The fastest Bullet

Some people will tell you that slow is good – and it may be, on some days – but I am here to tell you that fast is better. I have always believed this, in spite of the trouble it has caused me. Being shot out of a cannon will always be better than being squeezed out of a tube. That is why God made fast motorcycles, Bubba…

Hunter S Thompson, ‘Song of the sausage creature’

It was in the way he announced it. The Wall Street attitude and related accoutrements – neck-tie, spotless shirt, carefully creased trousers and polished shoes. A dapper lady stood by him, wide-eyed and genuinely pleased at my good fortune.

“You have a pre-approved loan for your motorcycle,” he said taking my hand and shaking it. 

Picture courtesy of the couplet-spewing watchman

I hadn’t applied for a loan, I didn’t want one. I had been saving for sometime illustriously desisting – and sometimes succeeding even – from casual dates since a break up almost a year ago. The peaty flavour of my favourite single malt had been wafting out of memory for a while. Then I guess the ‘pre-approved’ does the trick – you don’t have to apply for that bit to fall into place. You don’t have to do anything at all. It is something that happens on its own, like gravity.

Finally, after 83 signatures and a widdle break, slapping my face with cold hard water, I broke out of the hold and informed the white-collar duo that I wasn’t looking for a loan. They just tilted the portakabin a little and left me sitting in the cold facing a desolate corner of the shop.

Some days later my motorcycle was ready for collection marking an end to a serial bombardment of queries and endless cross checking due to an atavistic distrust of others when a copious investment was involved from my side. The showroom had failed to procure my favourite registration number for which I had advanced payment; the mechanics tinkered on endlessly until I paid them baksheesh, happy money; to top it all, I lost my Caterpillar night riding glasses from my bag inside the shop. The one saving grace was the watchman who recited a serious couplet which I later realised was a thoughtful reminder to ride with caution. I tipped him generously.

Beautiful, doughty creatures

December 15, 2019

It was a historic day – I became owner of a silver colour Interceptor 650, the fastest motorcycle from the Royal Enfield stable; finally a machine that lived up to the ‘Bullet’ marque.

It was also the day the anti-CAA protests at Shaheen Bagh got underway.

My ride to a dinner date in Sarita Vihar near Shaheen Bagh was re-routed at many intersections. The backpack I was carrying had, besides the stuff for my ride to Kerala starting the next morning, a bottle of decent wine and hard liquor – I was taking no chances. A human rights lawyer, a doughty creature of vestal courage, it was her sans-culotte views that drew me to her. And to top it all, she excelled at badinage – we would parley well into the night even before we met. She told her neighbour to keep an eye on my motorcycle as it was brand new; a person whom I later learnt was not even on good terms with her. Then nothing stopped her, and nobody. When we visited the protests later with books to donate to the on-site Rohith Vemula library, she just clip-clopped in her unsex boots and denim right through the cordoned off area and weary armed cops just stared. There had been shooting incidents in the area and they were on tenterhooks. I tottered after her muttering ‘ok madam’ for good effect. We are off now but this episode remains etched in memory as that one time when a woman led me to safety.

Heart warming spread

Of course, there was the dinner on the 15^th night. A simple spread, its richness lay in the thought with which they were prepared – each item culled out from our conversations over food and made after a long day at the court. She claimed they were ‘throw’ or hastily put together; all the deliberations of Michelin-starred cooking struck me as mere theatrics. As the night wore on, I became lusty which she put it on the wine I had quaffed. Fine grisaille works from her world travels hung on immaculate walls, reflecting the low light. The effect was magical, shadows played.

From the open garden balcony the next morning, she motioned me to call her from Gwalior, my destination that day. It was late morning and the besoms of municipality workers had left their fresh stripes on the dew-soggy ground. The second cars of residents were tucked between trees and broken perimeter walls of parks, or stacked into driveways. A pushcart vegetable vendor exited counting change from an apartment after delivering to a resident in one of the higher floors. Nepali maids dragged pedigree mutts poised on three legs away from dust covered thickets. 

Leaving Delhi, #dillipalai

Two wheels good, four wheels bad.

Andy Martin, ‘Che and the art of motorcycle maintenance’

At most traffic signals I got curious and approving glances, some even did the basic inquiries regarding mileage and price, their voices muffled through helmets. A few regarded my assertion that it was a Bullet with peradventure; the twin cylinders angled upwards required it to be either imported or modified. So much of interest and I soon began considering it my responsibility to give a brief demo by making a dash as the lights changed, reaching half way even as the others were getting off the block.

Between signal lights spread out nearly a kilometre, I would hit speeds up to 120 kmph, in the third gear. High speed on busy roads was sheer dumbness. In the passionate patois of motorcyclists, this mad dash over short distances was the café racing way. Royal Enfield had launched the GT, along with the Interceptor, which was more dedicated, design-wise, to café racing. A workout incident had given me a bad back and I didn’t want to be slouching as if I was poised to leap ‘into a swimming pool that was drained yesterday.’ Being more of a distance biker but with a fiendish fetish for speed, I decided to go with the more relaxed Interceptor, a rebirthed vintage marvel from the RE design and engineering division at Bruntingthrope Proving Ground in Leicester, England.

