Friday, April 27, 2007
Was down in the evening, been running a temperature, decided to take Min's bike out for a spin. Spent the last three weekends starting her up, smoking up the neighbourhood in a cloak of white and banging at the front mudguard to ensure it dont touch the wheel and my favourite therapy: hours and hours of labour wiping the bikes three, four or five times a day, both sides, all parts. I ain't know fool. Peole laugh, but when you do all your own maintenance, my cleaning sessions allow me to handle and examine each and every part on the bike regularly and much before any breakdown or failure or wear can spell disaster!I've decided to take care of the rusty tank problem the hard way. Ride it, clean oil off the spark plug every 20 km or so. Three disposable fuel filters and one glass bottle magnet filter in between my fuel tank and engine! Do I need a Y-shaped cross to bear or what!neway, took her out, no lights, one errant front indicator that refused to shut due to a loose switch, sooooft suspension, muted exhaust note (not like Bird Flu) and gobs of smooth surge that pulls your elbows when she goes. that is, when she goes.She stopped after the fuel bunk. I kicked around for some time, cleaned the plug, the carburettor flooded, cleaned plug again, kicked around again. She still wouldn't start,so i put her in third and ran. Push-started her and hopped on to the seat of the running bike, hanging on to the clutch lever. Blipped throttle on the short ride back home and found that she splutters in the higher engine revs. This bike has stalled on all three ocassions it has been ridden. today was the third ride. the first was to a yezdi group meeting when she did 112kph on the bridge and died out due to rust collecting in the carb due to the rusty tank. The other time was also with min when we took the bike out to my bank. She wouldnt start and there was I gasping for some more energy to try starting it some more, but with no idea or pretentions of poise. Never had the courage to wonder of inquire what the girl thought of it all. For me, such moments, faced with a bike that won't start are moments when i face my basic uselessness on the planet. when i was a kid, i used to look for reason to feel the same state of exhaustion come upon me. welcome it for the feeling of being alive. Today, I have objectives in life and I no longer welcome the feeling of reaching the end of the line. I like it only if I am in a state of adventure or if I have an objective. Bikes are different, they are supposed to run. If they don't, you feel utterly helpless before the hunk of metal that was earlier able to locomote under its own power. I feel like i've reached the blank end of the meaning of life.Only fellow riders know what i refer to. Yet none of us are experts, we all hold our tongues and continue our attempts while hanging on to our thought process of elimination of faults with the bike as much as we can. At the most, we can only kid each other bout such moments.So smoke but no cigar.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
For those who are wondering what's this blog about.
For those who are wondering what's this blog about.
It's about the fact that during the height of the socialist 1960s and 1970s, India had only about three bike manufacturers with probably an equal number of variants of the same basic bike platform. The car market was no different. The masses used and still do, scooters — the hybrid, sheet steel section built and pressed frame and all enclosing body work two wheelers of Italian origin.
The Yezdi was based on the Jawa, and was originally Jawa models built in India, until indegenious production evolved in the form of the company calling itself Ideal Jawa and selling the bikes under the brand, Yezdi. These twin-port two stroke 250cc bikes soon became staple and eventually could not evolve a strong enough technical collaboration when the markets were opened up by the Indian government. The company shut down sometime in 1996-7 after two attempts at reviving prospects. The last of the models made by Yezdi was the Roadking, which had reversed, or over-square bore and stroke dimensions and is capable of 0-60kph in 4 seconds flat.
If you visit any of the links given at the bottom or read any of my stuff, it would be obvious that the bikes still have a hardcore following.
This blog is my attempt at typing up some of the notes I had accumulated on the subject over the years, in one place. Just another drop in the petrol tank of life, I know. I just gotta do this, before I'm running on empty!
It's about the fact that during the height of the socialist 1960s and 1970s, India had only about three bike manufacturers with probably an equal number of variants of the same basic bike platform. The car market was no different. The masses used and still do, scooters — the hybrid, sheet steel section built and pressed frame and all enclosing body work two wheelers of Italian origin.
The Yezdi was based on the Jawa, and was originally Jawa models built in India, until indegenious production evolved in the form of the company calling itself Ideal Jawa and selling the bikes under the brand, Yezdi. These twin-port two stroke 250cc bikes soon became staple and eventually could not evolve a strong enough technical collaboration when the markets were opened up by the Indian government. The company shut down sometime in 1996-7 after two attempts at reviving prospects. The last of the models made by Yezdi was the Roadking, which had reversed, or over-square bore and stroke dimensions and is capable of 0-60kph in 4 seconds flat.
