Hm. Where do i begin ? Maybe with the beginning.

It began on a tumultuous night. You see, there are times when you think you are flying high. That everything seems perfect. That nothing can go wrong. And that is usually when things do. I’ve noticed that there is this pattern to life..

5th November 2023. When Santo sent me the invite for the group, there were only 3 sentences that were exchanged.

Exhilarating, life changing self growth. That’s what the group has given me. I have been brothers with these gentlemen from the time I was a just passed out student, to when I got a job, became a teacher and to the time that these men saw me get married.

By nature, I am quite cautious and guarded. I don’t undertake much. I am scared to fail. Yet with these guys around, I couldn’t sit in my comfort zone. They saw in me something that perhaps I had long forgotten or couldn’t see. Perhaps on of the most life changing words I have heard came from Santo when I was telling him the difficulties of being a Ride Captain and that it involved taking a hard stance sometimes.

“You are not here to win a popularity contest. You do what you need to do when you put on that helmet. Here, Age doesn’t matter. Capability does”

I would say that those words changed my entire perspective of how I look at things. I was always someone who would power through. But i was too accommodating. These things taught me to put the Group first. Myself or another individual did not take preference. It suddenly made things simple. I did not have to focus on twenty or thirty people. Just one entity – the group. Hey, but that’s enough about me. Let’s talk about the ride.

For god knows what reason, I decided that I did not want to be a Marshal on this ride. And that I would ride as a normal part of the group (Apologies again (Sendhil, Don, Aanand and Morattu). So I ended up at Spot 3 of Group 2. 4 Groups in total, averaging 10 riders. Now of course, its not the numbers we take pride in. Any group can rack up numbers.

But I dare you, double dare you, to find a group that can precisely lock down riding position, accommodation, food preferences (to the point where a vegan had food prepared without dairy), fuel and break timings for bikes of multiple displacement whilst still maintaining formation and completing the entire 350 odd kilometres, without any untoward incidents, within noon. Let me tell you, don’t even bother, These guys plan things like a surgery unit or special forces task team . The attention to detail is incredible.

Don’t believe me ? Let me give you an example. The Tail of the group stops with any rider who may stop for whatever reason. If this happen, The Sweep, switches to the rear and continues tailing till the Tail catches up. Simple right ? Ok, so what if they don’t catch up ? Well, in a couple of kilometres, the lead is instructed to slow down. What if another rider has to stop in the meanwhile ? The Sweep would stop with them whilst another Renegade in the middle would be asked to fall back to tail. And the group would slow down even further. The riding group behind us would overtake and continue onward whilst the group from which the riders had broken off would move progressively to the rear to make it easiest for the guys who stopped to catch up. If it still does not happen, the group halts and informs the captain via speed dial.

And imagine, all this pre-planned and done on the fly. And this is just one of the hundreds of the things that are planned out in the pre ride brief.

Ah I seen to have gotten distracted again.

Anyhow, I was at number 3 and we were doing excellent time, I am not a big fan of the overhyped 70 hairpin bend climb to Kolli. The ascent is too steep and curves are too narrow and you do not have the momentum to enjoy the pitch and roll that make a hill ride so fun. And you have a constant onslaught of heavy vehicular movement. We got up there quite safely and finished a good lunch at the resort. We had 4 hours to kill. One group wished to do the Aahaya Gangai falls (Translation – Ganges in the Sky) Now I’d already done it once the previous year and had no wish to negotiate the thousand step trek post lunch. So I decided take along (Introvert) Prem and do the 72 bends downhill. Now the very steepness of what makes the uphill so annoying to make is what makes the downhill run so fun ! We zipped around on the Hondas and got back up by 6 for when the Anniversary meet was scheduled.

Now the thing with the Renegade Working Committee is that they are full of surprises that spring when you least expect it.

The meet started ordinarily enough with Santo giving us a breakdown of the ride. Next they began to play a video that started off charting the CR journey so far. What came next blew us all away. They’d gone to the lengths to contact our families in secret and make them all record videos for us. Imagine my surprise (and horror !) when my wife pops up accusing these buggers of holding me up for 2 hours at midnight over a phone call while my calls with her at a stretch would struggle to cross the 10 minute mark. Jokes aside, it was extremely heartwarming for all the riders to see their children/ spouses on screen sharing their joy of riding.

The next bit is always a special and integral part of the long rides. The Outlawing ceremony where promising riders are evicted from the RoadMasters and Inducted into the Renegades. This time Prem, Jayesh, RamPrasad and Saravanan were the chosen ones. Congrats, you guys, Now you can be subjected to full extent of our tomfoolery. Now this is usually where we wind up go off for dinner.

But this time around, surprises and more surprises. ( When did you plan all this you crafty old foxes ?)

Six of the old members were to be honoured for going above and beyond the call of duty for contributing to the club. Now Abhi, the silent sly smiling bugger takes on the mammoth task of coordinating and arranging food and accommodation for the ENTIRE group. Now I couldn’t do it in a million years if you held my damn hand and taught me how to do it. I honestly have no idea how he pulls it off. Morattu is a silent contributor who quietly marshals and tails from the back who has been around for longer than I have. Rahul has been a newer find and is an excellent lead who also coordinates meet ups and plans out break timings and locations for the breaks along the ride.

The fourth was me. The Fifth and Sixth were Super tail Aldo and Survesh. Now Survesh being called out was quite a surprise. However my sense of surprise was short lived as it gave  way to utter shock as a video began to play – so much so that I shouted out “HEY ?!”

The Official Chennai Renegades Website was ready.

I’d been asking for close to a year for a website to be initiated. But then it kind of dropped off and I had assumed the logistics weren’t feasible. But then these buggers had been quietly working behind the scenes for 2 months ! 2 entire months after their day jobs sitting and writing code (Hacker Boys !) for getting up the website and by god, did it look fantastic. The memento for all of us – a small magnetic badge with a beautiful laser cut star, In the middle the initials of the club. And the halo around the star, emblazoned with the words “Exemplary Contributor”

Just when I thought the excitement couldn’t go any higher, the boys signed off with a bang. A bag of goodies for every rider. Stickers, a RFID proof wallet, a keychain and a water bottle (With the water bottle being aimed towards reducing utilisation of plastic water bottles on rides) They were right. They had set the bar way too high.. So high, I fear that it would be difficult for even themselves to trump it next year. But of course they’ll come up with something. They always do.

At this juncture, my own words come back to me. Remember how I said, when you have excellent highs, life likes to throw lows ? A low might come. But you know what? I’m not afraid.

And that’s because we only play by our own rule book. We are pioneers and forerunners. We’re the rebels. The Outlaws.

Presenting to you, One Year of The Chennai Renegades Motorcycling Club.

2023 – Ad Infinitum