us a while, read 3 hours to get out of Delhi.












Finally we got out of Delhi and Gasoline Junkie swapped places with the driver as we were getting irritated at the pace that he was driving, barely crossing 35 on the Grand Trunk Highway. And soon we were doing fast stretches staying beyond three digits most of the way. We stopped at a place just after Karnal, ZhilMhil it was called, to have our first and last meal of the day. It was already past 2100 hours. That was when Gasoline explained the state of the fitness of the vehicle.





While we rode so far, highway riding was pretty smooth, though could not see much. Earlier we were riding slow to keep pace with the back up as the driver was painfully slow. But after the Delhi border Gasoline Junkie took over the reins of driving the rusty old rickety piece of junk. And we started doing good speed.





What Gasoline described during the meal was not at all reassuring and I would not have been keen to get into a vehicle with such fitness levels. Steering was delayed, so was the accelerator, indicators did not work, console was dead, tires were totally worn out and there was no traction, brakes had to be pumped thrice to get some reaction, nothing worked! No one knows how that thing moved. And Gaso was doing 100 at times.

We had become the back up bikes for the piece of junk that was supposed to be our back up vehicle! Finally we reached Chandigarh and thanks to Amar, an xBhp member who guided us to our hotel at 2 in the morning. We emptied our back up vehicle and I saw Gasoline retire into slumber with the ipod in his ear. I adjusted the AC and hit the bed too with thoughts of our next backup vehicle and the rest of the road fast melting.

Day 3 Account By Sundeep Gajjar ( Sunny )

Ken Da.. Thanks a lot for the Write up...
This is so refreshing and the pics say the story once again..B'fully explained and compiled with apprropriate words ..
It's Like GIR is going on now and we are getting regular updates..

Some More Pictures of Rock Garden

Day 5 Account by Sundeep Gajjar ( Sunny )

The Great Indian Roadtrip : Day 6 : August 20 : Amritsar - Wagah - Amritsar

Day 6-Account by Sundeep GajjarDay 6 : Around Amritsar and Wagah Border account by Krishnendu Kes

Patriotic feeling after watching those pics. Awesome ken.

All this seems to be so refreshing also, Also i would like to thank Ken Dafor this very nice effort by you to bring it back to life..
it's So refreshing..like it was at that when we used to wait for you and as well as other memners to post the write up and give updates..
Why so..??