What can i say about the machine, the first bike that showed me what true raw power is, a bike i hated for all the times i had to push it around town and loved for all the thrills it gave me. This bike i have owned the longest and still do, i will hang onto it for as long as i can, a reminder of a time when spirits were free and life was a simple quest for SPEED!
This is a short story from sometime ago, a special moment i wanted to record here and hold onto lest i forget the details as time goes by. To some around the world this may not seem like much, but at a time when life was a struggle, in a country where this sort of thing doesnt come easy, those who where there will remember the significance of this moment.
April 2003 -
After many nights fiddling with and tuning the bike on hosur road as i commute back and forth from office jetting finally falls into place. I call up a buncha mates, lepp, stormie, abhi and gang and ask if they wanna come along coz it feels like a day to break some speed records and i had the gut feeling she was good for 170kmph. We meet up for a drink and discuss bikes, babes and what not as usual, all the time the bike is playing on my mind and i'm running mental checks to make sure i had everything right...oh wait, did i remember to put back the balancer tube between the carbs ? yup i did. We decide we'll hit the sarjapur ring road late night after 1 am when the cops would have split the scene.
Late night we head out around 2am...some buggers are semi sloshed, lepp is being nagged at over the phone by the girlfriend, or was it the other way round ? Anyways we arrive at marthahalli bridge and i quickly check to see that the sigma digital speedo is in order and reading correctly. We enter the ring road and Abhi takes off, hes having a ball with his new cafe racer setup. I hang back for a moment as with all speed runs i wanted to bring the bike up to speed gradually, besides i didnt bring a helmet and thought i'd stop further up and borrow one from the guys before setting off on the run. The revs build smooth and steady....4000....5000rpm and she comes alive into the powerband with a fierceness i had never felt before...a smile crawls across my lips and i can feel the hair on the back of my neck start to stand on end as a sweet wave of adrenalin surges through my body. I think to myself 'fack it' lets see what this baby's got...we are at WOT and the power just keeps flowing...things are flying by quick now...very quick....vision is starting to blur as the head on wind lashes my face, i can feel my cheeks start to ripple from the sheer force...my mind is telling me to cool off as i whizz past another truck. approaching the under bridge and i can see the first glimpse of a street light...i know i've never been this fast and i desperately want to look at the sigma but sense prevails...so much power and torque i distinctly remember trying to upshift from 6th gear, it felt like i was in 5th. Just up ahead i start to slow down and pull to the side beneath the street lights, I look at the sigma and cant believe it...175kmph....bloody hell, I did it...I did it. I had my hands up in the air, screaming something (cant remember what) to the guys who were arriving just behind me. Everyone is in awe and i distinctly remember being happy...oh so happy.
We arrive at bhagini and setup. I take her just over a km further down and turn back towards bhagini. We figured she would do better on a slightly longer stretch even though it was uphill. I'm wearing abhis jacket and it balloons out on the run, i can feel it holding me back and the results prove the same. I hadnt reset the speedo from 175kmph and the previously recorded speed hadnt changed so the run wasnt any better. Abhi takes a turn on the bike, thats when i get to see the bike from a different perspective. We are all waiting trying to spot the first glimpse of abhi. Its so quiet we can hear the bike a Km away as it hits the powerband and wails towards us...what music that night!! will never forget the site and sound of her approaching and flying past...we all agreed none of us had seen a RD go that fast before...did i mention how happy i was? Abhi made 173kmph on his run, I ditched the jacket for the next run determined to beat 175. I remember all of it, right from the signal as i took a u turn to head up to bhagini...first gear, throttle whacked, front wheel floating in the air, it didnt concern me, i had to get the shifts perfect to make the best of the stretch. I remember the street lights...it was as if they merged into a blury mirage of colours as everything went into fast forward ....it was beautiful and almost serene but as we approached a 100mph the harsh whistle of the wind through my helmet and heavy vibrations through the handle bars shook me be back to the reality of what was happening. I screamed past the guys up at bhagni at well over 170kmph, i could feel i had gone faster as i pulled over to check...that was it 177kmph on the clocks, no street RD in the country thus far had even come close...it was my moment of triumph, i knew then i would always remember that day...no one can take it away from me! I thank all my friends for being there and sharing the experience.....memories are made of this!
