Rider Mania (RM) has always been an event that has held a kind of weird fascination for me. This is because I had, a couple of years ago, gone to send off a few friends when they were on their way to the first RM. Whether I would be able to attend RM 05 at all was in limbo till the last minute due to issues at the office. Another factor that didn’t make me all that enthusiastic was the fact that RM would be held this year at a place called Panvel about 60kms from Mumbai. Argh! Why not Goa! The route was decided and it was decided that the riders would be on the road from the 6th to the 11th, depending on whether you came back to Bangalore straight from Mumbai. The dates of RM ‘05 were 8th and 9th of January. The riding distance was approximately, a comfortable 500kms per day.
DAY 1 – 06-Jan-2005
We decided to start off on the 6th of Jan at 5:30 and in true RTMC fashion managed to start at 0630. We were nine riders on seven bikes 4 Thunderbirds, 2 Electras and a lone Standard 350 from the Madbulls. Froze our way till Tumkur where it was time for breakfast. After a longish break we managed to get back on the road. The road continued to be good but since most of NH4 was under construction for the Golden Quadrilateral project we had to keep taking diversions every now and then. Soon, we picked up the pace and we managed to cover distances in pretty good time despite long breaks. By 1:00 we managed to reach Davanagere and had a hearty lunch at a dhaba and it was one long break.
After stopping once more at Haveri for some chai we hit the road towards the Hubli-Dharwad bypass. This was one road that reminded me of the movie MadMax, because of the wrecks on the roadside. I saw at least 8-9 trucks and other vehicles lying smashed on the roadside. A funny incident on this Hubli-Dharwad bypass was that we had to wait a 2 different railway crossing for the same train seemingly travelling in the opposite direction. We reached Belgaum by about 20:00 and soon found a place to shack up for the night called Keerthi Hotel. This led to another round of jokes aimed at Keerthi. After dumping stuff in our respective rooms it was time to hit “Keerthi” bar and later Keerthi Pan Stall. My god, an overdose of Keerthi.
DAY 2 – 07-Jan-2005
Late as usual to get up and get ready, we were joined by Ambar and Samarth. Thee two of them had ridden through the night from Bangalore and would be carrying on with us to Panvel. By the time we hit the road, it was close to 10:30. The stretch from Belgaum to Kolhapur is an amazing 6-lane stretch, and all I could stretch my bike to was an indicated 125kmph. Slow by the standards of the other two Thunderbirds with lesser restrictive exhausts. Stopped at Nippani before crossing over into Maharashtra. Soon we landed in Karad and got on to the road to Chiplun after quite a bit of effort. Soon, it was lunch time and we decided to stop at a deserted restaurant whose owner was thrilled to see so many hungry-looking bikers at his doorstep. A long relaxing lunch, and all of us sleepy heads took off towards Chiplun. The ghat roads here were just AWESOME and after a lot of peg scraping reached Chiplun. We then rode to Pen (it sounds better in Marathi), where a couple of Indiethumpers, Rajiv and Ashish, met us, and led us to the RM’05 venue. We checked in and registered by 23:00 pm and then started our hunt for the booze. Lucky for us Belli had stocked up some from Bangalore. After a few beers and a black widow, headed for dinner. And yaawn!
Day3 – 08-Jan-2005
The event was to kick off at 1000 but with no signs of that, my morning was spent in getting my bike washed and helping Keerthi set up his Cramster stall and getting to know people from the dozen odd clubs from across the country. Finally when the event kicked off, the Indiethumpers showcased the Raffle bike, which was a modified Std350 with some snazzy bodywork, ventilated discs and alloy wheels of a VT.
Soon the subsidised beer stall was open and at 10bucks a pint, you can imagine what happened next, lots of empty bottles. :^) Enjoyed till really late in the night with a lot of people and hit the bed after a nice dinner.
Certain really funny Chamiya Bar related experiences of certain characters made the evening worthwhile. Lol.
DAY 4 – 09-Jan-2005
The day started off with everyone lazily getting up and bad hangovers. The planned collective ride into Mumbai showed no signs of materializing till late afternoon. There were a couple of competitions lined up however which were the Best Customised bike both amongst looks and technical. I was asked to be one of the judges for the competitions and got to listen to the owners explain the modifications done to their bikes very passionately. In the end all were winners but some fared better.
The ride finally happened at around three in the afternoon and Prashanth and myself took off a little late and had a fast ride to catch up with the rest of the group. Finally when we caught up with them the main group was just starting off back to the venue. Here started a very fast paced ride between a few of us. Prashanth and myself from RTMC, Karthik from the Royal Beasts and another person. Eventually it was Karthik and myself who shot off by ourselves and had a good ride. By the time we realised what had happened we’d overshot the Venue by many kilometres. We just slowly made our way back to the venue.
Wanted to get a tattoo, but decided against it after one looks at the “What the F***” prices. Didn’t see the subsidized part in this.
After this it was just fun all the way with lots of B, B and B’s and by the time I crashed out it was probably three or so in the morning.
DAY 5 – 10-Jan-2005
Some lucky b*sta*ds (I’m plain jealous obviously) with more leave decided to extend their journey onto Goa and elsewhere before heading back to Bangalore. A few of us unlucky souls who had to get back decided to start off the ride back to Bangalore.
Started off the ride back to Bangalore with Vishu. On the way to Pune the famed Lonavala ghats turned out to be a damp squib and didn’t live up to it’s hype. Prashi and Orgi who had left ahead of us were supposed to catch up with us in Pune. But this didn’t happen and they only caught up with us when we were past Pune having lunch. Rode in an organised manner till we reached Belgaum. Got in touch with a few of the MadBulls who had taken up rooms in a hotel and got ourselves some rooms. Had a nice lunch with some good booze and crashed out for the night.
Day 6 – 11-Jan-2005
Woke up to the sound of revving bullets parked right under the window where I’d slept. One look out and the MadBulls were already packing up as they had a long ride day ahead of themselves. They were planning to do a ride straight to Chennai of about 800kms. Waved goodbye to them and got ready and headed out after some breakfast. Nice ride back to Bangalore and back to traffic. Prashi was the first one to peel off and the rest of us split later.
At a signal saw a nice RD350 and decided to egg him on to a race with a bit of revving and glaring. 🙂 He recognised me by my helmet and it turned out to be a person with whom I’d done my last ride on the RD a few months back to Yelagiri. He’d come on a borrowed RD then and he’d gotten himself an RD and done it up nicely now. After a small chat it was home, shower, bed.
What a blast of a ride!
(Snaps from the ride have not yet been transferred to this platform. Check back later.)