A moped rider with a dream to buy a ducati.: 2013

Wednesday, 6 November 2013

THE MOPED

Now i write this one with a sense of accomplishment and in tribute to the Moped which takes me to showrooms of all the other vehicles!

SO WHY the moped?? I mean i drive all those luxurious, expensive and powerful cars and bikes then why this moped??
Well there is a method behind this madness. My moped i.e. a 2003 model Honda Activa has completed 10,000 Kilometres today almost 1 year after it was refurbished. 10,000 KMs after it was given a new life. 10,000 KMs taking me to all those showrooms, showing me parts of indore i had never seen before and also a couple of trips away from indore too!

SO let me 1st introduce my moped to u, as i mentioned earlier it is a 2003 model activa with 100cc engine which was originally silver in colour but then when it was refurbished the paint scheme was changed to black. Black is a lot sportier :P. Initially bought to aid my sister for her personal transport. I was in 6th class and 12yrs old when i first got to ride it. My dad were sitting behind me and being a petrolhead even then i twisted the throttle to the max position scaring the hell out of my father and getting my first experience of 'speed'. I was addicted to it! And bigger was the scalding i got :P. Then time and again i used to get drives on it. It was when i was in 11th class that i took the ownership of the moped. I was an amateur driver then so used to drive fast but very rashly!

Then when i was in college and demanded a bike, my dad took the activa got the engine rebuilt, the bodywork dented and painted and for 11 grand had a new activa in my hands! So basically my dad trolled me :P. And when the activa came back after its makeover, I was told not to drive it above 40kmph for 2000kms better life of the engine. But saying a petrolhead to drive below 40kmph is like telling a girl that there's a chocolate in fridge but she cant eat it because the fridge's life decreases every time you open it!

So, I tried my best to follow the speed limit but sometimes i thought screw the long life of engine, Lets have fun! but when those 2000 kilometres of limited speed were over, there hasn't been a ride on which i haven't driven it above 60kmph. I have even raced 150cc bikes in traffic and have won!

Now my moped's life hasn't been easy! I've had 3 major accidents with it and quite a few minor. THE major accidents: I've hit different cyclists with it of which once i broke my left hand! Now surprisingly I've even hit a cow with it. YES a COW!

While i've broken mine, cyclist's and a cow's bones my activa never suffered with more than a bruise!

But all of this praise doesn't mean it is very fast or very smooth! It is miles and miles away from that. The bottom end torque is amazing, i mean it is so torquey at the bottom end that u feel there is a diesel engine fitted to it! But it is there only for 2 or so seconds. Then comes an enormous lag! The lag is so large that you can read a whole book in that amount of time, but then it slowly picks up speed and goes to an ordinary 80kmph and stops accelerating because of gearbox restrictions.

THE RIDE. It is horrible! The suspension has stiffened up to such a limit that you can find a bump even on a seemingly smooth patch of road. The tires are worn out to such an extent that people sometimes mistake them for racing tires. The Bearing that is in there in the steering column is there only for the sake of mentioning. The accelerator is so hard to twist that i don't need to do forearm exercise in gym anymore! Actually its such a hard work riding it that i don't need to go to gym at all!

But my connection to this moped is much deeper than to be affected by an appaling ride and mind-numbingly slow acceleration. IT has been there from as long as i can remember. Even if i buy a bike someday this will be my 1st ride.And you always remember the 1st one! I've given it the worst time anyone can give to a moped still it has never given up me. Even in the worst conditions it has always kept running. Never given me a hard time. It is just a moped for everyone else, for me it is much more, it's a FRIEND. Now this is totally uncalled for and not expected from me but the moped is just worth the mentioning and normal service will be returned from the next few days.

TILL THEN

JUST 'THE MOPED' IT IS :)

Thursday, 24 October 2013

Cut Price luxury at the cost of brains.

I write this post beaming with happiness! The reason? I drove a Mercedes today, my first one!

So the story starts somewhere in march when Mercedes announces that it will launch the new A class hatchback in India! That day i made a commitment to myself that i will drive it, and today i was standing there in the showroom of Mercedes waiting for the salesman to bring the car from inside the garage.

Now driving A class today wasn't exactly the part of the plan, we were going for the test drive of the new skoda Octavia but the test car was broken. Now when i go for a test drive of a car i don't go home without taking one even if i have to go to another showroom and drive totally different car. So i went to Mercedes showroom and took one for a drive!

Now the question of the hour, HOW was it??
I think this is one of the biggest letdown i have ever had in my life!

The car without a doubt looks the part. It grabs ones attention very easily because of its stunning looks. It also has stunning interiors but that part is only for the driver as it gets pretty claustrophobic in the back.

SO WHAT IS wrong with it??

1. Very slow! it has a massive 2.2l diesel engine which ironically produces only 110 hp!

2. Slow gearbox. Despite having paddle shifts the changes are slow though they are very smooth.

3. Noisy, you expect a Mercedes to be silent, almost mute, this isn't.

It feels like you are sitting in a normal diesel hatchback rather than a luxurious one!

