This Side of Paradise

I finally parted ways with my five and a half year old CBZ. She was the first bike I had truly earned all by myself. Here’s a small walk down memory lane: The Beginning The CBZ was probably the first truly sporty bike in India and it hit the markets around 2000, when I was in the final year of college. One look at the pic had me floored instantly… the neat sweeping lines, the aggressive front, disk breaks…wow. I knew that was the bike I wanted to have with me. Got into the job and finally saved up enough to get her in Jan ‘02. Went for the deep bottle green color as it was so rare…not many were on the roads then (…and even now). I still remember rushing out of the office at 4 that day to pick ’er up.

…I’m literally jumping up and down with joy! why? Yamaha has formally announced the launch of the R1 and the MT-01 in India… two of the best bikes from the yamaha stable are here…!! the MT-01 is a 1670cc v-twin that produces close to 90bhp, but has a gut wrenching torque of 150 Nm at around 3750 rpm. A kinetic comet on steroids if you will…! with a half front fairing, this should be the perfect long distance tourer…!

I’ve finally got the bike back to a fantastic condition. After the crash, I spent a few weeks running behind spares across various show rooms in the city. The final step was a nice servicing at the castrol bike zone today. Went to pick up the bike at around 5 in the evening today. As expected, the service was top notch. Got out of the place and headed towards NH-7.Once I got there, it was time to stretch its legs a bit. The bike freely revved across the powerband, and at the end, I was doing 105 kph speedo at close to 9000 rpm. the last 2-3 km of the highway ride went off in a blink.

…of yesterday’s crash was seen in totality today. Bunked office to get some rest, but it was a pretty hectic day overall…! woke up at 9:30 in the morning and had to literally push the bike to the service station. The key hole was jammed and I couldn’t turn on the ignition. Sat there for a couple of hours to get a repair quotation to submit to the insurance folks. The total damage was worth around 6,700… so far.

Today was not supposed to be a normal day after all. I woke up quite early after watching the SL vs NZ match and I was able to make it to work by 10:30. Definitely early by normal standards. That’s when Vamshi dropped the bomb.. there are quite a few interesting developments happening at work. It can have quite an impact on the work we’re doing. We’ll know by the end of the year…!!

I have been slowly gravitating from the Yamaha’s lineup of super bikes to Honda. Did some researching and found out that the Yamaha has splendid performance at higher revs, something that is very track friendly. On the other hand, Honda’s CBR series (more popularly known as the fireblades) offer very linear performance. These bikes are perfectly happy at 60 kmph on the 6th gear, or 150 kph on the second gear.

…is just unbelievable. Ladies and Gentlemen… presenting the world’s fastest production car, the bugatti veyron. It features a w-16 engine (equivalent to two V-8’s) producing close to 1001 bhp. Yes…don’t rub your eyes…it’s not a typo. It does 0-60 mph in close to 2.5 sec. Jeremy Clarkson & co took it out for a spin…check it out..! another awesome video here!

it just can’t get more apt than that. I had meant to post this more than a week back, when the latest avtar of the CBZ - the CBZ cough Xtreme was launched. A week later, the 2007 Honda hornet was unveiled. Without much ado - here’s the side by side comparison. The really funny thing about this is that both Honda had its involvement with both of the bikes. I really wonder what came over Honda when they were thinking of the CBZ. In fact, the old CBZ with alloys, a more powerful engine and FI would have sold a much larger number.

-meister: One who is renowned for, has expertise in, or is a connoisseur of: schlockmeister; spinmeister. I have been getting irresistably attracted towards owning a maruti swift these days…it’s a pretty normal car in stock condition, but I’ve always believed it had a very great potential for performance mods… My beliefs were confirmed after I chanced upon this article… Read on..!! Swift Turbo - Boost Meister It is mid-afternoon, and Amit and I are on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, driving along in the fast lane. We’ve been following a Camry for some time, and I’ve been gently trying to persuade the Toyota driver to move over. A polite honk and one or two flashes of the headlamp have not worked. He is doing a steady 180km/h or so, and maybe because he doesn’t really believe the car behind him can actually overtake his Camry, he’s hogging the fast lane. Right, time to get to work then. I take my foot off the throttle momentarily - there’s a loud ‘wwhooosshhhh!!’ from the turbo’s wastegate - and downshift to fourth. We move left to the centre lane, and with the throttle floored, our car leaps ahead in one ferocious lunge. There’s a look of utter and complete disbelief on the Camry driver’s face as our car snarls past. Within seconds, the Toyota is already receding fast in our rear view mirror. We’re driving a Maruti Suzuki Swift, and we’ve just overtaken a 2.4-litre, 142PS Camry that’s being driven flat out.

So, I took off for a whole day on Friday; the price I paid for it? a complete weekend of….no, not rest, but a front row seat in front of my computer. …yeah…I was working…!! but the most important thing is that I kept up my end of the bargain. I delivered what was expected of me. to me that’s what matters the most. two months back I had posted thatwe were taking up something impossible. Things are at a striking distance now. Friday is the big day, let see what happens…!!