Safe Riding Workshop

It it all started with Me getting a Sms from Venkat sir that we were to meet in Autoservice for "bringing in a change" I thought i got the sms by mistake initially :P Later i called up Sachin and he too confirmed of recieving the same sms. Now i thought there must be something and decided to see what was in store. Funny thing is i had never been to autoservice, so i didn't know the route! Called up venkat sir few times and he tried to guide me, but with my pathetic sense of directions and knowledge of places in bangalore, i ended up else where!

Finally, Sachin met me from my stranded place and guided me to Autoservice, where it turned out it was just us and Venkat sir. What followed was kind of surprising discussions, We were later joined my Venkat sir's friend who works with competitor of bajaj (will reveal later :P) We came to know that the idea was to conduct a Safe riding workshop, which would be sponsored by a major two wheeler manufacturer and learn the basics first and progressively learn the various aspects of biking.
The aim was to cultivate a core group, who have passion for biking, touring and are willing to pickup to skills and become part time instructors in such future trainings.
Soon, Santoosh from Xbhp, our dear/beloved/bajajhating friend Renukumar :P was also involved in the coming weeks. Details were posted in various forums like Xbhp and Bikenomads soon responses started to trickle in and the list of aspirants grew to 40!

Now, we had imagined that the starter batch would be of 15 People plus the usual guys like me, sachin, santoosh etc so the total crowd was expected to be 20 max. So we had to filter out some guys and choose around 15 so that the remaining guys can be accomodated in the next batch.
Later due to Autoexpo, Venkat sir got busy and the date and venue were left to be decided. Once boss was in town, things started to happen and it was decided that date would be 19th January saturday and Venue was near Happy Layout on the Padmanabhnagar- Kengeri road.

On the D day, we all met up in Autoservice. The suspense part to others was, who was the sponsorer for this event, we had kept it a secret so that the junta who make it to the workshop alone will be able to find that out.
Now remember that i mentioned Venkat sir's friend had joined us for discussions on day one? and that he worked for a competitor of bajaj? Guess what it was HeroHonda! Venkat sir's friend was Mr manjunath and he works in Herohonda Regional office of Bangalore. Herohonda conducts Safe rider sessions sometimes on their own as per their company policy, this time due to venkat sir's efforts, they conducted it for us bunch of enthusiastic bikers!

The Workshop went very well, Am too lazy to do write up on the nitty gritties.
Pictures from Sachin
Pictures from Prasanna


So here's the details of the workshop taken from Sachin's blog:



The ground zero guys from HH were from Sai Motors. They started out by selecting a patch of side roads away from the main road.
Poof!! appear nosy cops enquiring about what’s going on and all! Upon their advice one of the Sai Motors technician went to the nearby police station and got an acknowledgement/ permission for the workshop.
Next the bikes were brought and a van full of equipment like wooden planks and rumble strips and traffic cones.

1. Basic Tips for riding: First off was the correct posture and stance.
• Do not wear any flowing clothes that might tangle in the bikes running parts.
• Sit on a comfortable position, with a relaxed stance.
• Keep your knees tucked into the tank recesses this centralizes the bike-rider mass..
• Hold the handle such that you do not grip the handle tight but in a comfortable grip.
• Bend your elbows at 120 degrees so that the shocks from the front suspension do not get transmitted to your shoulders and tire you down.
• Your feet should be placed at a position where you can apply the brake or change gears easily. Feet should always be aligned along the bike and should not protrude out.
• Use all the fingers except the thumb to grasp the hand controlled levers. This helps in getting a better grip and faster reaction.

2. Ride On/Ride Off techniques: These are tips when you start off riding and stop and park.
• When taking a bike off its stand hold front brake and then mount the bike. Remove the stand and then mount the bike[this habit helps to take the stand off every time before you move out]
• Once on the bike leave the front brake and hold the rear brake.
• Check both rearview mirrors are set to the right position.
• Before moving off look over your shoulders and check if there is any traffic coming from behind.
Repeat the same procedure in reverse order for ride off i.e. when coming to a stop and parking the bike.

3. Panic braking: This activity basically helps you in case of panic braking i.e. when you brake all of a sudden to avoid a car or something ahead. Here are the steps.
• In case you need to brake all of a sudden then always remember to apply both front and rear brakes and ease off totally from the accelerator.
• Do not press the clutch until the last moment so that you also use engine braking for coming to a complete stop.
• Once you come to a complete stop check over your shoulders if there is any traffic coming form behind you and then using the appropriate indicator before moving off.

4. Tackling rumble strips/off-roading: When you go over a rough surface the bumps are transmitted straight to your back and sometimes can cause injury! To avoid this we were advised to stand on the foot pegs with slightly bent knees and incline our body forward, then move slowly over the rumble strips, using the accelerator and clutch in tandem to accelerate over the crest of the bumps and declutch on the way down. The whole exercise was done in 2nd gear.

5. Balancing on a plank: Here we were supposed to ride the plank in second gear without using the clutch. The aim was to ride very slow and learn to balance our weights on the bike. The important thing to note here was that the mass of our body had to be as close to the bike as possible. So we were advised to keep our knees as close to the tank a possible.

6. Slalom Course: This determines our control over clutch accelerates and brakes. We were supposed to accelerate in between the cones and brake near the cones. The aim was to cross the cones without hitting any one of them.


During all these activities the Sai motors team was scoring us. They had chosen 5 participants based on their performance and they did a lucky dip. And Voila! Prasanna [flyingfiddlestick] won the lottery. He got a boxed brand new helmet.

After all these fun activities in the hot sun we headed to a restaurant along with Mr. Venkat Raghavan and Mr. Vandan from HH and had a hearty meal.
We cannot thank those guys enough for all the patience they had for the workshop. They totally bowled us out with their professionalism and kindness.
Hats off to Mr. Venkat Raghavan and Mr. Vandan!!!!
After lunch they left for their work and we discussed a bit about the next Safe Riding workshop we were going to conduct.
Then after that we parted ways back to enjoy the remaining weekend.