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Early winter is a beautiful time of the year in North India. Nights are cool, days are warm and the roads long, winding, smooth and beckon. A heady mix enough to fire up the imagination of boys who have grown up!
Boys will be boys. They really don't change. It is the size of their toys that changes. As youngsters, they were playing with scale models of cars and motorbikes. When they grow up, they are still playing with the toys but these are not scale models, these are real.
There were seven riders on some of the most delightful bikes available in the market. The destination was Naldera in Himachal Pradesh. After a breakfast stop in Karnal, the riders hit the road again. Of the bikes the motley adventurers drove, there were four Harley-Davidsons which included a Screaming Eagle, a Sportster, an Iron and a Night Rod. The engines ranged from 900 cc to 2300 cc. There was a lone Suzuki Intruder, 1800cc and two Triumph Rocket 3. With a 2300 cc engine, the Rocket has the largest engine and is the fastest production bike in the world. The bikes cost between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 44 lakh!
By this time, the haze had been burnt off by a strong sun under bright blue skies, the sun was scorching hot. The macho riders, who were used to being protected by helmets, were looking for sun-block. Two service cars
followed the convoy. One of the drivers, Sunder Jha was from the
flatlands of Bihar and had never seen mountains. As he drove into the
mountains and witnessed the spectacular sight of Jha could not keep his eyes on the road, he was awed by the scenery. His passenger Gunter took over the wheel which allowed Jha to gawk at the mountains and gave Gunter more confidence of staying on the road. At Timber Trail, I got to see the faces of the riders as the helmets came off. The prettiest was Nimeran who was on a Triumph Rocket 3 with her husband Ashwin. Teji Puri looked a professional rider in his leathers and helmet and Harley headscarf, so different without a turban! All riders are properly kitted out and support the most expensive and consequently the safest helmets. Helmets are seat belts and airbags rolled into one, life savers.
Ashwin, who was on a Trumph Rocket 3, has the vast experience of biking in US and Australia, "We have 20 riders in our group but today only seven are on the road, all cruisers. It's not a good mix to have cruisers and sports bikes riding together because of the different riding styles since the sports bikes are much faster. However, we are a harmonious group so we make it work. The speed of sports bikes is higher and, consequently, risks greater on Indian roads because if the speed is not controlled, the whole group could be in trouble." As Nimeran puts it, "There is an inherent difference in the attitude of a person who drives a sports bike. We started off on a sports bike. I can't really explain. I'm not an expert! How do you define a sports cruiser? Ask him (she pointed to another rider) he is an expert." "He is not an expert, just looks like one." said an admirer in the background. "You want me to speak like an expert? That will take a lot of cuss words and two shots of Vodka! I don't particularly like riding with sports bikers. it is two different mindsets," he snorted. Ramji Srinivasan, a biker since his college days, moved into the rarified group of super bikers only three months ago when he got a Suzuki Intruder. "Bikers worship their relationship between man, machine and the road," said Sri. "It is demanding, challenging and exhilarating and calls for complete attention at all times. Split-second timing and instant decisions are required all the time. There is no scope for error on a two-wheeler, especially while speeding on the Indian roads." On the weekend, the riders checked into their hotel and rested their aching bones. They checked their machines and enjoyed a barbeque on the lawn under a bright blue Himalayan sun. The evening was spent preparing for the drive back to New Delhi. This meant litres of masala chai to fight dehydration which can affect you at high altitudes. While riding no rider partook alcohol, as the club has a strict "bottle to throttle" rule. Explained Teji, "Drunken driving is bad enough but a hangover can be just as dangerous. It can impair judgment and we have to stay focused every moment."
Globetrotting
Jose Jorge Durand never thought he would end up harvesting dung for a living when war forced him from his home. Thirty years ago he fled to safety high in Peru's Andes Mountains as a bloody leftist insurgency took root in the jungle where his family grew coffee. Having since returned home to Lima, Durand is now making one of the most expensive coffees in the world by picking Arabica beans out of the dung of a long-nosed jungle critter called the coati, a tropical cousin of the raccoon. His company, Chanchamayo Highland Coffee, is the second Peruvian venture to copy a rare technique from Indonesia that harnesses a mammal's digestive tract to strip bitter-tasting proteins from coffee beans. After the creatures eat ripe coffee cherries, the growers wash, roast and export the beans that emerge partially fermented, but whole, in the animals' scat.
Peru, one of the world's top ten growers, is the world's biggest producer and exporter of organic coffee. Online prices for dung-processed coffee offered on Amazon.com, mostly from Southeast Asia, range from $40 to $1,160 per pound ($18 to $526 per kilo). Durand said he is exporting to the US for the first time this year at $36 per pound ($16 per kilo). But he said the final vendor sells it for more than $270 per pound ($122 per kilo). At the Arabica coffee shop in an upscale district in Lima, barista and coffee taster Roberto Caldas declares Durand's coati-dung coffee as "very nice" less bitter and more full-bodied than most coffees, and with an unusually long aftertaste. It is unclear how Indonesians developed the original dung coffee Kopi Luwak into a global delicacy that has inspired versions in Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines and now Peru. One story says Dutch colonialists forbade Indonesian natives from picking the crop to make their own coffee and so the locals turned to the droppings of the Asian palm civet a plantation pest known for plundering coffee cherries. Research has shown the civet's digestive enzymes biochemically alter the coffee beans to make them less bitter. The Peruvian coati are similar but unrelated to the civet, and are often adopted as pets or hunted for their meat by locals, who call them uchunari or mishasho. Reuters
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The Free Riders
Motorcycle Club (FRMC) left New Delhi at 6 am in the morning. It was
hazy and cool, the bikes were hot and the spirits of the riders was
bubbling.
At Zirakpur, the bikers
peeled off onto NH 2 and headed for the hills. After entering the
Himalayan Expressway, the bikers regrouped at Timber Trail for a
pit-stop (coffee and clean toilets!).
Teji was beaming,
"Its been a fantastic ride so far and one is looking forward
to the mountain road."
In doing so, the
Peruvians are catering to the whims of global coffee consumers willing
to pay anywhere from $20 to $65 for a cup of the odd treat.