If you visit any of the links given at the bottom or read any of my stuff, it would be obvious that the bikes still have a hardcore following.
This blog is my attempt at typing up some of the notes I had accumulated on the subject over the years, in one place. Just another drop in the petrol tank of life, I know. I just gotta do this, before I'm running on empty!
BOUT BITING THE BULLET!
Trouble is, I do not see, for example, an Enfield India being able to generate enough healthy debate about their engineering initiatives, such as making the primary drive and the gearbox into one single unit-ary construction. The company seems to have decided, and will never be able to publish it’s reasons well enough to take the previous generation of owners over to the new design. Believe me, look up the history of your beloved Harley Davidson and you will see chilling echoes in Enfield India, or actually Royal Enfield, as they have changed their name to, story here in India as a brand which is in actuality, a national institution.
Into the Sunset and Suchlike, including Bullet Costings...Part Three.
Things carried on this way a while till I suddenly realized that the bike, which had been repainted and had absorbed enough of affection to make the lemon it was to open up a bit. We did things old bikes were not supposed to do. Each time like two crusty old-timers, we carried on after the fun was over, to see what else we could putter into. I kept my war journals in the form of a service record of the expenditure involved. It seemed that I had spent a full Rs 17,000 on the bike in five years. That figure includes the original purchase price as well as all repairs, replacements and labour. Mind, the figure also includes a re-paint and chrome job. The point that came home is that my old bike did not cost as much as the new bikes available. For those of us who have seen the disparity in rates for vehicles, new and old, and the ever increasing price tags that leave most of us with a vague feeling of not being sure if the same Bullet which was available for Rs 36,000 in 1995, and is currently available on the second-hand market for about Rs 25,000 to 3,000. Meanwhile, a brand new Bullet is always available in the market for Rs 75,000. These bikes are hardy, and will always be around. So for a minimal compromise on buying a new bike, you can actually get yourself an old one for half the price. Believe me, it will still have more than half the go. Think of it as adding to your asset value. Heh! If the bike is not running, you can call it a ‘fixed’ asset.
Some day, I shall collect all these figures and represent them on a graph; I must. Meanwhile, I’m definitely not convinced that everything is working out for the best in the automobile market. Too many clones and one-hit-wonders with everyone eyeing a slice of the other’s pie. Those who find a winning pie forget to research other pies and settle for researching new toppings. Soon today’s auto offerings become old wine in a new bottle.
THE END
All Text Copyright — ©Arunesh Dogra
Some day, I shall collect all these figures and represent them on a graph; I must. Meanwhile, I’m definitely not convinced that everything is working out for the best in the automobile market. Too many clones and one-hit-wonders with everyone eyeing a slice of the other’s pie. Those who find a winning pie forget to research other pies and settle for researching new toppings. Soon today’s auto offerings become old wine in a new bottle.
THE END
All Text Copyright — ©Arunesh Dogra
Into the Sunset and Suchlike...Part Two
Being 5’6” I got a kick out of rolling up to a stop line and looking down my nose at all the gym-sculpted or large dudes on midget machines. Of course, I learnt the acid test of a Yez owner was to start off his bike without getting off, and in the proverbial ‘one kick.’ Little did I know that was just the beginning? Y’see, I was also being taken for a ride by my mechanic, a dude who used to sit in front of Sheru’s spare parts shop in the Green Park Cinema complex. He had obviously figured out that I knew very little about machines. With a little bit of persistent questioning, I was able to figure out what to poke and pry at when the bike broke down on road. The first thing was to clean out the sparkplug. If you want to impress the pillion lady, pull off the fuel feed pipe. Make sure it’s shut first and you are holding the plug from the other end of the plug spanner in which you have kept it. Open the fuel tap and drip a few drops of fuel on to the plug head. Now reach for the trusty Zippo and set it alight. I swear, your pillion will be all agog at these magnificent men and their machines.
