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I would rather introduce myself with my story rather than cover the bullet points, with the permission of the moderators.
CHILDHOOD:
I was one of those kids who grew up being fascinated by bikes. I loved the sound of a bullet and would always curve my neck whenever one would pass. The bike fitted the city i grew up in, Kolkata;powerful,majestic,proud and slowly getting lost in time. My father had an old LML Vespa 150cc, which in fact we still own and is now 20 years old and still runs. I would be allowed to take the scooter out sometimes and on every occassion i would ride out of town. The road, I think, always had a calling for me. I know part of this comes from nostalgia but I actually believe that was one of the finest scooters we had in India.
COLLEGE:
I went to study engineering at NIT Surathkal in 2005. Now that is 2 kms away from a small town Surathkal, which is 22 kms away from Mangalore, which most you you should know. Being a residential college, and also one of the rare colleges to have a beach and lighthouse of its own, it just so happened that almost no one had a bike and we never bothered. My bike dreams lay latent but what did happen was i read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance. The book starts off something like this: Its 9 am in the morning as i look down at my watch, with the cold wind ripping at my jacket and the corner of my gloves. As I ride, few feet below me is the rough hard real concrete. I am one with the surrounding. In a car I am watching TV. My environment is static and I see frames pass by, but on a bike I am out there. Well thats not verbatim, but the gist of the first page. That day when I read those lines I knew the feeling which I know how to put in words. The words are: A car has two wheels too many for me.
POST GRADUATION
Like the rest of the herd I did my MBA straight out of bachelors. I joined IIMB . It was 2009.It was here, at the beginning of my second semester, that I finally put together 20k and inspite of my mother being strongly against bikes, I convinced her to give me 10K. And with 2k from my friend I bought my first bike, a 1993 Royal Enfield Bullet Standard. It was simple, one morning we got stoned, I took out the cash, with Ashish, who already owned a 2007 RE Electra CI.We went out on his bike, asked people where we could buy an old bullet, found Shivaji Nagar, looked around all day and the best deal we got was a my bike, in decent condition for 32k. We bought the bike and came back. It took me a week to get used to it but considering i am 5"10 and decently strong, once i got the hang of it I just loved it.
Within three months, Rahul, a friend of mine who had joined Bajaj R&D, out of college came down to Bangalore from Pune on his new P220.We planned a ride together to Chennai. I was a bullet novice till then and just took out the bike and we started off. 70 kms through, some 15 kms from Krishnagiri my engine seized. I am going to confess this and with tremendous shame. The engine had been, what i know now as, knocking for the last half hour. The engine oil which in short city rides had been fine, had started leaking and finally run out. Ashish had once told me once a bullet heats up and starts running smooth it sounds a bit different. I had thought the knocking was the different. Laugh at me as much as you will, I deserve it. But that incident changed how I looked at bikes. Now I saw it as a machine. Then came the hours of reading up on the bullet engine and maintenance. Sitting with mechanics and trying to learn from them. Knowing the bike, knowing the niggles. After 6 months and a new re-casted engine having been run in I took the bike to IIM Kozhikode, to meet my friend Sudeep, which is roughly a 360km ride. I did this ride alone only because I wanted to and I thoroughly enjoyed it. After that I have ridden to Chennai(350kms) twice and back with it. The bike would still have its problems but atleast I would finish the ride. Over time multiple issues got sorted and my bike became quite good. I would actually race traffic and after fitting a Goldstar I hit 130 on the speedo on the Sony World to Domloor stretch.All this while I had not transferred the bike's registration to my name, but come the time to leave college, this became a major concern. I left the bike with a friend and the papers with a guy who does papers. Due to multiple stage wise complications the papers are still stuck. However, greater forces willing, I think it would get done in the next month.
