HOLD YOUR HORSES! GenY RIDES WITH A RETRO DRIVE

Notwithstanding technical, logistical and monetary issues, Lucknow's youngsters are doing their best to keep legendary motorcycles alive.
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Sunny, 23, is in deep love with someone twice his age. Find that surprising? You wouldn’t when you come to know that this love affair has lasted for 13 long years. And by the way, she may be old, but when she moves the streets, all eyes are glued onto her.

She is Sunny’s ’63 Royal Enfield Bullet.

Indian motorcycles are one of those things that serve as little memoirs of a changing civilization. Democracy and a necessary increase in access prompted the deluge of pocket-friendly commuter motorcycles. Busier lifestyles and decreased risk-taking of the day led to the introduction of electric start and disc brakes. West-induced style consciousness resulted in chiseled tanks and an unprecedented emphasis on styling. And the depleting ozone layer meant the death of two-strokes.

But wait. When one’s in the city of Nawabs, one realizes that there’s something that overrides this shift to convenience and utility, and that’s passion. The streets here still resonate with the roaring engines of innumerable RX100s, Non-UCE Bullets, Jawas, Yezdis, and even some RD350s and BSAs, motorcycles that went out of production years ago. And what’s interesting, and laudable, is that many of these machines are kept alive by youngsters barely in their twenties.

Sunny says his grandfather passed on the Bullet to him, and he fell in love with it at the juncture that puts most people off two-wheelers. Escaping notice of his parents, he had taken the bike out for a ride at the age of 10, and crashed it into the front door of a parked ambassador car.

“What got me hooked to the bike was the fact that it emerged unscathed out of the accident even as the car’s door came off,” he says. This ‘iron horse’ nature of the bike as well as its characteristic ‘thump’ and reliability are what Sunny swears by to date.

Kushal’s Yezdi CL II too came into existence before he did. The 23-year-old merchant marine has an emotional attachment with the motorcycle, for it is the machine that his late father rode. “Also, I love the bike’s characteristic ‘metal throat’ sound, twin exhaust, and gear-cum-kick lever that make it a real attention magnet on the road.” Even though spare parts are extremely hard to come by and the bike spends more time in the workshop than on the road, there’s no way Kushal would consider disposing it off.

Similarly, Adnan, 18, forewent the glitz and ease of owning a modern motorcycle and bought himself a Yamaha RX100 with saved up pocket money this year. A student of BCom at Christian College, Adnan is a dirt-racing enthusiast and is thus always on the hunt for arid patches of land in the city. RX100’s high power-to-weight ratio, distinct two-stroke power band and the low cost of used bikes make it a favourite amongst thrill-seekers like Adnan.