RS.LABS by Rishabh Shah

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The TRIP

Daman and Back.

Ride – The RE Bullet Std 350 – 1965

Riders – Sigmund Quadros and Avinash Saini(Pillion)

16^th Oct. ’10.

6am Kick started the bull in one go after the usual cold engine procedure. Shifted in drive and headed on to which was going to be a long procrastinating bike trip across the state. As a drill, drove out of the colony and idled the engine for a warm up. Warmed up and 10mins after leaving home drove into a fuel station to tank up. It had been the longest while since my fuel tank had held so much fuel, I’m sure the bike knew it was in for a long run this time around.

Picked up Avinash from below his apartment. For 6.20am mine was a very loud bike in his colony, could have his mum known we were doing a bike trip? Left that for later and fled away to a not-so-mum-proximal place to gear up in our helmets and jackets.

For Starters, the level crossing at Virar was favoring us with a green, aiding our zoom towards NH8 north up to Daman. Smooth Asphalt, early morning sun, shining chrome, could not have been a better wakeup call!

Bikers pay no toll, Rode through our first of 3 toll booths for the morning.

7.30am riding passed shirsad, Vaitarna and Safalah bypass, an ever hungry yours truly did a halt at a very know restaurant at Manor, Vithal Kamat’s. Some Awesome tea and a bowl full of missal with Avinash relishing his tea through the breakfast, saying, “Chai toh chai hoti hai boss…”. Some random conversations and a very hot looking girl in a purple tank top walks into Kamats. Damn. Too bad we had to bounce.

9.45am into Gujarat with just one stop for Avi to loosen up. That took rather too long, considering a very decent speed and empty roads. Did catch on to a fellow bull rider only to face some bad attitude with him zooming past me in response. I felt really sad for him and his attitude towards the road and a fellow biker, as they say, ‘Speeding up will only ensure, that your riding alone.’ But its fine, he did manage to bottle neck himself in a traffic jam at Charoti Toll Plaza, where a smiling cop diverted me on the wrong side the median only to help my way out of the jam. Another photog halt and a bunch of tattooed KB Avenger riders waved good luck and rode passed.

10.30am and all the smooth asphalt and speed came to a bumpy and slow end. Vapi by far has the most messed up roads I have ever ridden on. Sheesh. We managed to ride through the bumps and lumps and holes to the Daman check post. Smooth roads again from check post to Dilip Nagar.

10.46am found us at a cremation centre. I have no idea how we landed up there. Any way, it was a fairly nice view by the sea for a dead. Did some GPS-ing to check for a trail to a not so dead place. Rode into Nani Daman, which was as long as the wheel base of my bike. LOL. Scanned it for an hour to find NOTHING. Nothing at all.

12.00noon Hungry again, and managed to find a Restaurant with some bad ass food. Stuffed. And bounced of hotel hunting to drop off our bag and have a nap.

17.00Pm Planned an evening riding through Nani Daman and Moti Daman. Spent an awesome sun set at a fort in Nani with a church inside it. Mum was wrong, we did not bump into a single HOT chick in Daman, apparently mum saw many. Dammit. Rode through a very unorganized city traffic into Moti Daman to visit a fort and a whole city inside it. Impressive. But I still liked our rock star hotel room a li’l better.

While riding I heard a metal to metal kind of rattle from the back of my bike, when checked was just a missing bolt to the leg guard and the chasis. I’m sure this happened at the bad road Vapi scene. The hunt for a garage at 8pm in Daman begins. Found one and the guy was generous enough to lend me a “13 number ka nut and bolt”, with his mechanic to do a fix up job. Once tightened we headed back to Wheel base Nani Daman. Avinash was by now documenting videos of most of our trip on the camera. Busy guy he was.

Whiling our time around Moti Daman we did ride into a few hot ones. Mum wasn’t completely wrong. We were back to our hotel for a shower and dinner and some night talk, It was possibly the longest boys time out Avinash and Me had together in about a year. From Best Friends to now fellow riders, done a lot in the last 24hrs. Even he now wants to own a bullet. Do I influence people or what?

With a good 200Km on the meter we were ready to call it a night. Planned to start early next morning to beat the traffic and the heat.

17^th Oct. ’10.

6.45am Saw Avi and Me back on the road towards Virar. Had to fuel and air up again. Found a desired fuel station with my brand of fuel and some “free air”. I was contemplating to find another way out of Daman but stuck to the bad Vapi route.

8.00am Saw a halt for breakfast and were about 70 km on our way home. We really could not believe how fast we had covered a very large distance of our ride. A nice “gujju” curry with bread for breakfast which was served to us under the pretext of Missal. I’m not complaining though.

8.45am The bull saw a 100kmph on the meter, surprising, considering my engine point setting did not allow me to do that. 60-70kmph was smooth, 80 would be pushing it. And not so surprisingly only 15mins after a very high speed overtaking gig with a bunch of not so fast truckers my engine stalled. Stalled in the middle of nowhere.

A forced pull over saw smoke out of the engine. Dam.

9.00am and a halt for god know how long for the engine to cool down? Had a word with a very experienced Sardar outside his little hotel. He asked me to chill and wait for the bike to cool down.

I’m sure I had checked the oil levels and viscosity before leaving, guess it was the run pressure that had blown the engine to a stall. GPSed to learn we had already covered Dahanu and were almost at Palghar and that much closer to home.

9.30am-ish and we were back on the road only to halt in about 15 odd Km’s because I wasn’t feeling right in pushing an overheated engine so hard. Another 20mins lost only to do a nonstop run across Palghar/Manor/Kelve/Varai/Kaner and into Virar.

I had put the 45yr old engine on an endurance test post the second cooling stop. “Yeah bike pe mereko bharosa hai”, said Avinash when we stalled for the first time. Those words in a continues loop were running through my head as we rode at a decent 60kmph trying not to heat and stall again.

Home. 10.45am.

Couldn’t have been a better weekend. Daman is off the list for a long while now. Next stop? … … … … let me see what direction does the compass point towards.

Until next time, for THE TRIP

Love and Light,

- Sigmund Quadros