4. Boot space. when you open the lid for the boot you are in for a surprise as there isn't one! :P. Whatever of boot space had been there is occupied by the spare tire. So if you want to go on a long drive you either carry a tire and don't change your clothes wherever you go for days or you take clothes with you but don't reach the destination at all.

What if i don't care about boot space, engine output, gearshift speed, etc, etc, then go for BMW 1 series its better fun to drive and for the love of god its a rear wheel drive hatchback!

So to sum it up the Mercedes is like an Iphone, extremely costly with no features whatsoever and pretty much useless. So like the Iphone it will only be bought by people who are extremely brand conscious and CATASTROPHICALLY stupid!

Seriously if you buy this you need to get yourself tested. I'd rather buy a superbike for 25 lac rs than buy this car.

BUT still this was my first experience of driving a german luxury car and i will never forget it even though how senseless the car is and the only good thing about it is the driving seat, it still will be one of the most memorable drives of my life.

There is still a lot of time before i buy a car an even when i'll buy one it wont be an A class so till then, a guy on a moped it is :)

Saturday, 19 October 2013

The First take at 25% of a superbike

It literally is the story of me(a moped rider and also the hero here :P) an automobile enthusiast's journey through life always dreaming of owning a ducati or any other performance bike or car in future when i earn.

there's still a lot of time before i earn so there's still a possibility that i might own a performance car or a bike :P . But until then i am just going to go to showrooms of different cars/bikes test drive them and then comeback home giving them the wrong no. :P

And that is the only reason why i started this blog today. Now this day; October 19th 2013 is going to be a turning point of my life because this is the day THINGS GOT SERIOUS. No i didn't make a girlfriend! :P

This is the day i rode KTM duke 200 and duke 390. Many people might not have ever heard of this bike or even the brand for this case. So let me drop a lil' bit light on it, so KTM is a motorcycle brand from AUSTRIA which was once a part of Germany and it explains everything!

SO I rode a KTM today, what's so special about it? Well everything except the fact that i haven't bought it is special about it. Now you see there are many bikes in india which are in the same power range of DUKE 200 like bajaj pulsar 200 ns and honda cbr250r but the difference lies in power delivery.Let me start with the softest one here, the cbr, it has the same 25hp as the duke, though it has a bigger engine. but the 25hp in cbr are literally like a horse. Horses go fast but they do so gradually, in steps to be precise and that is how the power delivery is like in the cbr. Now the pulsar 200 ns is like a horse on steroids, it goes faster and does so in lesser steps and more eagerly. Then u sit on a duke and you can actually feel the eagerness of the bike while just sitting on it majorly because of a uniquely sporty driving position. the duke has the same 25hp but they are from a totally different planet! So as you thumb the starter you know from the exhaust note that there is a storm brewing under the seat in the engine and once u get past 4,500-5000rpm the bike just runs like a human being who has a rabid dog on his tail. you absolutely know that this might be the last ride you are going to have and if you are not careful enough it can most possibly your bike ride but wait till you ride the 390 :)

The power delivery on the duke is like a bully, it first laughs at you and as soon as you tease him he punches you on the face. HARD. VERY HARD. And then it laughs harder. This is exactly what it feels like when you get past 5k rpm in it. And that sort of power leaves you wanting for more but trust me u seriously don't want more but still if you are lunatic enough to want more the you can go for duke 390.

THE BAAP a.k.a the duke 390 is the more grown-up and more powerful sibling of the 200. By grown up i mean more powerful not more mature in any way. IT is powered by a 373cc engine which produces 44-roaring-horse powers and which can get you to 100 kmph in 6.2 seconds but trust me you don't want to go there this fast! I have driven many cars and ridden many bikes but this is the only thing that had the power to intimidate me. This is certainly the 1st thing which has intimidated me so much that i had to back off the throttle!! And that translates to too much power! when i heard that it has 44hp i thought that its nothing new! modern superbikes have 200hp so this is only a quarter of a superbike. only a quarter. and what a quarter! many of you might have heard a saying that the smaller amount of tasty things you have the more it keeps you wanting. this is exactly the case with this one. it always keeps you wanting for more.

when i rode it and got past the 5k mark on tacho i knew that these are not ordinary 44hp, these are gut wrenching, nerve wrecking, make you crap in your pants 44hp. Its so powerful that the name duke is heavily under rated for this sort of thing. The apt name for it should be something like the incinerator 3000! When in movies in a car or sometimes in a bike the hero engages the NOS or hyper mode and then he goes so fast that everything around him is a blur, that is what exactly what happened to me!! I was even able to pop the front wheel when i revved it hard in 1st gear and never did it intentionally!!

And then after having the test rides done i was back on my same boring 7.5hp activa. The thing i like the most about test rides is that for those 10 or 15 mins you are the owner of the bike/car and that feeling is one of the best feelings in the world. That feeling drives my life and gives me a chance to experience what i might feel like if i own that bike, it also gives me hope that some day when i start earning pretty well then I'd get a chance to own one of those. Till then a guy on a moped it is! :)