What's with bikes and women ?

Against my usual practice of hitting the snooze button, today I woke up when the alarm-clock rang at 6AM in the morning. And this inspite of the fact that I slept late yesterday night since
I had gone out for a couple of drinks with a friend from the neighborhood, whom I had met
after a long time. It was an interesting conversation we had - actually a monologue because he was the one talking and I was just listening. Interesting enough to qualify for a blogpost here. Anyway, that's for later.

Since I woke up early, I did some warm-up exercises followed by some workouts for toning
the abs. Is it just me or do all men get more conscious about their waist as they get older ? Workout done, I hit the bath, get dressed and started for work around 30 mins earlier than
my usual time of 8AM.

Even though summer has started in Chennai, this week was kinda nice weather and today
was no exception. I am feeling good for various reasons - some stuff at work, the morning workout which I think does something to your feel-good hormones, the good weather & the
fact that driving is such a pleasure at this time since the roads are almost empty.

I have covered around 2/3rd of my commute and am waiting at the TIDEL park signal,
waiting for the light to turn green. Suchi, the RJ of Radio-One FM station, is on air and is
talking in her oh-so-cute-n-sexy voice and her voice adds to my happiness. And then I
hear a mild Vrooooom that slowly turns louder.

I look into my rear-view mirror and see a SuperBike (SBK) zoom past me and come to a
stop in the space just before my car. Seated on the pillion is a young girl. I don't know
whether it is the high seating position of the SBK or her way of dressing, but her denim
pants are riding low exposing her innerwear. Like those kids in the US where it seems its
a fashion to wear pants a size or two more than your normal size, just so that the underwear
is visible.

The guy riding the bike must be one lucky bloke. Not only do you have a SBK to have absolute
riding nirvana, but also a pretty girlfriend to share the ride. Must be having a super-rich Dad because the retail price of these bikes can range close to a million rupees in India. Anyway,
he is revving the bike every now and then, which I am guessing is to gain the attention / admiration of those around. After all, what use is a 1-million rupee bike, if you don't get
atleast a few envious or admiring looks ?

Looks like he was getting impatient waiting for the signal to turn green and decides to take
the free left turn instead of going straight and zoooooms off. A few seconds after they left,
the signal turns green and I drive on to work. As I near my office, a bike advt comes up on
the radio. It is for a newly released Suzuki 150cc bike which has a girl seductively saying,
"Drive me crazy".

Huh! Drive her crazy with a puny 150cc bike costing about 60K rupees ? Even if girls get impressed by bikes, I am sure most girls today would not even bother looking at guys riding such a bike. So where is the question of her being driven crazy by it ? Ofcourse if it were a
SBK, that would be something else.

That brings me to the bike I test-rode last weekend. A funky looking Apache 160. Liked the bike, but am keeping my options open till I also test-ride the Yamaha FZ16 also. After the
test-ride, the dealer gave me a brochure of the bike, which had this tagline, "Now women will have to try extra hard to hitch a ride". Try hard for what ? A ride on a 65K 160cc bike ?
Looks like the advertisers have completely lost it.

When I was in college, guys seriously believed that to get a girl, one of the important things
to have was a bike. Ofcourse we don't know what women thought about this. I did not have
a bike when I was dating my first girlfriend. She fell for me inspite of my not having a bike.
Ofcourse it is a different thing that we parted ways (amicably) in just about 6 months because we understood that our idea of life was diametrically opposite - she loved America and wanted
to be there ASAP, I loved India and wanted to be here all my life. For her life was about affluence and material things like big home, big car etc. For me, while money is important to
live, it was not the most important thing.

Anyway, coming back to topic, the best example I know of is a friend from my neighborhood
who was sure that all he needed to get a girl was a nice bike. He saved, scrimped & borrowed money to acquire a Yamaha RX100 (a rage then), but the girl part did not happen. He then decided that it could be because all the girls moved from being bike-crazy to car-crazy. :-)