Beauty in Red! A dedication to a machine that has taken me places

Beauty in Red! A dedication to a machine that has taken me places

Written by Venkat Ganesh

Topics: Motorcycling

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In 2007, I made a decision to buy a motorbike. What bearing the two-wheeler would have on my life I couldn’t fathom then. It was a completely childish decision. My friends had been owning a bike for almost half a decade in those days. PEER PRESSURE — Even I wanted to possess one. Of course, MY OWN BIKE. Made a handsome enough dough to afford a two-wheeler. I decided to go ahead and buy one. Now, let me put some facts straight in front of you.

  1. I did not know to ride a bike. Hell!! I did not even know (and even now don’t) to ride a bicycle properly.
  2. Terms like 150cc- 100 cc were Mandarin to me. Yes, they sounded Chinese to me. Jargons. I didn’t know what bike I was looking for. My friends made that decision for me.
  3. So, my buddies took the test ride and selected a Honda Unicorn and I signed the cheque.
  4. For my knowledge of bikes or utter ignorance of it, I had to ask the showroom personnel to drop the bike at my home. Believe me, it’s a shame.

I can give you some more facts but I guess the above gives you an idea, right? But over the years I learnt riding and today as you all know I am riding solo across India. I have come a long way and so has this gorgeous machine. The Honda guys called her Unicorn , while I rechristened her as Beauty in Red . She accompanied me dutifully through thick and thin. Right from the peaceful Konkan coastline, in the Western part of India, to the upper northern ridges of the unforgiving Himalayas. The first long distance ride I did with “Beauty in Red’ was in May 2008, when I went riding (Read pillion) to a place near Lonavala in Maharashtra. Like I said earlier I was oblivious to riding. A friend rode the Beauty in Red for 300 kms with me a being a comfortable pillion. Unfortunately I do not have pics from that ride. Gradually, I learnt the ‘rocket science’.

Yes I started riding my bike. Practising in the compound of the building I live in, along the city roads. That doesn’t mean I mastered the art of riding. I still didn’t ride to work, didn’t have inter-city jolly-rides, still honked the horn and hit brakes when the fellow vehicles were at a 100m radius. The apprehensions are many, but let us not be bothered by them at them moment.

Somewhere along the Konkan Coast!

Somehow, during the festive season of Diwali 2008, my friends and I went riding to the beautiful Konkan coast. With riding skills having not made any serious improvement it was my friends riding Beauty in Red in turns. Needless to say, I was a pillion. It was then that I realized what a beautiful machine it was. While rest of my friend’s bikes’ struggled at times or were not as smooth, every one used to fight to have a chance to ride her. Also relatively my bike was just a year old and had not clocked even 4000 kms added to the performance.

During our first big ride. Konkan in Diwali of 2008

Finally, in January 2009, I started commuting to office and a super cautious driver I was even on Mumbai roads where with all the traffic you could hardly average 20kmph. But in Feb 2008 a tragedy struck to my steed. I lent it to my friends for a night ride and a friend, whom she was accompanying, dozed off while riding. Needless to say she was battered. It was an absolute heartbreak to see the condition it was in after the mishap. She was ‘royally screwed’. Once it was repaired, the performance wasn’t the same. Soon enough I showed it to better mechanics who restored it to near-pre-accident state.

During my first trip to Ladakh. Not yet riding. Just posing! :D

Later in 2009, my gang decided to hit it up big and we rode Ladakh which we repeated in 2010 and I did a solo in 2011. The Leh-Manali highways is considered one of the toughest and most dangerous roads to travel on and each time “Beauty in Red” came out with flying colors.

 

Zanskar Valley.Ladakh. On my solo ride in 2011

 

The below video is one of the multiple water crossing that my Beauty in Red had to endure in the ride of 2010 and bear in mind that this water crossing was the easiest. I will leave the toughest to your imagination

Its been more than 4 years now that I have owned it rode 45000 kms as a rider or a pillion. Each ride increase my respect and love for it and it reciprocates the same by giving a better ride in the next. . I shudder to think What if I had not bought it? How would my life be? And what would I be doing now? This post of mine is a dedication to this great machine that has provided me with some out of the world experiences. Hope this continues.

(With editorial inputs from Chaitanya Gudipaty)

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4 Comments For This Post I'd Love to Hear Yours!

  1. Sanket says:

    way to go!

  2. Punit Dubey says:

    You did your solo ride to Laddakh on Beauty in Red! Awesomeness! Kudos to you :)

  3. magiceye says:

    wow what a journey!

    great to know you are doing a solo trip now…
    following you on twitter!!

    happy riding!!

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