It has been a long time since I wrote about my motorcycle drive, The Royal Enfield Classic 500. The last thing I wrote was about the feeling after riding 500Kms. The thing is it took very little time to reach that mile stone. However, the present mile stone of 15K Kms has taken a very, very long time considering the amount of distances and places bikers cover in their journey. But, the drive still feels fresh and every day the drive is new. The adrenaline rush is still the same. The grunt on the bike is still the same.
The lockdown gave me the opportunity to drive the bike like I would have dreamt of driving in the Himalayas. Working for a company which cannot afford a lockdown, gave me the opportunity of taking the beast to the sea, and boy, did I take him to the sea, I took him to the ocean. It was like I wasted 20 odd years by waiting on the bike. Waiting on the reason that the bike is so bulky, so heavy. What a journey it has been. I never felt so comfortable on any bike I have driven to date. Even on bikes which are supposed to be comfortable, I have been the opposite. There is a joy when I drive the bike which cannot be expressed, explained.
In my (very) younger days, I always thought that going "fast" is what is biking about. Oh, boy, was I wrong. Cruising at a constant speed is what is biking about. It is more about the journey than the destination. Yes, I can hear you, the bottom line is all it matters. But, whenever anybody wants to reason out the causes for the bottom line, then you always try to remember the journey, However, alas, you dont remember much, because all your efforts were on the destination.
Newton's laws of motions have been now constrained to the things visible to the naked eye and comprehensible to the naked eye. And when that man told that "Eveybody moves(likes to move) in a straight line and in uniform motion", he knew what he was talking about. There is a certain joy in cruising, There is a certain joy in constant velocity. There is a certain joy in not creating an opposing force, there is a joy in blending. The joy of driving....
The bike is as good as it was bought. It has the same sheen in its chrome finish. In fact the company has now brought the same chrome finish for its 350cc lines of bikes, which was exclusive to the 500cc for all these years. A fresh wash and the bike starts gleaming. It is like it is grinning with its mouth wide open, ear to ear. It is like an invitation to start a new journey. It is like there is no end. It is like you can make the same journey, provided you decide that what matters is the journey and not the destination. It is like.....
