Issue 130 : August - September 2003
Farmyard 03
Magna Carta
Road Star Warrior
India by Enfield
H-D 100th in Spain
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Farmyard 03
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India by Enfield
Two years ago I met a friend, Fiona in Clapham to discuss putting on a big bike rally across the jungles, mountains and desert like plains of Southern India. After four beers I had decided to leave my city job of 9 years, giving up the role of company Director to go skint with a view to doing what I've wanted to do most of my adult life, riding bikes for a living in some of the most awesome scenery known to man. Obviously we had protocols for all the worst case scenarios, and numerous medics but I cannot tell you just how nervous I was before the event started. Unlike other trips Enduro India has a few days either side of the rally for riders to get used to the bikes, the country, the people etc. The idea of the warm up days was to get the riders used to all the idiosyncrasies of the Enfield whilst also giving them a gentler introduction to the traffic and road conditions, which frankly are like nowhere else on Earth. The warm up days (although on reflection a good thing) worried me enormously as I saw first hand just how nervous and inexperienced a lot of the riders were. Kick-start, what's that? Why are the gears on the wrong side of the bike? What's the reason the gears go down for up and up for down? Why doesn't the front brake work? What's this de-compression thingy do again? Why are all these trucks trying to kill me? Mark Logan, one of our more experienced participants bike had gone straight under a truck; luckily he bounced off the side of the huge wheels. They were going to have to get used to that as there'd be lots of missed turns during the rally itself so it was actually with some relief for us that most of them got lost before the rally even started. We had the Police Commissioner make a formal speech and press and TV crews everywhere. Just before the bikes kicked into life for the first day of the rally we had drummers and traditional horn blowers kick it off in style, whilst two huge bull elephants stomped their feet and trumpeted. After a few minutes the bikes started spluttering into life and I was flagged off. Following me was an entourage of 88 bikers, 6 mechanics, 3 ambulances, 7 doctors, 4 jeeps, 2 people carriers, 2 film crews, 4 journalists and 1 ten tonne truck carrying luggage. With the radio babbling constantly in my ear all day I was happy to hear nothing but puncture reports but then the inevitable happened. Jo Spackman worked the magic trick of getting the back wheel in front of the handle bars, as the front wheel finally gripped she was flipped 20 feet through the air to land on the hard stuff with a bang. "She's smashed up but ok" I heard on the radio (technical talk from our radio crew), phew! The first day was awesome, winding our way up into the Wayanad wildlife reserve and then into Bandipur tiger reserve which, as always had a surprise in store for us. Fifteen of us had stopped for a smoke break and a couple of the girls had gone off into the bush to answer the call of nature. I had just remarked to my friend Piers that I had seen elephants near this spot on the first and second recce trips and that we should keep our eyes and ears open. At that moment there came an enormous trumpeting and crashing of bushes no more than 50 feet away from us (our engines were off). Directly in front of us came 20-30 elephants, all ages and sizes holding trunk to tail, they stopped in the middle of the road, smelled the air and flapped their enormous ears whilst the matriarch decided if we were a threat worth squashing. Sometimes being close to death makes you feel so much more alive and I'm glad we were lucky enough to have witnessed such an amazing scene. That evening we settled down around the campfire surrounded by the ethereal blue glow of the Nilgiri mountains. The alarm calls of the deer that evening reminded us all that there were lots of large cats in and around the camp, not to mention Hyena, bear, wolves and Elephants. When Charlie and me rode the 2nd day's Kundah road stage a few times pre Enduro India we were worried and excited in equal measure. On one hand it was so stunningly beautiful that we needed to give the riders the opportunity of experiencing its wild beauty but on the other hand we were worried at how many of the fellowship would bite the dust. We were proved correct on both counts. It was very emotional to see big bad bikers clearly moved by the scenery and also shocking that 15 bikers stacked it on that stage! It started with 36 of the steepest hairpins any of us had ever ridden up, followed by over 100 down through largely uninhabited tracts of jungle.  "Armed guards I said, why do we need armed guards? It's only a dam" (which is why I thought foreigners weren't let in to this area). "Yes' said the chief there is the dam issue, but the reason you've had so much trouble is that it's also Veerapan's home!' This bounder, this cad, is a real thorn in the side of the Indian people. Veerpan is a murderer and terrorist who operates in the forests which we wished to travel through. Veerapans' hobby is killing anyone he meets in the forest. He has a small army, which is allegedly supported by many govt personnel for their own gain. Therefore he has free run of the Karnataka / Tamil border area where he kills villagers who don't follow his rules, police, govt personnel, forest officials and passing tourists. So day two began with some trepidation, the roads we were about to take on were dangerous in so many ways. Elephants were known to attack on the road, tigers were regularly spotted, there are over 100 hairpins, 2000 foot drops and a f**king lunatic at large with a small well armed army. As if that wasn't dangerous enough the armed guards then proceeded to let any Tom Dick and Harry on the ride handle the loaded AK 47s and pose for pictures during day two, this is what I love about this mad country, but it's this attitude that also scares the pants off me. The radio was busy that day and not just because of punctures but serious spills and near misses. One of our top riders Joe and Claire from Hub TV (making the Men and Motors film, riding pillion) had a nasty spill and she wasn't filming? Call yourself a camera girl hmmm? Directly after they'd picked themselves up Dilip '3 dog killer' Dhanak (yes 3 in 1 week's ride) lost it on gravel and slid 30 feet all the way up to the medic that was treating Joe and Claire. Coming out of the Kundah road stage and entering the forbidden forest zone Seamus Bradley came blatting past 30 or so bikers in a daze waving and beeping at the film crew. Being apparently so caught up in the glory of the moment he failed to take notice of the CAUTION EXTREME DANGER AHEAD. Rather than take the turn at slow speed, lean the bike over, break, change down gears etc, Seamus decided that straight on would be the better option. That was until he went straight off the side of the mountain 25 feet down, the film crew got there so soon the dust was still showing a clear line of where Seamus had exited the road for the airborne stage. On looking down, fearing the worst, they found the bike in a tree on the left and Seamus in a bush a further 20 feet to the right. He was so bruised he couldn't continue the rally with us and after some discussion the next morning we agreed to let him continue Enduro India on his own after a three day rest to lick his wounds. After the forbidden forest stages, which saw much off roading and wild animals, the riders had to negotiate 150 kms of manic motorway mayhem. In India there is one rule, if you're smaller than the other vehicle you get out of their way. This is fine if you have an escape route but if you don't it's the nearest field or piece of dirt available. I was travelling along at approximately 60 mph when a fast coach appeared from behind a truck coming directly towards me in my lane and he just kept coming, knowing I had nowhere to go but down a 5-foot drop where the tarmac stopped and the dirt at the side of the road began. I saw the grim reaper that day and he wasn't smiling. I left the road at 60mph down the five foot slant of ripped, jagged tarmac thinking that was my lot. I skidded across one dead dog and one dead cat (or was it a monkey), through two massive piles of filth and locked the back wheel up temporarily on the back axle of a Maruti van. Getting everyone 'home' that day was a major achievement on their part and ours, it was one hell of a ride and no doubt the toughest of the trip. I arrived at the last turn near the hotel at 3pm and the last rider came in at 7pm, I waited till every one was back, had one beer and promptly fell unconscious. It was the deadest sleep I've ever had. Day Three was a legendary day amongst any bikers that know South India well. It involves one of the most hair-raising mountains known to man. The stretch goes from Palakkad near the twisted city of Coimbatore up to Udumallapet on a straight fast road until the village of Manu Patti in the shadow of the Western Ghat mountain range. The looks you get from locals in this area are hilarious, they are overjoyed to see a foreign face and jump up and down shouting things like "I am so happy, I am so happy, God bless us !" The reactions were mad enough during the recce trips with just two of us but when 100 people flew through on loud Bullets with TV crews hanging off the side of jeeps and cameras on the bonnets and roofs the scene was one of total hysteria for all concerned.
