Life behind bars! From a woman's perspective!

This blog is dedicated to all women out there in different aspects of life! This article was written by one of our female compatriots who recently took to motorcycling and has all the praise for it! Read on!

"This blog is dedicated to all the beginners and women out there who have just begun mounting their motorcycles (begged or borrowed) and itching to go for a ride. Welcome to the whole new world of biking and bikers!

The first thing I would recommend you is to have a motorcycle that you could call your own. You don’t have to have your name imprinted on its registration certificate along with a smug pic to claim ownership. All I am saying is that have a vehicle which you could take out often (preferably all the time) and feel a little responsibility over it too. This is very important because every single motorcycle is different. The dynamics, the growl of their engines, the comfort of shifting gears, weight distribution etc. etc. 

And maybe you have bought a brand new motorcycle for this. I would not personally recommend this because you might not have discovered your riding style, your quirks and preferences yet. And I think you should ride a bit before you choose your partner (Ahem!). Moreover a new bike means loads of other responsibilities too like running in, regular check ups and so on which you might miss unless you are pretty well versed about bikes already.

Now it’s the woman and the machine. Take it out, as often as possible and as long as possible. It was born for the roads. Try it out in different terrains and situations without harm to the vehicle of course and try to understand it. It will take a while but you will soon reach there where you think and the machine understands.

If you are a beginner and you are planning to ride alone just take it easy. Long trips and racing are a big no-no initially. And there are plenty of biking communities which you could join or you could just couple up with your friends who are already riding (the ones who really know what is riding!). Trust me, you will learn a lot and have loads of fun with co-bikers than you do alone. Your biker friends will be the naughtiest, fun-loving, irritating, road-crazy, spontaneous, sexy, foul mouthed, wander-lustful and egoistic bunch you will ever come across. But they will have your back at all times and riding as a group is a unique experience altogether.

I am not a pro-rider and here are a few things worth remembering and those which I found the most challenging…

To girls like me who have gotten so used to the gearless scooties, we just keep forgetting that little part called clutch. And even when we remember that part, we keep forgetting that part called appropriate gear. It’s a constant mental stress to keep remembering which gear you are on and to stop the vehicle at 1 st gear/neutral. I have switched off the bike a hundred thousand times and do it even now(though it has reduced in frequency!) in every-inch- crowded-traffic with horns blaring angrily from behind and in totally deserted roads with not a soul around. There are no shortcuts to this one. You just have to ride and ride and get better. Riding a single vehicle helps in this one too. You just have to feel or hear the engine and where it needs a gear change and switch appropriately. When you start the vehicle from idle position the idle-rpm(rpm of the engine with no gear engaged and no throttle applied) of the engine, moves it forward. You should be able to roll with this and once you have mastered this, moving in dead slow moving traffic or riding when you are expecting a stop a few yards ahead becomes a piece of cake. Moreover when the engine chokes and splutters to a halt with a few unheard abuses the inertia and the weight of the vehicle hits you and you tend to fall and even if you don’t fall, you might lose balance and get cute silencer burns(don’t ask me how I know!).

The next thing is the fact that the lever on the left is not the rear brake but the clutch. Yes of course who doesn’t know that??! Right? It all works well until that moment of panic where you have to come to a absolutely stand still in a matter of few milli-seconds and I have clutched both the hand brakes..Erghhh..I mean what is called as clutch and the front brake with dear life and have lost absolute control of the vehicle. This is because holding down the clutch doesn’t allow the engine braking to engage and you are mostly going to hit whatever looms in front of you. And it’s ok to splutter to a stop because of inappropriate gears rather than to hit whatever is in front of you. Emergency braking and engine braking is altogether a separate entity and I will let my experienced biker friends talk about it later. For now it’s just two things,

1. Left hand is a clutch and though engaging clutch stalls your engine it is NOT A BRAKE!
2. Apply brakes to stop and never clutch. You can gear down later.

Final word…Gear up all the time. Your parts are not replaceable and you are not designed with amalgam either. Your bike might take the fall while you might not.

As a beginner you have more chances of scraping the dirt and so wear appropriate gear all the time
before you take him out for a spin. You can check out our blog on riding gear for more details and as we call it should be “All-the- gear-all- the-time” (ATGATT) for you!

Gloves, helmet, jacket, knee guards over a comfortable pair of jeans, shoes and you will be all set for a city ride!

Brand new gear can be irky. With new gloves you can’t feel the throttle. With my new thor boots on, I was stepping on the rear brake for a good hundred metres before my friend came and tapped my shoulder and said, “Dude your are wearing out the brake shoes!”. I have stripped off my gloves angrily because I just couldn’t stop accelerating with them on. And your ankle flexion is an impossible task with new boots. And I totally get your plight when you have just learnt how to shift gears and there is this 1 kg weighing boots not letting you to do or feel anything. But my dear newbie bikers it’s just how the way the world works…No pain, no gain. If you wanna look damn sexy while riding and fall in neck-breaking speeds yet not break anything in you, you just have to break-in your riding gear just like your bike and get used to wearing them.

No matter what I write about, how much ever you read about riding and no matter how many times more experienced bikers tell you stuff, you just can’t get it unless you ride… so keep these handy point in mind and just ride! Ride hard. Fall soft. Feel the machine. Follow your instincts. Let the engine rev up your soul! Let go of the world and let your bike take you to places you’ve never been before!

Hariathoo!"

This lady biker recently completed her first long distance ride of 150kms with us, and did it with panache and flair! We congratulate her on the feat and wish her millions of miles more! Hariathoo!