The thing that lies ahead and beyond what you can see

Tomorrow morning, before first light, I hope to hit the road on Bumblebee along with a couple of buddies, riding-wise and otherwise, friends whose lines I trust and whose company I am at ease with off the bike too. A slow churn of excitement has already begun in the pit of my stomach as I contemplate the ride ahead. Our destination is Goa to attend the Royal Enfield Rider Mania and escape the real world for a few days.

There is something special about just hitting the road on an unarranged adventure, a couple of days worth of clothes in the saddlebags, a handful of spares and nothing more than a vague direction of where you’re headed. The plan is to head south on NH4 from Mumbai till Satara and then cut across to Mahabaleshwar via the Kas plateau, where hopefully the unseasonal rain is still nourishing the wildflowers. Google Earth shows a promising route winding up and down the bluffs of the Western Ghats, the road a faint promise of the potential for fun. 

Hopefully, we'll be grinning as idiotically as Debu at Kas

Top Gearhead and friend Debu, who was in the vicinity a month ago has given typically vague directions like: ‘take a right on the dirt road on the plateau after the last dhaba,’ so we know it’s going to be a memorable ride, one way or the other. It feels good to not be worrying about where you’re going, just that you’re getting there.

Where's the road?

It’s illogical and yet it’s trips like this that makes the motorcycling life so much fun. More than the sum of their parts, these rides are built on a collection of random roads and off-the-beaten path routes, which expand your personal geography transcending the ride, road and machine.

Enough introspection. It’s time to ride.