To get to this road you have to pass through Palani and I have never even stopped for a cup of tea here as I am always so desperate to tuck in to the 46 demanding hairpins leading up to Kodai Kanal (the only American hill station in India during the British rule of the last century). Kodai Kanal itself is fairly hectic and quite modern, with its email cafes and modern petrol stations, but the roads up and down are a dream. They are a mix of fast tarmac and sweeping bends, blind hairpins, steep hill climbs and 'almost off road', pot-holed madness that can throw you off at a moment's notice. It pays to look at the road and not the view, unless you want to become part of it. Now I have wheelied at 100mph had my knee down in the Alps and done 170mph on the French motorways but I am yet to find a buzz better than riding an Enfield full out on the ascent to Kodai Kanal. I must now add another calamity to the story, Carrie Aucott, one of our more experienced riders came hurtling around a bend on the Kodai ascent to find a Mahindra jeep cutting the corner. She hit him head on and still doesn't remember a thing about it. Luckily she was wearing the proper plastic body armour and helmet etc (necessary kit in India) but her face was a mess. Day four started slower as the cumulative effect of three days dawn till dusk riding on Indian roads was starting to hit people hard. Today was always planned for a different route, but due to high mountain road works at Munnar (our destination) we couldn't take our original course, as the road would be closed when we got there and it would mean a long wait until the road opened again in the evening. We tried to find an alternative route and the one we worked out was the best of the entire trip. We blasted back down the mountain to Palani and directly into the Indira Gandhi wildlife sanctuary. This is one of the wildest areas in southern India and the reserve is home to 20 tigers, 50 leopards and an estimated 1000 elephants. Not a place to break down. The road is a mixture of exquisite tarmac and high drops. There are huge 100-foot high waterfalls crashing violently into enormous time weathered ravines that thrash and twist like injured snakes for as far as the eye can see. The traffic on this route is minimal so we had a little more time to look around and see how much rubber and metal we could grind off our foot pegs, (two of us actually took them off completely which made trying to balance for the rest of the day quite interesting)! The Indira Gandhi sanctuary has several 300 foot high watch towers for the wildlife spotters, as we were the first group to arrive we climbed up one which was swaying wildly (Indian building standards) to watch the trail of loonies blasting through the reserve as fast as their little 350cc Enfields would carry them. As there was no barrier to the sound at that height we could hear them coming literally miles before we could see them. That's an experience I will never forget, watching the trail of bikes winding and twisting through that amazing scenery with riders cheering and whooping at the sheer enormity of the views and the quality of the riding. The Indira Gandhi reserve turns a corner directly into Chinnur Sanctuary; again home to lots of animals with humans on the menu, this place offers fantastic riding and a chance for some stunts on the dear old Royals. Whilst we were standing on the seats, sitting on the bars and hanging off the side of the bikes, Gordon, one of our older riders at 64, came around a corner and performed a stunt all of his own. He was helped by a little red car that slammed into him, knocking him flying down onto the rocky surface with a real slam. His bill was promptly paid with a broken foot and some nasty bruises. He was badly shaken and was worried when I first saw him in the ambulance. However, being the old scoundrel he is he milked it for all it was worth. It was the right move as from that moment on the 20 females amongst us were all over him ("you don't get to 64 without learning how to milk the cow" he retorted drunkenly that evening) but that's a different story, (dirty old devil). The Chinnur wildlife reserve leads into National Park land all the way to Munnar and the scenery is truly breathtaking. It's like a cartoonist's illustration of Heaven and so colourful that if someone drew it you'd say they'd gone way over the top. There are 3000-foot mountains with tea plantations right to the very top, purple and yellow and red trees, waterfalls and rivers. But let's not forget the tarmac, it's mostly sportsbike fit and offers some of the fastest riding of the entire trip. There were loads and loads of near misses as riders raced each other into small gaps and more than a couple went over the handle bars in the name of fun. The things people do for a pub story. The evening at Munnar was well spent sampling the local marijuana, as the region is not only famous for tea plantations. There were many Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd and Rolling Stones tunes sung around the campfire that evening to the Guitar accompaniment of our resident tour Doctor and friend Arun Kholi. Arun was 'born a hippy' and actually sang at Woodstock. (Not worthy, not worthy). He isn't a man he's a God and his medical kit included a little bag of interesting, smokeable herbs purely for recreational use. Quite a