50000 kms in 3.3 years!

It had to happen :P I was on my way to office today on my Zma, nearing whitefield, my moment of joy flashed on the speedo console, the reading was 50000 kms in odo meter. It was time for Kodak moment :P so pulled over to the side and clicked the momento picture on my phone camera.



It’s been 3 years and 3 months since I became a tourer, Zma transformed me from a city commuter on a splendor to a tourer. I still remember the day when me and good friend of mine had gone to Prakash motors during lunch break on a week day straight from office to book and choose my zma from the lot :P there were 3 Silver Zmas, I didn’t start or even touch any of those, just saw the three of them and chose mine, I had this gut feeling that this bike is the one among the lot :P Haven’t regretted till date, won’t regret in future either.

Googling for Zma’s feed back introduced me to biking groups like Xbhp and touring group BikeNomads. I made many friends over all these years through these two groups and met interesting people. I opened a new chapter of touring after I bought zma, she has taken me through various places, places I had earlier seen on map or seen only through Tv :P She gave me freedom to fly on two wheels to any destination that earlier were “so far” :P I honed my riding skills on zma over a period of time and she was very forgiving whenever I erred, never ever let me down even in the worst of the scenarios.

Even when I crashed for the first time in Kemmangundi’s horrible roads, she took all the brunt and spared me the injuries. At the same time, she didn’t get crippled, after minor repairs at a local service center there for 1 hour, she was ready to be ridden back with a pillion and cramster saddle bags to boot! Sachin was belting her at 90 – 100 kmph on the way back from crash, still she didn’t make a fuss out of it. Gave her a complete make over after reaching Bangalore and now she’s as good as a new bike. Didn’t mind that getting her back to old self after the crash drained me financially, It was my way of saying thanks to the trusty old battle scarred war horse.



Each Km of the 50k kms have been bliss so far, she’s been an excellent commuter in city for my office – home commutes so far in my earlier office and a reliable tourer machine in all my rides out of town. I will be getting a Cab now on for my daily office commutes in new office, so she’s going to be spared of horrible city commutes, which she had to bear the brunt of all these years. Now on she’s gonna much kms only on highways majorly. Over a period I did pamper her with usual spares that get worn out, after the crash, I got a entire new set of “clothes” :P new set of tyres, 55/60w headlamp bulb and recently added a custom made crashguard to save her costly “clothes” :P from damage. Am planning to gift her twin horns soon and a HID later.

I can sum up by saying that Zma’s an excellent machine which is an excellent commuter and tourer if ridden and maintained properly. It does have it’s own share of flaws like flimsy plastic panels, astronomically priced spares, shortage of spares etc, but I guess all logic fails when I see the pics from all my rides and imagine the fun I had in each of those rides! Those moments are priceless!