Every time something new broke down on the bike, I ended up adding to my knowledge (information translates into knowledge with trial and application, as is known by all Pirsig lovers!). So when the petrol cap breather hole clogged up, I learnt about the fuel supply chain and how to remove air bubbles from your petrol pipe (with your mouth!). Belching petrol burps soon lost its charm and it was time to move onto the electrical system. I learnt how a loose terminal from your high tension (HT) coil can give you a nasty shock during wet weather. On a friend’s RX 100, with a retro-fitted Rajdoot 175 cc teardrop-shaped tank, that water drips onto the coil below the tank when it rains and the bike will give you the jolt anywhere on it’s water-covered body or just won’t start till the coil sort dries out. The teardrop Rajdoot 175cc tank, by the way, was my idea and looked good on Joy Mullick’s RX. Especially one with extended front fork rods, re-routed seat rods and the usual ringlet extensions on the rear shock(ers). For glam or bling, depending on which generation are you, try and get the one without the the chrome side panels. His old Yam tank had suddenly started imitating a sieve after 9 years of service and cumulative rust. Chewing gum! For all those of you who have not read Commando comics in your youth, chewing gum is the ideal temporary plug for a leaking fuel tank. All pilots in WW1 knew this was the best temporal solution to plug a fuel tank riddled with bullet holes. Let your imaginations chew on that for awhile.
Anyway, after the contact breaker points (a minor art form in itself; hope i get retrospective ehnuf to give you the low down on that side of the bike), I found the clutch. The clutch usually is a wrestling match where you curse if you cannot take up the free play in the cable and have to resort to loosening the cable lock nut and repeat to satisfaction. Clutch setting on Mathilda usually took a couple of hours. I also used that time to clean the bike while it was still hot from the ride until the silencer burns on my forearms made me decide it was not worth it.
Danny, another RX 100 wing nut, as anyone who really knows him, will testify, taught me to put my screwdriver (no pun!) head on the part of the engine that I wanted to check out and put my ear to the rounded end of the screwdriver handle. This ‘a la stethoscope’ method ensured my welcome to the machine, allowing me to spend many quasi-Floyd moments listening to the various grrs and whirrs and inevitable grinding sounds emanating from iron tummy of the brute.
TBC...
All Text Copyright — ©Arunesh Dogra
Every time something new broke down on the bike, I ended up adding to my knowledge (information translates into knowledge with trial and application, as is known by all Pirsig lovers!). So when the petrol cap breather hole clogged up, I learnt about the fuel supply chain and how to remove air bubbles from your petrol pipe (with your mouth!). Belching petrol burps soon lost its charm and it was time to move onto the electrical system. I learnt how a loose terminal from your high tension (HT) coil can give you a nasty shock during wet weather. On a friend’s RX 100, with a retro-fitted Rajdoot 175 cc teardrop-shaped tank, that water drips onto the coil below the tank when it rains and the bike will give you the jolt anywhere on it’s water-covered body or just won’t start till the coil sort dries out. The teardrop Rajdoot 175cc tank, by the way, was my idea and looked good on Joy Mullick’s RX. Especially one with extended front fork rods, re-routed seat rods and the usual ringlet extensions on the rear shock(ers). For glam or bling, depending on which generation are you, try and get the one without the the chrome side panels. His old Yam tank had suddenly started imitating a sieve after 9 years of service and cumulative rust. Chewing gum! For all those of you who have not read Commando comics in your youth, chewing gum is the ideal temporary plug for a leaking fuel tank. All pilots in WW1 knew this was the best temporal solution to plug a fuel tank riddled with bullet holes. Let your imaginations chew on that for awhile.
Anyway, after the contact breaker points (a minor art form in itself; hope i get retrospective ehnuf to give you the low down on that side of the bike), I found the clutch. The clutch usually is a wrestling match where you curse if you cannot take up the free play in the cable and have to resort to loosening the cable lock nut and repeat to satisfaction. Clutch setting on Mathilda usually took a couple of hours. I also used that time to clean the bike while it was still hot from the ride until the silencer burns on my forearms made me decide it was not worth it.
Danny, another RX 100 wing nut, as anyone who really knows him, will testify, taught me to put my screwdriver (no pun!) head on the part of the engine that I wanted to check out and put my ear to the rounded end of the screwdriver handle. This ‘a la stethoscope’ method ensured my welcome to the machine, allowing me to spend many quasi-Floyd moments listening to the various grrs and whirrs and inevitable grinding sounds emanating from iron tummy of the brute.
TBC...
All Text Copyright — ©Arunesh Dogra
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Into the Sunset and Suchlike
We started on the same point — on ‘hundred see-see-ez.’ The Enfield Bullet 350 was always the final stage in biking, the Yezdi, being an iron curtain collaboration (Czech via Jawa) was in the doldrums.