lot of the riders appreciated that deeply during the hours we were relieving our battered and bony arses by the fire. Day Five was a half-day (approx 6 hours riding), people were tiring fast on the bikes and we deliberately placed this day as a fast exciting descent from the breathtaking tea country of Munnar to the wonderfully fragrant spice country of Thekkady. This allowed us all to revive a little from the relentless and exhausting rides of the previous four days. We started early on day five although we simply couldn't wake many of the riders. We had an outdoor breakfast by the embers of the fire from the night before as it was extremely chilly due to the high altitude of Munnar. Charlie and me had a real blast up through the tea country and narrow forested valleys as we had cameramen on board. We wanted to show the viewers of Men and Motors that Enfields can be just as exciting as 'modern' bikes under the right conditions. We slowed down through the top stages to let the bikers pass us, it was imperative that all of us got through this high mountain pass before 9am as the road workers were blasting the cliffs to widen the roads. If we missed the 9am 'cut off' the road would close till 4pm, which would inevitably mean we'd miss an entire day. There are so many trucks and coaches going over the edge at this high mountain pass that the state Government has finally decided to act. The main reason for waiting here though was to see the rider's reaction to the view. It was amazing to watch them wind their way up through the dense tea plantations resembling a psychedelic jigsaw puzzle stretched over hundreds of square miles to finally blast out the other side to the biggest mountain scene of the entire trip. One minute all you can see is 20 feet in front of you, then you turn a bend and can see nothing but mountain ranges stepping off into the distance as far as the eye can see. The effect of the sudden appearance of this landscape is like being punched in the chest, as the panorama is so massive and you're thousands of feet above the clouds. Listening to the whoops and screams of the riders as they were hit by this vista was amazing. The road is almost Himalayan in height and condition with regular landslides and a terrible surface, it's truly 'heart in the mouth' stuff as you have to overtake slower moving vehicles with inches to spare before a 3000 foot drop onto sheer rock. The road then opened up into a series of fast switchbacks and for the first time of the trip we actually wound our way down through the varying levels of cloud all the way to the spice country of Thekkady. Many people came a cropper on this stretch as yet again the good tarmac lead us into a false sense of security before suddenly turning to dust and shale. One of our riders Nobby French did a triple somersault to land on his feet as the bike continued straight past him. How he or the bike remained upright no one could tell. He denied falling off and simply explained that he and the bike had done what many couples do - a MTS or 'Mutual Trial Separation'. A few days before this I was chatting to Nobby about the Elephants I'd seen and he let slip that he and his mates and been off roading on the wildlife reserve stages during the first day. When I explained to him that Elephants hate the noise of the Enfields and attack fairly regularly in that area he admitted he'd got within 15 feet of a full grown bull whilst on a tiny track that led off into the reserve's depths. After I compared these parks to riding across the savannahs of Africa where a person is basically food he said 'not to worry, as he knew 'the signs!' "When the Elephant flapped its ears and stamped its feet" he said "I got back on the bike and left really fast". "Who are you? David bloody Attenborough on a Bullet" I said. No one who knows anything about 'signs' would get that close to a lone Bull Elephant without the protection of a land rover, and possibly not even then. It must have been an amazing experience, I'm just glad he never stalled it. All was well at the end of day 5 until the camera crew asked me and a couple of the lads to try some stunts for the camera on the Periyar wildlife reserve roads. We came within an inch of getting nicked for abusing the parks rules. We jumped on the bikes and got the hell out of there, getting nicked in the UK takes time, in India it could take days or weeks. Anyway the camera crew were happy as they got the whole thing on film -Cold hearted bastards! Day Five's 4-6 hour 'half day' was planned that way because we felt that the remaining two days would definitely be the hardest for the riders, we were all tired, bruised and battered but some were mentally wounded beyond repair. Day Six was a warm up for Day Seven. The first part of the day was spent travelling out of the quieter forest areas through the Idukki wildlife reserve with it's diesel slicked roads (as I found out during last years recce). The second part of the day was 'grit your teeth / grip your bars stuff' through the manic towns of Todaphuza and Muvataphuza towards the deranged airport city of Angamali, our penultimate night's destination. I rode the bike with three tasty riders this day and we rode the Enfields like we stole them. I am a fairly confident rider but know my limits and occasionally reach them, I was near to the limit all day this day and I