My big boss machine

My previous motorcycle was the biggest Bullet – the Standard 500. It was just what I wanted, the big boss machine. I would look at it with all the pride and fondness of Daenerys Targaryen at her dragons. I knew I could fry anyone on the road with my love. Once I put my then girlfriend on the Shatabdi Express from Chandigarh and picked her up from the Delhi station, reaching a minute before she rolled in. Despite its size and cumbersome cast iron engine, it rode with all the attitude of someone who smirked at the turf; take it anywhere and it would hit it running.

On a trip to Leh and Ladakh with some friends on my Standard, there were a couple of the newly launched RE Classics. Mine was the only machine that made the torturous circuit with not even a burnt clutch. The Classics, needless to say, were like sissies in the three feet slush as we neared Baralacha La along the Leh-Manali highway. I coasted over the Khardung La on my dragon, the boss engine snorting contempt at pit stops and rests even to sort my toes that were curling blue from the sub zero cold. With my hard riding and the cast iron prone to overheating – precautionary measures including mixing 100 ml oil with petrol and stopping for 15 min after every hour (I still beat that Rajdhani!) – I needed a faster motorcycle.

Now, the fastest Bullet

Morning of December 16, 2019 starting from Delhi for Kerala, I decided to skip the scenic and dhaba-studded – and a personal favourite – NH 8 for the drab, grey of the Yamuna Expressway with its bloated bukaterias. This is open throttle country. From the city it was around 40 km away with many signals in between that I decided to put to test my theory of the ‘signal breaking speed.’ It went like this: if you started at a green and stayed within decent city speeds of 40 to 60 kmph, you will reach the next signal in time to stop again. It is clockwork drudgery courtesy of the grid designers prepping office-going motorists for the day ahead. You could reach the next signal before it turned red only by ripping it. And I decided to put a figure to this rip.

Before I get into the details of how I did it, a word about bad riders. You are a bad rider if you are riding fast and crash. With indecent speed comes an excessive focus – on the road, on the motorist ahead of you, those ones coming up behind you. You should be endowed with a fair amount of mind and machine reading abilities, be able to tell which way a vehicle will go by its slant, even before it has actually made that turn. I am not saying I have it all but I have been at it for a while now and some of the tales I have do sound tall. Most of my scrapes have come at tolerant speeds because my mind wanders at anywhere less than a 100 kmph. At two signals I was slowed down by traffic, the third was open floor but I passed the signal a full two seconds after it turned. Now, riders in Delhi, riders generally, are not reckless though they like to believe and exhibit traits that say otherwise. They see somebody coming in through their light, they will take a look at you – it is the intent in your eyes that will stop them than your actual speed.

Adoration galore

At the intersection, I revved my machine unnecessarily, just to hear it thrum – distinctly milder than the thumping of other Bullets but definitely meaner. Like the low growl of a tomcat that knows its business. I crouched a little low over the wide-set, upright handlebars and adjusted myself till the space was just right between my crotch and the teardrop tank. Pulling the front brake – both brakes are disc ABS – the custom-made Pirelli tyre responded with a soft bounce.

With the heaviest kerb weight, the Interceptor is a piece of fine engineering and balance and torqued amply. It is extremely fast and not a nanosecond is lost in responding to your demand. The machine’s unwavering dedication to speed has extricated me from many a tight spot. My eyes were on the signal directly ahead of me, an auto rickshaw tried to cut into my lane from the left but I moved a few feet forward to keep him at bay. The signal changed and I was off. With 47 horses, the Interceptor has plenty of thrust and grit and remains stable well into the 100s. There are six quick speeds but given the circumstance, you don’t employ beyond the fourth. 

Why fast bikes, bubba

If there is anything that you have to trust but cannot see, it must be torque. I get asked by well-wishers, including the friend who saw me off, if I am ever afraid. I always am; I keep seeing myself as ‘a Sausage Creature with no teeth, fucked up for the rest of its life.’ I don’t wear the escutcheon like am going into war but as little as possible. Give me the sun and the wind and the edge of a devastating contact in case things go wrong. I nudge into gear and go full blast like cannonball man and I barely notice the vehicles blurring past on both sides. My motorcycle sticks to the centreline white where there is always space, even if a squeeze. If I braked, it would be to stop but not to slow down. Some calls are stupid as you are well aware even before you make it. But that is how you ride, on some days. From the first gear to the second at 60 kmph, I hit an effortless 100 in the third with the tach hitting 4000 rpm. The fourth at 120 and I touched 140 but my eyes too occupied to check the tach.

The junction was right ahead of me, the waiting vehicles starting to move in. The road was clear like it was barricaded for politicians going nowhere and dweebs checking inane theories. My balls were on fire, I stuck to the middle even though there was not a single vehicle behind me. Aimed straight, fired right, it takes on superhuman powers and I flew past the signal just as it turned yellow – a full three or four seconds before red. It felt good, even if you were proving a theory nobody else knew of. It was your own and it was like a wild fantasy that came alive.

Silver Bullet, I told her

Into the trip, my friend asked me whether I had found a name for my motorcycle. In the straight stretches of Telangana and Karnataka I had been hitting160 kmph regularly. But that whoopee moment breaking the signal speed had stayed.

“Silver Bullet,” I replied.