I have always loved the beauty of engineering, and nowhere else is this more manifest than in motorcycles. Somehow motorcycles are the point where we get a confluence of engineering excellence, pure application of physical sciences, machismo and personality. As people who are regular visitors would already know I am a big big fan of the Bull. If I might digress for a moment here; I saw Rover after quite a number of day and she looks kewl. Pawan had attached this single bucket seat and she looked absolutely fantabulous!!! Coming back on track, I am a big fan of the Bull. However due to different reasons I never had one. Nonetheless I never felt too bad cause I had Divya's bike to ride...a dyed-in-wool YAM(circa 1994ish). Now this is the best consolation prize ever. Riding on a Bull might be great for long distance but riding a yam in the city is the best experience ever. What is so good about the Yam you might ask? Where do I begin, the sheer acceleration, the linear curve of acceleration and deceleration, the nimbleness of its body, the sound of its engine(beautiful symphony, the kind dreams are made of) and the punishment it could take. Never have I found a more powerful bike (especially in the 2-stroke category) which can take the kind of abuse that a RX-100 can take. I am not allowed to ride bikes due to a groin injury. Due to this reason, I have not ridden Divya's bike for around 3 years. Divya is also not in Pune. In other words the bike has not been out for close to 3 years. Last month Divya's cousin came to Pune and wanted to use this bike if possible. I asked him to come and take it but conveyed my reservations on the state of the bike. When he came over we cleaned up the dust accumulated on the bike and then took it to a nearby garage. I assumed that we would need to spend a grand at least to get the bike up and running. Anyways left the bike at the garage and came back home. Next day in the morning when I visited the garage I found the bike all set up, shiny and back to its glory days. I was totally impressed with the garage guy(Pappu was his name, reminds me of Amit's Parker joke) On being asked what repairs had to be done, imagine my surprise when he tells me that he only had to do some minor work on the clutch. It seems he just pumped air into the tyres, filled the tank with petrol, rectified a small hitch in the clutch and the bike was ready to go. Imagine!!! She was in coma for close to 3 years and she starts up without any irritation. Now THAT is a piece of engineering!!!
Hence this ode to the Yam.
Links: none for today as I am not in the mood. However Raoul seems to be big time blog-surfing today...so I thought I might introduce him to others. Raoul is my friend, nuff said:)
P.S: The yam I speak about on he top is the RX-100. I am a fanatic of RX-100s specially the one with the black tank with thin gold trimmings. Please do not speak of any other Yam model except the RX-100, they do not deserve to spoken on the same page as a Yam RX-100 or a Bull. Other bikes!!! Please let's forget we even thought of speaking about other bikes:D