was two up much to the wife's delight, bless her! This afternoon's ride was wild. Basically I'm trying to set the scene that these guys thought (and gladly admitted they thought) they'd seen it all. They were also some of the best riders on the trip and could handle bikes like very few people I know. When we exited Muvataphuza all of them said they'd never experienced anything like it. There was much backslapping and nervous laughter as we stopped for a smoke break. Richey Finney said he wasn't sure if it was sweat or piss that had soaked his seat! The traffic in this town is crackbrained. You have to be totally on your game or you're off and possibly under, like six feet under. The latter half of day six was designed to concentrate the riders' attention on the risk of imminent death on Day Seven, it worked. Day Seven involved two of the most infamous roads on the planet. You wake to a wonderful polluted sky in Angamali with shades of colour only a mix of diesel and benzene can create. Through your tired eyes you look west and you can see the feint outline of an insane, twisted, thin lipped grin like Cruella Deville on two tabs of acid. That's the NH47 National Highway. If you listen really hard you will hear a distant, perverted laughter. That's the NH17 National Highway. Both awaited us, smirking. "Come on, try us, all welcome," they whisper sadistically. The NH47 and the NH17 are without doubt two of the most dangerous roads on the planet, in fact if we could travel to distant galaxies and we were lucky to find other inhabited planets with cars and roads I reckon we would have to travel millions of light years before we came to another pair of roads as bad as this. We picked this stretch up by U-turning onto it. Yes, I admit we U-turned 88 bikes, 3 ambulances, 4 jeeps, 2 people carriers and 1 ten tonne truck onto the NH47 at Angamali. We were thrashing towards Calicut on road where possible but mostly off road to avoid the superabundance of oncoming dangers. These include all the usual; trucks and coaches, working elephants, dogs, oxen, horses and suicidal pedestrians. We were regularly slowed down by built up traffic, stalled because of head on crashes. Some you looked at, some you knew not to. Burnt trucks litter the side of the road, glass was everywhere, auto rickshaws are flattened completely and coaches overturned. I wanted to show people this side of India, as it wouldn't have been real if we'd simply tested them on difficult mountain roads. This India is just as real as all the beauty we'd seen over the past week and I knew if we could bring everyone home after these two adjoining motorways we'd have really pulled off something special. At the end of Day Seven I was actually falling asleep at the bars, I had done three Enduro India's in five weeks. The teo recces and the rally itself had taken effect. When we all met up at the Toyota dealer 7kms from Calicut (our final destination) for the police escort to the Taj hotel I was stunned and amazed, but too tired to take it all in. The escort into the City of Calicut was amazing, I've never seen so many bearded bikers biting their lips and wiping away tears, (and that was just the girls). The film jeep was leading with Tom the cameraman perched precariously on top filming every twist and turn of the huge snake of bikes. The entire entourage of vehicles was driving/riding nose to tail, side by side. There were people standing on the seats, sitting on the bars, holding hands and screaming and shouting. The locals went completely mad as the entire city came out to greet us. I was asked by the TV crew to stay near the front for the Men and Motors film but I couldn't, I wanted to make it last as long as possible, see all their overwhelmed faces - smiling, tearful, awed. Turning the corner after the bridge and seeing the thousands of fish eagles and red kites wheeling and stooping, literally dancing on their feathers over the beach, was staggering. It was truly amazing that everyone who started Enduro India finished and this again demonstrated the groups' positive attitude, even Gordon with his broken foot rode pillion for the last stage. And then there was Alan, as always up near the front on his auto scooter, with his middle finger firmly stuck up in the air to his disease Multiple Sclerosis and all it usually stands for. Every rider was in awe of this guy, he could only just about walk with the aid of 2 sticks, but he wasn't going to let a little thing like that get in the way of completing this really tough event. I've done my very best to explain my feelings on the Enduro India project through this piece, however right from the start I knew I'd fail miserably as some things are never meant to be put into words. Words weren't invented to explain things that have such huge impact and that are felt so deeply. That you do with eye contact, handshakes, hugs and motorbike rallies. Simon Smith
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To experience this much danger most bikers go racing on the Isle of Man. The other option is to take a trip with Simon Smith and his circus of barking insanity - yes you do have to be mad try this...
Palani is a strange place, it has massive religious status and is swarming with Sadhus and Swamis dressed in their orange robes, there are strange forces at work in this place and to see it is to believe it.