Year 2 of living from one lockdown to another, this state of uncertainty takes a heavy toll on your sense of hope about the future, specifically a future where one can travel freely without the threat of disease or illness or the fear of looked upon with suspicion or distrust! And those endless video calls, let me tell you something that we have all realized, there is no substitute for human interaction!
In the years 2018 BC (Before Covid), this bogged down blues had a simple remedy, saddle up and go for a ride, a long one and best make that one to the mountains. There were years where my bi-yearly rides were the only things keeping me on an even keel for the year. There were some glorious years of touring around with friends, exploring this beautiful country.
Our recent ride to the beautiful Bhindawas Bird Sanctuary
Prologue
Since 2019, this love for motorbiking took a new and an unexpected turn when one of our fueled trip planning with friends quickly (and one does not know how, there may have been some beers in the equation) turned into an inquiry into why can’t we build an electric motorbike that can excite us in ways that petrol fueled one’s do?! A bold claim considering that some amongst the group of owned and rode some of the best specimens of automotive excellence from makers such as BMW & Yamaha. So no, our sense of excitement was not with the old faithful Bullet as a benchmark 😉... we knew better, and and that was a challenge worth taking on!
After agonizing over what makes the right mix for this elusive electric 2 wheeled fun, we decided on a configuration that was built on a sacrificial Royal Enfield 500 chassis. It was fantastic to ride!, up to 100kmph that is, anything more was not for the faint of heart! We were getting a range of 200-230kms on charge and things were going swimmingly! Then we blew the motor, our battery pack packed up (no pun intended) on one of our rides; the chaos, panic and the joys of overcoming those as a startup was what saw us through the worst of this virus and the sense of despondency that had gripped (and rightly so) our country during the year 2020 and earlier this year.
The journey had begun and we are going somewhere!
stay tuned as there is more of this story to come.