The Yamaha RD350 was introduced much earlier to stand besides the Bullet 350 but was more than my fellow country men could handle in terms of power, was more than the mechanics could handle in terms of tuning a high-performance two stroke. (Too much theory and physics and numbers in it, compared to four-stroke power tuning, where one can at least change cams. 2 strokes, conversely need porting and reboring, besides individually tuned expansion chamber exhausts.) . Too expensive for regular riding, as compared to scooters which ruled the mainstream market and finally too fast for our roads.
There was a Yezdi 350cc too, once.
Back then, the ultimate machine soon became a Yamaha RX100; and we all hoped like crazy to get one before we passed out of college. Some friends happened to own RXs, although I wasn’t one of the lucky ones, I learnt on the RX and have spent some petrified moments pillion while my friend negotiated slipstreams generated by trucks, on the highway. I ended up getting my first job, marketing on a Yezdi Classic, that my brother borrowed from a friend when he was in town.
Six months later, the bike was taken back, I was out of my first job, standing in a crowded bus, headed in the wrong way, since I was confused about bus routes, with a ghostly feeling between my thighs. I didn’t know it then, but I had also developed a liking for the handlebar position, which never required you to bend your elbows!
I cast around and bought a 1976 Model 'B' for the paltry sum of Rs. 2,200. Add 2,000 to get it on opened once and put together again and I was on the road with my very own iron horse. It was no performer, as I found out painfully in the following years/kms, but I had learnt that no one wanted to sell a Yezdi. Till date, there are countless of these proud bikes parked in garrages, in parking lots, under staircases rotting, but their owners cannot bear to part with them.
The old Premier Padmini that got washed religiously every Sunday morning, was sold off, but a Yez hardly took as much space, I guess. My own bike, I got my hands on, because the dude was an army doctor and was posted in the gulf. He told me he did not want to sell it as he and his wife had gone and got married in court on the bike itself. Since I was a family friend, he guessed the bike was in good hands. Bollocks! Over the years, I gave and got more with the bike than he ever did in his silly prime. I made her mine.
I ended up calling her Mathilda, after the old song 'waltzing mathilda' since that phrase kept coming into my mind while turning the long bike around in tight spaces with mathematical calculations during three-pointers; even while wheeling it into a parking slot!
(That's her top-right of this page! and, and the small inset photo is Wiley Coyote (Y-bro)'s bike, a pure bred Yezdi 350cc by the name of Rob Roy. Look carefully - click on the pic- and you will also see my Bird rith behind!)
To be continued. (After all, What's Forever For?)
meanwhile,
All Text Copyright — ©Arunesh Dogra
The Yamaha RD350 was introduced much earlier to stand besides the Bullet 350 but was more than my fellow country men could handle in terms of power, was more than the mechanics could handle in terms of tuning a high-performance two stroke. (Too much theory and physics and numbers in it, compared to four-stroke power tuning, where one can at least change cams. 2 strokes, conversely need porting and reboring, besides individually tuned expansion chamber exhausts.) . Too expensive for regular riding, as compared to scooters which ruled the mainstream market and finally too fast for our roads.
There was a Yezdi 350cc too, once.
Back then, the ultimate machine soon became a Yamaha RX100; and we all hoped like crazy to get one before we passed out of college. Some friends happened to own RXs, although I wasn’t one of the lucky ones, I learnt on the RX and have spent some petrified moments pillion while my friend negotiated slipstreams generated by trucks, on the highway. I ended up getting my first job, marketing on a Yezdi Classic, that my brother borrowed from a friend when he was in town.Six months later, the bike was taken back, I was out of my first job, standing in a crowded bus, headed in the wrong way, since I was confused about bus routes, with a ghostly feeling between my thighs. I didn’t know it then, but I had also developed a liking for the handlebar position, which never required you to bend your elbows!
I cast around and bought a 1976 Model 'B' for the paltry sum of Rs. 2,200. Add 2,000 to get it on opened once and put together again and I was on the road with my very own iron horse. It was no performer, as I found out painfully in the following years/kms, but I had learnt that no one wanted to sell a Yezdi. Till date, there are countless of these proud bikes parked in garrages, in parking lots, under staircases rotting, but their owners cannot bear to part with them.
The old Premier Padmini that got washed religiously every Sunday morning, was sold off, but a Yez hardly took as much space, I guess. My own bike, I got my hands on, because the dude was an army doctor and was posted in the gulf. He told me he did not want to sell it as he and his wife had gone and got married in court on the bike itself. Since I was a family friend, he guessed the bike was in good hands. Bollocks! Over the years, I gave and got more with the bike than he ever did in his silly prime. I made her mine.
