Corner Carving: The Doc's Experience

“Hey, do you happen to know this guy called Akshay Tendulkar?” one of my friends asked me. I nodded my head and said “yeah, big guy right? I met him years ago; actually I took him around on my old vespa.” Then my friend proceeded to tell me that Akshay is a part of a bike crazy group called GEARS and since my craziness matched theirs, I would fit right in. For me, that was good news. Nobody around me shared my enthusiasm for motorcycles, I needed like-minded people.

So I found Akshay on Facebook and asked if I could be a part of GEARS. He said yes, and I did a small dance. Once I was officially welcomed into the group I was amazed to find that they had a small event lined up. A cornering session. I did a bigger dance this time. Cornering (as I understood) was fun - not that I knew much about it. While commuting, if you go around a corner faster than the senior citizen on a sunny you think you are boss, at least I thought I was. Well, all that was about to change.

Now for a brief idea about how these cornering sessions work. This whole session happens in the dead of the night, at about 12:30am. The location is always secret and the session is never held at a particular place more than once. New guys are met at a pre designated meeting point and told to dismount. We are made to sit pillion behind the Admins and taken to the location blindfolded. Our bikes are already there by the time we reach- I really don’t know how, because we do not see anybody other than the Admins when we meet. Once at the location, we (me and fellow noobs) hear bike exhausts going off so close that we actually shiver. Sometimes there is the unmistakable sound of footpeg against tarmac and you wonder what monsters are being ridden by what kind of maniacs. This is just familiarization.

Then, one of the Admins, begins the initiation. First- mental strength test and thorough vetting of history and antecedents. Aaron asked me all sorts of scary questions, apparently to test mental fortitude. He was quite nice about it though and sometimes asks weird questions like: Do I like extra cheese on my McDonalds burger or Whether I like strawberries. All this seemed quite weird as I had expected bike related questions and questions about riding. Then he suddenly produced photographs of botched up corners on my everyday commute and asked explanations for each. Once that was over, he handed the rookie (me) over to Akshay Tendulkar.

Akshay Tendulkar is big. How big? Well look at his pictures on Facebook with the BMW K1600GT. So the first time I saw him in the dim light of his pulsar I felt like I should hide. Hide somewhere deep in the bowels of Aarons ninja and wrap its fairing tightly around me. But, that was not to happen. Akshay makes sure one is physically fit for the rigors of cornering. He made me do push-ups and sit-ups. I don’t know how many as I lost count after 4. I fell unconscious, twice, during my jogging session around the secret cornering facility but finally I managed to scrape through Akshays tests. Thankfully the third Admin, Carlton was out of station. If he had his own set of tests I am sure I would never have made it. So, now, I was ready for the actual cornering. Akshays precise words were. “If after all this you can stand up on your own legs, you may take your own bike and learn to corner at your own risk. The corners are treacherous and if you make one mistake, you fall down the cliff. It is almost like Pikes Peak he laughed.”     

Ok the last three paragraphs are utter and complete bullshit. The secret cornering location is off the Panjim- Margao highway in the Verna industrial estate. Here the roads are smooth and wide, and traffic sparse. A perfect place to learn, unlearn, make mistakes and finally perfect the art of cornering. The first session I attended was at 3pm. It was bright and sunny, Akshay was already there. He had reached there before anybody else had and was scouting the corners for oil or debris. He wanted to make it as safe as possible he said. We chatted for a while, since we had met after a long time. We waited around, for people to arrive but the turn out wasn’t much this time. Just five or six guys, all trying their hand (well wheels) at cornering. So Akshay began with explaining the basics, cornering lines, the turn in, the apex, the exit and the brake and throttle control. After that he got me to get on the bike with the main stand on and practice body positioning and movement. He taught knee and arm positioning, and general conduct on the bike.

My mind was reeling. I never knew that so much conscious thought went into it. I only knew that you leaned, you hit the apex and you shot out of the corner as fast as you could manage. Well that was what watching BBC’s Top Gear all the time had taught me. So once I got a hang of the whole thing when stationary, Akshay told me to try and practice all that when riding the bike. I was told to take it easy, keep the speed at a very manageable figure and to perfect bike and body position first. It was easier said than done. Try as I might I could not manage to get my body parts to synchronize in anyway. If I got my knee locked in right, my elbows were all wrong. If I got my elbows and knees under control, my head was positioned wrong. If I got the head position right almost everything else was off. And when I did manage to get all the parts to be in the right position, my slightest movement destabilized the bike. But, thankfully, the stretch of road selected for this purpose was perfect. The corner was neither too gentle nor too steep. It was smooth, wide and allowed one to practice multiple lines. It was a perfect left hander for all of us to learn our skills.

