Hectic Weekend - Two more additions to my Riding Gears

Back to the daily grind of office-Home routine after my previous ride. I had decided to give my bike for repairs on weekend. I had also mentally prepared for the repair bill :P it would surely cost a bomb for plastics :( Was riding around wounded Zma for 1 whole week and she didn't complain, only felt light wobble in front end at slow speeds, she seemed happier at higher speeds though.

Saturday, I went straight to Sachin's house from office, from there sachin took his bike and accompanied me to SaiMotors Thankfully, we happened to meet Mr Vandhan, who is the service head there and known to us from our earlier Safe Riding workshop. After inspection, found out that the alloy wheel had a bend :( since it costs a bomb of 4K, decided to claim for insurance and filled up necessary forms and left the bike with Mr kiran there. Krishna dropped in to service his bike, all 3 of us went to a CCD near by for a chat session :P

With in half an hour near CCD, we witnessed two accidents, in both cases bikers were hit by cages! Both the riders had nasty injuries on their knees! Witnessing these two accidents in such a short span of time, sachin decided to buy kneeguards. So we wound up the CCD session and bid byes to krishna, I hitched a ride on sachin's bike as pillion and we landed up in Cramster shop by noon. Met KJ there, Sachin bought Cramster External Kneeguards for himself. I tried on the Spine Protector, i had used sachin's spine protector in the ride, it had helped my back a lot. Tried on different sizes and found that the L size of spine protector was perfect for me. Bought the spine protector for myself. Another important gear got added to my existing Riding gears list. This is an important addition, like my riding pants as it helps my back a lot. This will lead to increase on saddle time for me during rides.


We moved on to have lunch at Chung's Restaurant in Malleshwaram, it was the first time i had gone there, the quantity was too much, couldn't finish the entire dish :P We had to go to Motomania store to check out DSG Nero Jacket for my mangalore friend Zahin, so off we went to towards indiranagar. We got stuck in horrible traffic jam near MG Road, thanks to so called Vvip visit. I wonder why these idiots drive through heart of the city and make our lives miserable, they can as well fly in a chopper and spare us mortals! Finally wrestled our way through airport road, 100 feet road and reached motomania store in Indiranagar. The ambience of the shop was good (with AC and all :P) the displayed stuff were mostly of Alpinestar brand. The Alpinestar riding boots range they had there was too good, some day, i will own one of those :P

Unfortunately, they didn't have stock of DSG Nero Jackets, they only had one Yellow/black display piece. I tried them on and liked them, was tempted to buy, they assured us that fresh stocks would be arriving the next day and we could visit them on sunday morning. They are open full time on sundays too! kewl!
They had few KBC and AGV Rossi lids, sachin tried them on, the look and feel were many times better than my current GPR Lid, but they were pricey at 8k! We checked out gloves for my mangalore friend Sujay and found DSG Leather Mesh Short Gloves they were reasonably priced at Rs 1200 and they were much better than my old Angels racing B Zero City glove, so we picked it up for my friend. That was the last piece there :P

I was looking for Full length Leather Touring glove with Kevlar stuff in it. I was specifically looking for gloves that had secure straps on the wrist and forearms. From my crash, i learnt that when the riding jacket cuff is even a bit loose, they slide up in case of a fall and that's how i ended up scraping my forearm. The gloves they had were again mostly of Alpinestar stuff, which was again too costly for my budget, but finally we found DSG Primal Leather Gloves which fit my requirement and budget, it had three level secure straps on wrists and forearm, Kevlar in places prone to impact, most importantly, it was made of genuine leather and it didn't have the dreaded thick foaming inside the gloves, i tried L Sized Gloves and found them very comfortable and secure. My cramster mesh jacket's cuff was tucked in and the velcro straps of the gloves sealed tight, the jacket's cuff didn't come out even when i tried to pull it out :P I bought them for Rs 2300/- No discounts in motomania unfortunately :( But no regrets, post my crash, i don't think twice before investing in riding gear.

