The Real Roadies...

Speed thrills...definitely....but it...it is dangerous too...but "who cares" seems to be the punchline for those daredevil bikers...they zoom in and out of those lovely twisties of sahyadris...come weekend and they are all ready with rock hard helmets on, knee and elbow gaurds and all those protective gears. Last sunday one of my friends, a retired indian navy captain and an awesome biker too and a member of a bikers group named "rubber smoking angels" was to shoot some bikers near the amby valley to get some "killer" panning shots and I was to be in pune that sunday, so I accompanied captain for the shoot. We were to meet the bikers at the highway at 7.30 am., the bikers were a bit late so we decided to move on and asked them to meet at ramakrishna restaurant, a popular hangout place at lonavla, just when we saw around 8-10 bikers racing at breathtaking speeds racing towards lonavla, all were imported superbikes, the hayabusa and honda types, later we caught up with them at ramakrishna (lonavla), they were a different group named "cops", they just had their breakfast and were off back to pune...but we waited for the rubber smoking angels, soon they were there and we all proceeded towards amby valley. passionate daredevils, all in their early twenties, few of them have had really "mindblowing" and "heartshrieking" accidents. I know one of my friends from the same group, a daring biker, who had that "big encounter", had more than 40 stitches above his neck and was back on road with his bike within a few months and then again had a similar "fearful" encounter and again he is on road... the sense of adventure, thrill, speed or just the feeling to be ahead of all which takes them there, i dont know, but...my god, the real roadies i say... anyway...the sun was bright but it was not hot, quite windy. Being sunday the road had some traffic till the tiger's point, we checked the road upto amby valley, things seemed ok except that there was still some traffic, but it was the given, we zeroed in a few spots and those roadies were all set to race up and down those twisties of the valley...what a sight it is to watch a biker coming at jet speed and zoom past you like a flash...yes, I too enjoy speed and am always thrilled to do that involves some risk...I think its human nature to seek a sense of achievment in such acts. Somebody has rightly said, "I've been trying to find the word that says what I need to be in life. 'Brave' is the only word. It's the only thing that I ask myself to be." Yes, being brave has some amount of risk too attached to it but then...at the end we will regret only the things we could not do...so, thats life...one should live it. Me and captain enjoyed the shoot and froze that bone chilling speed to our heart's content and after we had finished we stopped at tiger's point to refresh ourselves, had that yummy makai ki pakaudi with some mango drink and packed off by afternoon. Come next week and we may be off to a similar shoot to lavasa, a beautiful place just 50 km off pune. Its one of my favourite places too. I just love those calm and smooth twisties of the valley, almost nil of traffic and one can just hear the silence