JOB LIFE:
I joined as a manager in Mumbai.This was May 2011. I spent a year without a bike. I could feel something missing from my life. The mobility, the agility, the freedom, the thrill.In November last year I booked a Classic Chrome 500cc RE finally and was then facing a 6-8 month waiting period.In April I finally got the call and then started the ordeal of the loan process. I had around 80k of cash and the rest around 1 lakh i needed a loan. This got rejected bt 3 banks. My bank, ICICI, no bike loans, personal loans after 2 years employment. HDFC-failed due to neighbour claiming we are going to move out in the address check. Citi Bank-failed as I have no credit history and a credit score of -1. In the mean time, the CBR250R had been launched and I finally decided I did not was two bullets, especially since the new one lacked the thump(I don't care how I am judged, from my childhood its the sound I have loved) and had vibes at anywhere over 100kmph. Also, as a second bike I wanted something faster and nimbler. I love the straight back constant 70 kmph bullet ride and would not exchange it for anything. However, this was my second bike. I booked the CBR which I have put in a cancellation request for as of now. After the whole loan rejection process I decided not to take a loan itself. I had been following the Pulsar 200NS for some time. I read the fav reviews and with the price within cash range I booked the bike. In the meantime I had visited Atul and Rahul at the Bajaj hostels in Pune. Atul got me to talk to a senior who had ridden the bike a lot and who i later discovered was none other than MG himself. I was told that I could do 60 till the first service and 70 till the rest of the run-in. and it arrived two weeks back. It was delivered on a friday. On Saturday I took it to Pune to meet the guys again. I am not a novice anymore, I knew about this engine. I stuck to 60 top and 4k rpm. I did hit 5k for 2-3 times during the ghats where i felt the bike underpowered at 4k on the lower gears. Same on the way back.
The first servicing is done, I am waiting for the time to red line. The bike feels awesome and still leaves you lingering with a feeling that when I will push it up to above 8k something else is going to happen.
I have followed advice from this site during all my(althoughing changing over time) buying decisions, and help in particular cases. I have always done long rides alone, kept biking a private experience. However, over time I have wanted to become an active member of XBHP and today I hope to have introduced some of myself to the community. I also hope I will be able to give back some of what I have experienced to this community.
Sharanya Biswas.
CHILDHOOD:
I was one of those kids who grew up being fascinated by bikes. I loved the sound of a bullet and would always curve my neck whenever one would pass. The bike fitted the city i grew up in, Kolkata;powerful,majestic,proud and slowly getting lost in time. My father had an old LML Vespa 150cc, which in fact we still own and is now 20 years old and still runs. I would be allowed to take the scooter out sometimes and on every occassion i would ride out of town. The road, I think, always had a calling for me. I know part of this comes from nostalgia but I actually believe that was one of the finest scooters we had in India.
COLLEGE:
I went to study engineering at NIT Surathkal in 2005. Now that is 2 kms away from a small town Surathkal, which is 22 kms away from Mangalore, which most you you should know. Being a residential college, and also one of the rare colleges to have a beach and lighthouse of its own, it just so happened that almost no one had a bike and we never bothered. My bike dreams lay latent but what did happen was i read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance. The book starts off something like this: Its 9 am in the morning as i look down at my watch, with the cold wind ripping at my jacket and the corner of my gloves. As I ride, few feet below me is the rough hard real concrete. I am one with the surrounding. In a car I am watching TV. My environment is static and I see frames pass by, but on a bike I am out there. Well thats not verbatim, but the gist of the first page. That day when I read those lines I knew the feeling which I know how to put in words. The words are: A car has two wheels too many for me.
POST GRADUATION
Like the rest of the herd I did my MBA straight out of bachelors. I joined IIMB . It was 2009.It was here, at the beginning of my second semester, that I finally put together 20k and inspite of my mother being strongly against bikes, I convinced her to give me 10K. And with 2k from my friend I bought my first bike, a 1993 Royal Enfield Bullet Standard. It was simple, one morning we got stoned, I took out the cash, with Ashish, who already owned a 2007 RE Electra CI.We went out on his bike, asked people where we could buy an old bullet, found Shivaji Nagar, looked around all day and the best deal we got was a my bike, in decent condition for 32k. We bought the bike and came back. It took me a week to get used to it but considering i am 5"10 and decently strong, once i got the hang of it I just loved it.
