When life gives you a melon…

Off to Goa

The customary ride to India Bike Week has grown and how! From a solo ride on a single cylinder bike in 2013, to a fleet of two 1000cc motorcycles and an Audi SUV in tow for IBW 15.  As the Online Partner of the India Bike Week, we were planning an elaborate trip and what better way of making it big, but by joining with our dear friends and the IBW’s video partner, PowerDrift.

I am not a big fan of fruits unless they are fermented, but the curvy green Kawasaki Ninja brings in a whole different perspective. And if I dare call the Ninja a watermelon, then the Kawasaki Versys is almost a picnic basket enough to carry everything we needed for the Goa trip. We did not have to use the capacity though, the Audi Q3 as support car was anyways half empty and the extra weight would have limited the opportunities of conquering the Chorla Ghat.

Everyone in the team has done Goa at least a few times, so we decided to give the more talked about NH17 (must-do road trip) a pass. The plan this time around was to capture the journey for a PowerDrift video, which will be out soon after the India Bike Week. Unfortunately that meant leaving from PowerDrift headquarters, in Pune, in the morning and we folks had to reach Pune previous night after a very productive day in office without thinking about Goa, not.

Riding Together

Kawasaki was kind enough to lend us the Ninja 1000 and more importantly the recently launched Versys 1000 – both are long distance tourers but of completely different breeds. While the Ninja is capable of covering the 600km distance to Goa in no time, the Versys will be a tad bit slower but will carry enough luggage to ensure that you won’t have to ever come back!

Night riding is relatively dangerous, especially on big capacity motorcycles that are deceptively fast and get to speeds rather quickly. So I let Omkar and Pratheek ride to Pune after office hours, while I drove the Audi Q3. We reached Pune

a little late and had to start early next day, but when you put together a bunch of bikers in a room, they will chat more than the chattiest girls, forgetting the ticking clock. The sleep deprived group (wondering why the hell did we do this again!) was out on the road before the sunrise. Well, as lazy as these boys can get, it didn’t take a lot of persuasion with seven superbikes standing right outside the office.

Our journey started in a rather inconspicuous manner with everyone riding peacefully till dawn, till the cameras started rolling and that is is when all hell broke loose, the sound of the inline fours, V4 and the triples broke the tranquillity setting the tone for the day. The symphony continued for most of the day with the dual-lane section stretching all the way to Belagavi. There were a couple of food stops and many more for the shoot. Riding in a pack was a lot of fun despite all the halts, the chats from the previous night continued as we took nine long hours to cover 350km on a dual carriage national highway. It is way too much time for any vehicle, let alone superbikes. The heat was severe and even small stops for shoot in full motorcycle gear made it even more severe. Only once we crossed Kolhapur did the fun shoot began, the Q3 was the only car capable of even attempting to keep up with the bikes.

The runs continued for a while as all the motorcycles clocked speeds that were within legal limits (at least for certain roads in the world). The detour from the NH4 was where we had to part from our friends at PowerDrift as they continued shooting and we headed for Chorla.

Kawasaki

By the time we reached Chorla we were already tired, dehydrated and slightly irritated; the final stretch of 150km to Goa was going to be the true test of endurance. The only plus point was both the motorcycles are designed to be long distance tourers. 

The Ninja 1000 was easy to manage through the traffic despite my low stature. The bike is so well made that despite the weight, I had no problem in balancing it at low speeds or even at standstill. The midrange torque spread is so well balanced that overtaking Harleys and rest of the bikes heading to IBW did not even require dropping a gear. That brings me to the only complain I have about the motorcycle, it has enormous amount of vibrations at high revs. Not that no other motorcycle has similar problem, but we were expecting better from the Japanese manufacturer.

Despite being from the same manufacturer and using the same drivetrain, the Versys has completely different dynamics. It is so big that even Pratheek with his 6.2ft size could barely manage to get both his legs on the ground (I didn’t attempt in the first half of the journey).

The Versys is unusually silent for an inline four, it made Pratheek a little sad since the Ninja got more attention for the sound. But it made my life easy, we could communicate with each other while the Audi played the catch up game. But where it lost out on sound, it made up with the size –enough has been said about it already and the Versys does gets more than its fair share of attention, especially since it is one of the very few examples on the Indian road. From Pratheek’s experience, this is not one of easiest bikes through the ghats and all the weight does become cumbersome, his review will give some more details shortly.

Omkar relieved me once again to finish the last stretch of the journey and we finished the journey shortly after sun down. 

India Bike Week

The scene in North Goa is amazing, the roads are packed beyond capacity with motorcycles, I have never seen so many premium motorcycles at one place ever before – not even at the previous IBW. IBW this year is expected to be much bigger than the previous editions and we are all geared up to bring you all the details from the venue. Also follow us on Facebook and Twitter as we will continue to share runtime stories from both BikeWale and PowerDrift.