"The real cycle you're working on is a cycle called yourself." "In a car you're always in a compartment, and because you're used to it you don't realize that through that car window everything you see is just more TV. You're a passive observer and it is all moving by you boringly in a frame.
On a cycle the frame is gone. You're completely in contact with it all. You're in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming."
— Robert M. Pirsig (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values)
When you move around in a car with all the windows closed, there are only 2 vehicle exhaust sounds that you would distinctly hear inside the cabin -one is, of course, the Bullet and the other is a Yamaha RX100. The sound is so apparent that my normally vehicle/gadget illiterate dear wife would stir and ask me, ‘That is a Yamaha, right?’ of course she is right (isn’t she always right?), for the heartbeat of an RX100 is very hard to miss. Whenever I hear that sound, I immediately go back by some 20 years, when I had the pleasure of driving around my very own RX100 -a black RX100 (I had to choose and would not take any other bike or any other color).
The day I took my RX100 to college, I became ‘somebody’. Guys I have never known before wanted to be friends with me; I became a sort of mini celebrity (yes, I am exaggerating a bit, but not much). But, one still has to capitalize on this newly acquired status, and I realized this couple of years later when a colleague, exclaimed, “I never thought YOU will be driving THIS!!!” A good way of thanking someone who offered a lift, in the middle of the night!
I took great pride and took great care of my RX100. Used to wash it and shine the chrome every day. Will be tuning and adjusting the idling or scraping the carbon off the spark plug. If I had to sit somewhere I would normally put my bike on centre-stand and sit on my Rx100. I took it to the best mechanic in town, who specializes in Yamaha and also someone who loves bikes (the second attribute was every important). Today, I sometimes wonder where that passion has gone; it is true that I am quite detached when it comes to my car and view it as just a mode of transportation. I am reminded of the quote I read somewhere, “Four wheels move the body. Two wheels move the soul”; that probably explains!
Recently I had the opportunity to drive my old RX100 (I can’t say ‘my’ as it is currently owned by a cousin, who was kind enough to let me drive for a while – of course with a thumping heart I am sure), the old bugger was as good as it was 20 years ago. Obviously between the two of us the RX100 had aged more gracefully! They don’t make bikes like this anymore!
There are many memories associated with this bike (with great reluctance I call it with a lack of identity –Bike). I vividly remember the day I took my wife (then fiancée) out for the first time and it was on this very vahana. We went around from Nungambakkam to Greams Road and the bends around the crooked College Road is still fresh in our collective memory.
A quick anecdote to end this blog; one of those days when zipping down the Bannerghatta road at Blore, my best friend (Happy Birthday, Irshaad ) was sitting behind, tears streaming, he hollered, “I don’t know how you are driving, I can hardly open my eyes!”, and I hollered back, “close them, just as I have closed mine!!!”....
Cheers to those many rides.