Within three months, Rahul, a friend of mine who had joined Bajaj R&D, out of college came down to Bangalore from Pune on his new P220.We planned a ride together to Chennai. I was a bullet novice till then and just took out the bike and we started off. 70 kms through, some 15 kms from Krishnagiri my engine seized. I am going to confess this and with tremendous shame. The engine had been, what i know now as, knocking for the last half hour. The engine oil which in short city rides had been fine, had started leaking and finally run out. Ashish had once told me once a bullet heats up and starts running smooth it sounds a bit different. I had thought the knocking was the different. Laugh at me as much as you will, I deserve it. But that incident changed how I looked at bikes. Now I saw it as a machine. Then came the hours of reading up on the bullet engine and maintenance. Sitting with mechanics and trying to learn from them. Knowing the bike, knowing the niggles. After 6 months and a new re-casted engine having been run in I took the bike to IIM Kozhikode, to meet my friend Sudeep, which is roughly a 360km ride. I did this ride alone only because I wanted to and I thoroughly enjoyed it. After that I have ridden to Chennai(350kms) twice and back with it. The bike would still have its problems but atleast I would finish the ride. Over time multiple issues got sorted and my bike became quite good. I would actually race traffic and after fitting a Goldstar I hit 130 on the speedo on the Sony World to Domloor stretch.All this while I had not transferred the bike's registration to my name, but come the time to leave college, this became a major concern. I left the bike with a friend and the papers with a guy who does papers. Due to multiple stage wise complications the papers are still stuck. However, greater forces willing, I think it would get done in the next month.
JOB LIFE:
I joined as a manager in Mumbai.This was May 2011. I spent a year without a bike. I could feel something missing from my life. The mobility, the agility, the freedom, the thrill.In November last year I booked a Classic Chrome 500cc RE finally and was then facing a 6-8 month waiting period.In April I finally got the call and then started the ordeal of the loan process. I had around 80k of cash and the rest around 1 lakh i needed a loan. This got rejected bt 3 banks. My bank, ICICI, no bike loans, personal loans after 2 years employment. HDFC-failed due to neighbour claiming we are going to move out in the address check. Citi Bank-failed as I have no credit history and a credit score of -1. In the mean time, the CBR250R had been launched and I finally decided I did not was two bullets, especially since the new one lacked the thump(I don't care how I am judged, from my childhood its the sound I have loved) and had vibes at anywhere over 100kmph. Also, as a second bike I wanted something faster and nimbler. I love the straight back constant 70 kmph bullet ride and would not exchange it for anything. However, this was my second bike. I booked the CBR which I have put in a cancellation request for as of now. After the whole loan rejection process I decided not to take a loan itself. I had been following the Pulsar 200NS for some time. I read the fav reviews and with the price within cash range I booked the bike. In the meantime I had visited Atul and Rahul at the Bajaj hostels in Pune. Atul got me to talk to a senior who had ridden the bike a lot and who i later discovered was none other than MG himself. I was told that I could do 60 till the first service and 70 till the rest of the run-in. and it arrived two weeks back. It was delivered on a friday. On Saturday I took it to Pune to meet the guys again. I am not a novice anymore, I knew about this engine. I stuck to 60 top and 4k rpm. I did hit 5k for 2-3 times during the ghats where i felt the bike underpowered at 4k on the lower gears. Same on the way back.
The first servicing is done, I am waiting for the time to red line. The bike feels awesome and still leaves you lingering with a feeling that when I will push it up to above 8k something else is going to happen.
I have followed advice from this site during all my(althoughing changing over time) buying decisions, and help in particular cases. I have always done long rides alone, kept biking a private experience. However, over time I have wanted to become an active member of XBHP and today I hope to have introduced some of myself to the community. I also hope I will be able to give back some of what I have experienced to this community.
Sharanya Biswas.
.
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