Interview with motorcycle blogger Praveen from India
I’m very happy to say that I’ve finally managed to make the interview with Praveen - a motorcycle blogger from India. He runs a blog called “My Escapades” and I really enjoyed the special flavour of his stories, motorcycling unites us all but still can be very different.
- Cristian: Hi Praveen, and welcome on board! I did most of my interviews with bikers from US, so how is to ride in India?
Praveen: First of all thanks for including my blog in your list and this interview. Will try my best to represent my country at you space. I am sure it would be awesome to ride in US with those wide open spaces and various terrains in offer. As for riding in India with the kinda bikes we have and the prevalent roads conditions, we would take as much saddle time to ride 100 kms or more as much you would for 100 miles in US. So are our average speeds in KMs as it would be in miles in US. 60kmph is considered a s good touring average including breaks and all here. The terrain changes every few hundred kms and you don’t really have enough time to get bored of a terrain you are in.
- Cristian:From your blog I get that you like long roads and riding in groups. What would be your dream tour?
Praveen: I have been following sites like advrider enough to grow my wish list. An RTW is quite a dream tour.
- Cristian: I’m really impressed about the pictures you are taking while riding. How do you decide this or that could be a nice picture?
Praveen: Thanks. The albums in my gallery except from last year are from my friends. We do take photographs to save the memories just like every one. Of course we have to choose a few from the many we take. All my riding buddies are inclined towards photography as well. So i do get tips from them.
- Cristian: What bike do you have, and how did you choose it?
Praveen: I currently have HeroHonda CBZ. 156cc mill dishing out 12.8 bhp. Its detuned version of Honda cbx200. Its from Hero motors India in collaboration with Honda. As for choosing it, it was based on looks. Now looking for an upgrade of more than what is available currently. We have Karizma again a HH bike 223cc 17 bhp bike(Derived from Honda crf230 engine).Want something bettor than this. Hope something gets launched here soon. Of course there is the Royal Enfield and i am not an enfield kinda guy 
- Cristian: Any tips for riding a bike in India?
Praveen: As my friend says, Road here is alive! Its unpredictable. An US client who visited our company on business, exclaimed “Driving in India is like playing Video game. You never know what comes in your way to dodge!”. Need to be lot more alert as a lot more things can happen on the road. Fender benders, People not on vehicles and animals do use the road as well. But its a matter of time getting used to the unpredictability and then every thing works out. The speeds involved are less, the accident rates are comparable to else where in the world. The roads in themselves are very good most of the places and improving with more lanes all over the country. You even get lot of opportunities to go flat out on what ever bike/car you own. Speed detection is not yet employed here at least not out of town. We do get to ride around 65 to 75 mph when not in hilly areas. At least that’s what our bikes are able to do max.
- Cristian: I’ve seen a lot of reports in your blog about problems with your bike. What skills do you need to keep it in working condition?
Praveen: The problems that i had in a couple of trips was because I got modification done in the electrical to get better light output by installing HID xenon headlights just hours before the trip. It went out on those trips without adequate testing and chinks proved problematic. Else when the bike was running stock, no problems as such. Just keep learning some things which may help. But we do maintain it and get it properly serviced before heading out.
- Cristian: Putting money aside, what would be your dream bike?
Praveen: I would really like the Suzuki V-Strom. 90% of the time i am on roads, but do like to take the bike offroading at will. Like riding in Himalayas and also should not feel very out of place on track. I guess V-Strom fits the bill. And looks great as well.
- Cristian: What would be an excellent route to ride in India? (name some places to visit)
Praveen: There are three main areas of riding:
1) Himalayan circuit covering the highest passes in the world. The following is popular route Delhi-Srinagar -kargil-Leh-KhardungLa(Officially the highest pass)-PangongTso Lake-Leh-Manali-Delhi. There are lot of other places to explore
2) Rajasthan: This is the Desert area where on can ride visiting various historical cityes, forts, sand dunes. Jaiselmer, Jaipur, Bikener to name a few places and u have flat lands of ‘Rann of Kutch’ a lil south.
3) Western Ghats in South India: This is where i am based and a lot of riding can be done as u got beaches green mountains, historical places etc. Goa, Gokarn, Udupi, Kemmmangundi, Kudremukh, Munnar, Wayanad etc and lot more.
- Cristian: Favorite food while on tour?
Praveen: We have a lot of diversity in food habits from place to place. Travel a 100 kms and the food is different. So we actually get to taste different foods and cant really pick a favorite. But there are some common foods like ‘Idli’ which basically a rice dumpling. This is what i resort to if my health goes bad as this has no oil no spice and wont mess with metabolism. Of course have to resort to ‘Roti’ for simple food as we head north.
- Cristian: Any other motorcycle blogs you are reading?
Praveen: I read my friend Arun’s ‘Chasing the clouds‘ and Vinod’s ‘Motorcycle Dairies‘. But now i got your blog and the amazing collection from the world over in your list.
- Cristian: What is the biggest adventure or the ride you will never forget you had while touring?
Praveen: I cant really forget any of my rides cos that’s the reason I blog almost all of them, so that i could re-live them. The biggest one was an almost cross country ride last year covering 4500 kms in 9 days. We sped through our familiar area and visited the other two riding areas i mentioned above. Here’s the LINK for that trip.
- Cristian: How did you get into riding a motorcycle?
Praveen: Bikes here are used as mode of transport to commute in the city. I bought mine, as a young guy needs to have bike! That’s the norm here. Chanced upon a Indian biking forum looking for something and then was enlightened about the concept of touring on bikes. I got hooked and have been riding ever since.
Great interview Cristian! It’s always interesting to me to hear things from people around the world, it widens my perspective.
[...] from Motorcycle and Scooter Talk commented on my interview with motorcycle blogger Praveen from India that: “It’s always interesting to me to hear things from people around the world, it widens [...]