Motorcycles

Dear Mom. Don’t freak out. Learned to drive a motorcycle in India without a helmet or any real traffic laws at all. Still alive. Love, Doug.

While riding around New Khajraho Ajeet asked me if I knew how to drive a motorbike. I responded with a negative, but that I’d always wanted to learn. He shot back that he wouldn’t mind teaching me, which I laughed off. We went about our day, and it was only after I got back that night that I began to really think about it.

Which is how I found myself seated on a 150cc bike the next morning, with Ajeet explaining where everything was.

He pointed out the clutch, shifting system, acceleration and a few other things, and then asked if I had questions.

“Where’s the brake?”

“Ah yes! Very important! It is good you ask! Shows you are good driver!”

Or just one that wants to stop occasionally. Ajeet is a damn good driver, and saved us from collision/death more than once on the dusty streets of Khajraho. After one particularly close shave, he leaned back to me and said, “It is good I am driving good. That could have been very bad.”

With this and every other training brief I’d ever received in ROTC fresh in my mind, along with the knowledge ER docs call moto drivers “organ donors,” I kick started Ajeet’s bike and revved the engine.

And went exactly nowhere. Ajeet’s bike is a manual, meaning that unless it’s in gear it doesn’t go anywhere. I throttled down, ignoring Ajeet’s expression, activated the clutch, put it in gear and eased the clutch off. The moto began to move forward…

And stalled.

Ajeet’s smile is strained. “Not bad for first time.” I can tell he’s being generous. I am suddenly sixteen again in the La Cueva parking lot where Dad tried to teach me how to drive a manual car. I can already tell that I’m going to have just as much trouble with this.

After a few more minutes of instruction, and me finally figuring out that you could avoid a stall if you started the bike moving just a little bit before letting out the clutch I was finally moving. This of course led to me speeding off at what might be charitably described as way too fast.

Eventually, I got good enough to get the cycle up my hotel’s long driveway, where I promptly stalled out while trying to turn around. Turns out you need to be able to think in three directions to work a motorcycle, and I just wasn’t getting it. On my first journey up the drive the hotel gardener had to help me turn the bike around and get it started again. He provided some helpful tips that Ajeet had missed, and with more confidence I motored back to the parking lot.

Ajeet and what appeared to be the entire hotel staff sat outside under the shade of the awning, sipping chai and watching me. He seemed to be taking the hands off approach. After fewer false starts than the last time, I started the bike and zoomed back up the driveway.

And promptly screwed up the turn again. The gardener had been joined by some guys smoking cigarettes. They gave me a grinning thumbs up, and I laughed. I guess I was the show for the morning. I roared back down the driveway, figuring out the difference between second and third gear while I was at it. This time I managed to make a big loop and ride back up the driveway.

Three more guys had joined the gardener. I guess there’s nothing better to do on a Saturday morning in India than…..

Supposedly it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert at any task. Roughly three hours of work got me motoring up and down the long drive to my hotel’s parking lot, stalling more often than not, and still unable to turn with any efficiency. But it was three hours of entertainment for about forty Indian guys too.

Besides, who gets to learn to ride a bike in India?

-Doug