Oh yeah, forgot the important info, the motomania chaps didn't accept any type of cards, they accept only hard cash! It meant that sachin and me had to do rounds to Atm and we came back to the store and bought the 2 gloves. It almost 6 pm, time indeed flies! We had to go to koramangala for CCD meet with fellow riders for exchanging our pics taken during our last week's ride. We fought our way back through traffic from indiranagar to koramangala and reached CCD at 7. Met up with Prasanna/LJ and Tana/Krishna/Praveen. Praveen donated his laptop for photo tranfers :P and we all exchanged our pics and saw each others set of pics. All pics had come out very well. Loads of coffee, cigs, talk, jokes went on and on before everyone realised that it was well past 9.30 pm! Since i didn't have my bike, i had to take a rick, that would mean bloody fleecing at night, so sachin decided to lend his bike to me. We all bid byes to each other and i hitched a ride with sachin as pillion till his home. From there, borrowed his bike and his lid, Wore the new DSG Primal Leather Gloves that i had bought and reached home well past 11 much to ire of my parents :P The gloves were very comfy to say the least, i decided that i would use them for few days in city to "run in" them for future rides :P


Woke up early on sunday morning, i had to take back sachin's bike to his place and from there we had to go to Motomania again as the chaps there had told us to come by morning for DSG jackets. Reached sachin's home by 11, from there again sachin rode through same fucked up traffic and ensured that we reached Motomania store well past 12. Thankfully, the chaps there had got new lot and stocks of DSG Nero jackets. They had four colour combos. Red/Black (best looking ones) Blue/Black, Yellow/Black (too flashy) and Grey/Black. They had 3 sizes of M/L/XL. I tried all three sizes, but even M size shoulder armour was dropping for me :( Also, they didn't have all Black jacket, so ditched the idea of buying one for myself. Called up My Mangalore friend Zahin and informed him of colours and sizes, he asked us to buy Red/Black combo of size XL. We bought it for Rs 4500/- The jackets looked better than Cramster Meteor, but sachin was not convinced that they were of better quality than cramster jackets. They looked like they were of same quality as cramster jackets to me though.

Left Motomania by 2 and reached sachin's home by 3. Met up sachin's friend's Venky and chala, venky was flying to UK, so he was making last minute purchases in Jaynagar. It started to rain heavily, we were stuck in jayanagar for more than an hour and half, while waiting for rains to stop. Venky was through with winter wear shopping and wanted shoes, so we went to Katriguppe Bigbazaar area and hunted for shoes unsuccessfully, Sachin and Venky decided to head to Forum for shoes, while me and Chala shared a rick back home. My old splendor was going to be my ride for next week till i get back my zma from repairs. I had to go to Sai Motors on monday to submit more insurance docs on monday morning, was thinking whether to take splendor or not, decided against it and thought of travelling by bus!

Woke up pretty early on monday morning and boarded a bus to majestic, it's been ages since i have travelled in BMTC bus inside city :P relieved my college days :P Boarded another bus from teeming majestic bus stand and reached Sai motors by 11 Am. Mr kiran told me that they would be working on engine today, decarbonising and checking valves as my zma has run 47 K. Since i knew that i had to use my splendor for next 1 week for commute, that too at night, i decided to upgrade it's headlamp with that of new splendor's clear lens reflector. I enquired with Mr kiran if it was gonna be a straight fit and he confirmed the same. The new Reflector unit with H4 socket costed close to 400 bux. Bought one and decided to fix it in splendor after i reached home. Handed over the insurance documents in sai motors and again boarded a bus back home :P Total kharcha for commute in bus was Rs 30/- wonlee :P

Santoosh called up when i landed at home, he wanted to know if i had my old GP ONE lid as spare. I had stopped using GPONE lid after i bought a new all black GPR lid for city commutes, the GPONE had pathetic visor, all i could see was only stars at night! Santoosh needed a spare lid for his girl, I told him that he could pick it up.
He dropped in and checked the lid for fit, it was was fitting him fine, but he had to change the inner paddings as the paddings had lost their fluffyness after 2 years of use. As he was leaving, he noticed the new reflector unit, i told him that i was gonna fix it to my old splendor as the old headlamp in it was pathetic. He then surprised me by telling me that he can lend his Pulsar 180 for office commutes if i was interested and he will manage his college commutes in my splendor. I was really surprised and humbled by his helping nature even after my crash.

I confirmed and reconfirmed if he was really serious about his offer and he told me dead faced that he has no issues riding a splendor to his college! He told that i could pick up his bike by evening after dropping in my splendor at his place. I was really overjoyed and relieved, as riding a Splendor after these many years of riding Zma, in hosur road would have been nightmare for me, with his pulsar 180, it would be same as riding my zma. I thanked him and gave him the GPONE the lid. After he left, i changed the reflector unit of my old splendor with the new reflector unit and used my stock zma 35w H4 halogen bulb in it, fitted everything back. Light was marginally better than the stock old splendor crappy headlight. Slept pretty late post 1pm.

Started blogging after i wokeup :P Should get ready now and take the splendor to santoosh's home and pickup his pulsar 180. Next few days should be interesting riding his souped up Pulsar 180. Will get to see how this beast differs from my Zma.