The Thumper Ride's On.

I am no biker, and untill very recently wondered why on god’s beautiful earth would anyone even bother to ride a bike. To start with they are horridly unsafe, annoyingly impractical, extremely irritating when that biker thinks that he can fit into that microscopic gap next to you, and all hell breaks loose when that inconsiderate jackass just ride’s  of at a toll gate, riding something thats much more expensive than your car. I used to crib about the government being stupid for this, but I guess; now I know the reason. Maybe and this is only a calculated hunch, Maybe the government is trying to keep the ‘biker’ happy during the short shelf-life he’s inevitably going to have.

But things change,  and trust me change is inevitable, ask your dad how he was when he was young, and pat then comes the reply…”I was smart, handsome, very very active ,prankster, a player and most importantly Happy… but then I got married”. No matter what you do you will change, hell Mr. Barney Stinson is changing what more a proof do you want! The seeds of change were sown into me when I was a kid. I have always liked a bike, bare with me on this, I am not talking about bikes,  I mean A BIKE. The Royal Enfield Bullet.

The bike in question, to be precise, is a Royal Enfield Bullet Std 350.its not like I had a direct access to this marvel on wheels, it belonged to a uncle of mine whom I met twice at the most thrice in a year, and as bad as it was I met him mostly just to sit on his bike. Even at that age when a rx100, rx135, rd350   all seemed the same there was something about the std350 that simply dint escape me. The japs were really good(they still are). Went like a rocket and were the tidiest off the lot, way advanced at that time. But the oil leaking, squeaking, high maintenance, fuel guzzling Enfield was the one that somehow defied all logic and made a hot iron mark in my budding automotive heart.

An alternative to the controversial military green(olive green)

  This British bike seems to have taken the “highway to India” and forgotten its route back home, and in a way it’s quite fortunate that happened;  am quite sure if it would have continued operations in UK the legacy would have died out long, long ago.

in a era where everything is uncertain, keeps changing and most probably wont be the way you left it, its a nice feeling to have a bike, a machine that has hardly changed since the time your grandfather rode it to his marriage. Think about it, your ideal, beloved, together for eternity boyfriend/girlfriend might have changed a couple of times in the past year or two (the competition is pretty high you know) and then you come across this machine that never changed its basics for over FIVE decades! 

the machine does not pretend to be someone else. It knows it’s not a Harley and it knows its not as good (in tech specs) as even the rather mundane commuter bikes around, and it knows it’s the least practical and probably the most high maintenance bike around, but that’s the beauty of it and that’s what RE loyalist admire about it. Being true to yourself.

 I still maintain the headaches that a bikes gives you, pointed out at the start of the article. But this British beauty does things a bit different. The joy of riding a Royal Enfield is at lower speeds and at lower rpm’s so you are never going to fast to hit Anything, you never in a hurry when on a Bullet,so never even bother to squeeze into that microscopic gap .but yes RE never ran away from the problem that plagued bikes since the Adam and eve of  bikes were created, practicality. It’s the least practical bike ever made, but boy do I love it

- JD

Revrange


PS check out this "Royal Enfield, Handcrafted in Chennai" ad