The first few (12) runs were frustrating. But after a while, things got a little easier. The trick was to repeat every single movement till it became second nature, till you subconsciously managed to move correctly while your mind concentrated on only the line. My body parts, which until now were like sparring MLAs in a parliamentary session, slowly began falling in line. They were now like kids at a mass PT session. They all wanted to get it right, but in their (over)enthusiasm one or the other member always messed it up. But anyway, I was improving. The ultimate goal was to get them all to be like a squad of Surya Kiran pilots, perfectly synchronized and incredibly efficient. But, that would have to wait till I got practice, lots and lots of practice.

There were two or three other guys with me, repeatedly attacking corners and getting better all the time. But it was obvious who was at the bottom of the class. Yours truly, the newbie had a lot of work to do. I had not even started proper cornering. I was still getting a feel for it. And the feel was nice. It was better than nice, it felt great. It felt so good that at the point when the sun began going down, Akshay had to use his size and might too peel me from my bike and say, “next time, next time baba, puro ata” roughly translated “next time, next time bro, you have had enough for a day.” So I reluctantly gave up.

After that we sat around and chatted for a while. We discussed the mistakes we made and the probable solutions. This was the best bit about the session. Everybody observed everybody else. So one got enough feedback and suggestions to keep getting better. Nobody at any point spoke about or wanted to be the fastest. This was never about speed, it was always about control and precision. As time passed, the conversation slowly steered from corners to curves (a logical progression I would say) and from leaning in, to well, leaning all the way in. Akshay called it a day when talks about hitting apexes (or is it apices) went on to touching bases.

I had had an awesome day, and on the way back home, I have to admit, my mind was preoccupied with curves and touching bases. So I’m sure my cornering sucked and really wouldn’t have made Akshay proud. But for that, there was always next time.

2013's First Inter-State Ride (Goa-Amboli-Kolhapur-Belgaum-Goa)

Forrest Gump, the movie has a strange allure. For everybody who has seen it, the next paragraph is going to sound very familiar. For those who haven’t, familiarize yourselves with this piece and then watch the movie. It is great. 

  

That day, for no particular reason, I decided to go for a little run. So I ran to the end of the road. And when I got there, I thought maybe I'd run to the end of town. And when I got there, I thought maybe I'd just run across Greenbow County. And I figured, since I run this far, maybe I'd just run across the great state of Alabama. And that's what I did. I ran clear across Alabama. For no particular reason I just kept on going. I ran clear to the ocean. And when I got there, I figured, since I'd gone this far, I might as well turn around, just keep on going. When I got to another ocean, I figured, since I'd gone this far, I might as well just turn back, keep right on going.

Why am I raving about a 1994 movie on a motorcycle touring blog? It is because I felt the exact same way on our Chai Pakora run in the days preceding the India Bike Week.

The Chai Pakora run was organized in many cities including Goa as a build-up to the India Bike Week. And GEARS being as big as it is in Goa, was associated with IBW right from the start. The usual information went up on the Facebook page, the ride was to be upto Amboli Ghat. We would ride upto the summit, partake of the promised Chai and Pakoras and ride back to Goa. We were all excited and looking forward to the ride. So the day dawned, and we met up at the Mandovi bridge on 6th January at 6:00 am. A group of Royal Enfield riders and a bunch of Gearheads assembled on the chilly and foggy morning near the KTC bus-stand at Panaji, got introduced and began the ride.

The road leading to Amboli goes through relatively straight stretches through Goa, and upto the border. On a relaxed and cool morning this was really refreshing. We warmed up, and so did our bikes. We slowly began leaning in by degrees on gentle and long sweeping corners. That is a very Goan way to ride. Early morning, we take it easy. Half of us are half awake, some of us are hungover and the rest need the chai before they completely wake up.

But, here is the thing, a sleepy biker wakes up real quick in response to two stimuli. One, a Ghat with scant traffic and the second, as I said before- chai. Since chai was one steep hill climb away, the beginning of the ghat would wake us all up adequately. But before that, we had a brief stop at Sawantwadi. Since the chill was considerable, most of us needed to thaw our numb fingers and some needed to void full bladders. During the wait we were met up with the second batch of Gears riders who had started late mainly because they had bikes which made sure they caught up with us. Once they got there and lined up, we got our photos and were off.

Then on the frenzy took us. We were surrounded by resounding thumps from about fifteen Enfields, the jet like whines of ninjas and the staccato bursts from the KTMs. So when we sighted a corner, we took it. We cornered with all we had, our abilities, our bikes abilities and the inner (over)confidence that all of us have, which says- If Rossi can, I can too. And as we all know it turns out quite different than Rossi’s riding. Our front ends slide, back wheels slide, and more often than not we go wide. Pretty soon the realization dawns that a public road is not meant for all this and we settle for a decent pace and just enough lean angles to keep us happy.

Soon, the road to Amboli got treacherous. We thought that the potholes and roadbreaks would last just a short stretch. We were mistaken, very badly mistaken. By the time we got up to Amboli village, the cornering junkies were frustrated as the gravel and mid corner craters played spoilsport. The guys who craved straights were even more depressed as the few short straights that were available were in no better shape. So, as we approached the designated end of the ride, quite a few of us were fed up. And it was just 9:30.

