The First Date.
Prologue
It all began when my parents bought me a set of notebooks that had posters of superbikes on their cover. The posters were of the best motorcycles from the brands’ stables. Yamaha had the big-eyed R1, they threw in BMW’s subtle looking HP2. Of course, they had the Mighty BUSA from Suzuki! Other covers included Harley Davidson’s V-Rod, Triumph’s Rocket III, Ducati’s 999 and the MV Agusta F4. Every bike was beautiful in its own way with all the sultry curves. But one of those motorcycles stood out. The KTM RC8! Not because of the eye-popping paint scheme (not entirely :P) but because she had none of the sexy curves, didn’t have the single-sided swingarm like the BMW which looked damn good! The front wasn’t appealing either unlike the R1! She came with that long single-piece headlamp. However, the more closely I looked, the more I fell in love with her. I didn’t care if the aesthetics went for a toss. The RC seemed like a pure, raw machine intended to awaken the animal inside us. Numbers and statistics from the spec sheets did not make much sense to me. The number that mattered was the top speed and the cubic capacity to compare with the other bikes. That day, a 7th grader fell in love with that crazy looking lady who was way out of his league!
Chapter 1- First Ray of Hope.
Fast forward to the year when KTM unveiled the Duke 125 race and stunt edition at the Delhi Auto Expo. They looked badass! Not as good as the one I was waiting for, but good enough to start my motorcycling journey. By then, I could easily ride my Dad’s 102cc Honda Activa (without riding gears or a license because YOLO.. pun intended). So, a 125cc motorcycle would be a good upgrade I thought. I started making devious plans to lure my parents into buying me my first motorcycle. But I had a couple of years till I was of legal age to ride a geared motorcycle (with a license :P). A year passed since the Expo and there was still no news about the launch in India. The hope was fading away of getting the Duke!
The bug had bitten me and I became desperate. I started looking out for other options! By then, my dad upgraded to a 125cc non-geared scooter which I would steal and ride to Lonavala. So, I was confident that I could handle a 125cc motor under my crotch. The upgrade that made sense to me back then was a 150cc or higher engine. But none of the available options appealed to me.