I ended up calling her Mathilda, after the old song 'waltzing mathilda' since that phrase kept coming into my mind while turning the long bike around in tight spaces with mathematical calculations during three-pointers; even while wheeling it into a parking slot!
(That's her top-right of this page! and, and the small inset photo is Wiley Coyote (Y-bro)'s bike, a pure bred Yezdi 350cc by the name of Rob Roy. Look carefully - click on the pic- and you will also see my Bird rith behind!)
To be continued. (After all, What's Forever For?)
meanwhile,
All Text Copyright — ©Arunesh Dogra
Ever got the feeling that your bike is an extension of you?
Ever got the feeling that your bike is an extension of you?
If you’ve been down the same, sane lane as I have, you would have to agree that being on a bike beats television. No computer game can match the vivid reality that two wheels can paint on your consciousness.
Now I speak not of the daily rigors of commuting. For ancient philosophies teach us that in repetition accompanied with thought , it is the tendency of every human being to transcend the task at a particular point. What is required is that you pay full attention to the task at hand. It’s easy if you like what you are doing.
Now for the stories.
If you’ve been down the same, sane lane as I have, you would have to agree that being on a bike beats television. No computer game can match the vivid reality that two wheels can paint on your consciousness.
Now I speak not of the daily rigors of commuting. For ancient philosophies teach us that in repetition accompanied with thought , it is the tendency of every human being to transcend the task at a particular point. What is required is that you pay full attention to the task at hand. It’s easy if you like what you are doing.
Now for the stories.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Everyday Wheels
Everyday I wake and walk my dog. I dress, drink and grab a cloth to wipe the bike down. In the evenings, I wipe both Roadkings down. Used to do that twice a day, once when I pull her out of the parking. I ain't no fool. It takes 15 minutes, but in the time I get to run my hand over almost every working part and look at it. Things like the oil stain on the front fork rods reaching the bottom of the road, these signs are there to see everyday.
Intimacy with machines is something that I feel we guys are lucky to have. Women have reached everywhere, but they are still a long way off from wondering about their clutch slipping in company. The union mechanica is still male bastion, belvedere and refuge. I know, in the past few months, my life has gone to pieces, but I am free to clean both bikes regularly. (Don't get me wrong, I have four bikes). And the bikes have responded. Despite jibes from friends that I'm probably just scraping steel, the chrome having worn off long ago. The morning ride to work would set me right. Any preoccupations with the day ahead would be wiped from my mind. The ride is all encompassing. So much that after I park the bike, it takes about five minutes before my heart stops racing, my breathing slows and I am able to do anything else except blankly glow in the thril of the experience. These are old bikes, take a rough stretch and your front forks will ship enough oil for you to notice the bike sets lower on its springs. The brakes are cloyed in feel and I jump for my brakes twice as earlier than any other biker around me. Still, she is capable of 0-60kph in 4 seconds. That in third, pop fourth and you are ready to cruise the next 400 km at an even, minimalistic drone. That's what you get when you shorten the stroke and widen the piston of the standard Yezdi engine, mated to the classic CLII gearbox. Add two-stroke pep and I am faster than any bike currently sold in India.
Intimacy with machines is something that I feel we guys are lucky to have. Women have reached everywhere, but they are still a long way off from wondering about their clutch slipping in company. The union mechanica is still male bastion, belvedere and refuge. I know, in the past few months, my life has gone to pieces, but I am free to clean both bikes regularly. (Don't get me wrong, I have four bikes). And the bikes have responded. Despite jibes from friends that I'm probably just scraping steel, the chrome having worn off long ago. The morning ride to work would set me right. Any preoccupations with the day ahead would be wiped from my mind. The ride is all encompassing. So much that after I park the bike, it takes about five minutes before my heart stops racing, my breathing slows and I am able to do anything else except blankly glow in the thril of the experience. These are old bikes, take a rough stretch and your front forks will ship enough oil for you to notice the bike sets lower on its springs. The brakes are cloyed in feel and I jump for my brakes twice as earlier than any other biker around me. Still, she is capable of 0-60kph in 4 seconds. That in third, pop fourth and you are ready to cruise the next 400 km at an even, minimalistic drone. That's what you get when you shorten the stroke and widen the piston of the standard Yezdi engine, mated to the classic CLII gearbox. Add two-stroke pep and I am faster than any bike currently sold in India.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
BAD LAW!
Motorcycles are the abacus of time, an amazing, primitive instrument of measurment. And depending on your position, alignment and outcome — elightenment.
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