At this stop, In true GEARS style, as soon as the road opened up and the tarmac smoothened a little, a certain yellow R15 and its rider Amey were suddenly overcome with a need to hold the throttle fully open for the next ten minutes. This resulted in an amazing flyby by the said rider, while we watched in amazement. Some of us tried to stop him by waving our hands about and getting as close to the road as possible, but to no avail. After overshooting the point by a good 5kms, Amey came back to the restaurant. When asked about his disregard to our efforts to make him stop, he said he thought we were villagers trying to peddle stuff. Well, that was a plausible explanation, but the question remains as to which villager would be clad in an alpinestars jacket and an avg helmet to sell his produce?

Once all the riders had gathered and Amey had joined us, we did have our Chai and Pakoras and a lot of other stuff. General banter and biker talk could be heard everywhere, when suddenly somebody at our table mentioned that Kolhapur was not far away and by extension the nearest McDonalds wasn’t very far away. As mouths drooled and images of burgers and fries floated around, a couple of guys said “let us do it” the number of guys ready for this slowly increased to about ten. So it was settled. We would have lunch at McDonalds Kolhapur.

A lot of phone calls followed. They usually went like this- “Sure dad, no way, not above 55 I promise…” or “I Know darling, we had plans, I will make it up to you in ways you cannot imagine…” or “They say that the road will be blocked for a while, it will be evening by the time it clears up…” and the best “Yeah, yeah one session of the extra classes just got over, it’s the break now, but they have classes all the way till evening, I may get late….”. So after all this a bunch of about ten guys set forth to Kolhapur.

The road hereon was not any better. It got worse and remained like that till we reached the Belgaum- Kolhapur highway. This stretch was really horrible and it was more off-roading than anything else. We cursed the government, the road builders and our stars for having picked this route. We spent almost all our time standing on the footpegs as our suspensions worked overtime. Once we hit the highway though, it was glorious. The roads were baby butt smooth and traffic scant. We made full use of it and made it to Kolhapur in time for lunch.

We were quite a scene as we entered, road warriors all tanned and covered in grime. We somehow felt superior to everybody who was dressed in conventional clothing. As we ordered, we noticed that all the counters were catering to us only, our hunger was apparently proportional to the distance we had travelled to get there. So we ate voraciously and without a break till we were bloated and lying about like drunks. After a brief rest, we got back on our bikes and rode non-stop to Belgaum. The road was great and we were loving every bit of it. Just before Belgaum, Rohan did an Amey and overshot the exit by a few kilometers, we had by now learnt to accept this as a custom at every turn off and philosophically waited till the exuberant rider was spent and returned in search of the rest of the party.

We had decided to return via Anmod as the Amboli route was really bad. This meant entering Belgaum city. It was crazy there. We got lost in the heavy traffic and spent quite some time grouping and breaking up. But finally we figured a way out and stuck to it. We had a brief stop before we left Belgaum to rehydrate and relax before the descent. We were blissfully unaware of the road conditions ahead. And it was good we were, coz if somebody had warned us, half of us would have decided to settle down in Belgaum for the rest of our lives.

The road between Belgaum and the Goa border was the worst I had ever ridden on. No part was free of potholes. And if you did find a good stretch, by the time one got to 70 kph, the road just ended in a unexpected two foot drop. This transition was so abrupt that even before we could think of braking we were into the drop and would hit the bottom with a sickening crunch. This particular problem made three riders damage parts on their bikes, which thankfully weren’t bad enough to break the bikes down. As usual we spent all the time standing up and our knees took a severe beating. And then suddenly we reached the Goa border.

Now, this was something else. We were like a bunch of long term prisoners suddenly allowed a one-way pass to a singles bar with only hot women inside. And we fell upon that road like wolves. We were starved of good roads for so long that we almost stopped and kissed the road. Now on, the going was smooth and fast. We cornered like maniacs and in general had loads of fun. Without a doubt, this was the best bit. We realized this after the strawberry run too. The last bit is always the most exciting.

We met up at the end of the Ghat- Molem, to discuss our antics on the road. Some of us were happy to be alive to tell the tale as we had gotten ourselves into quite a few hairy situations. It was a day well spent. All was well in the end and we were happy. That was what mattered. It was quite late by the time we set off from Molem. It was getting dark and we had to get back home in time to be yelled at by people who were awaiting our return. So we did.

This brings me back to Forrest Gump. In the end he says: I have run for 3 years, 2 months, 14 days, and 16 hours. I'm pretty tired... I think I'll go home now.

Something like that went through my mind too. I had ridden for 525 kms. More than 90% of it on roads that felt like they were laid using the arse end of tarmac technology. I had ridden for almost 10 hours and that too for the first time in my life. I was pretty tired, I too would go home now.

Words by Dr. Ashwin Mysore