Graveley, Nick

I’m a graduate of Coventry University’s Transport Design MDes degree. For the last 3.5 years I’ve been based out in Asia. Initially working for TVS Motor Company for the first 3 years and then briefly for Tyga Performance in Thailand.

An expert in design and modelling with UK and US citizenship, always open to a good opportunity. Contact me to find out my current status.

And, just in case you ever wondered what it’s like to ride a motorcycle in India:

“Just make sure you ride faster than everyone else, and you may survive”. These were my friend’s confidence building offerings as I sunk into the low saddle. I sat there for a moment, and relished the feeling of have just bought my first box fresh motorcycle, and all for roughly the same price as a genuine Honda wheel nut. For this was Bangalore, India, and below me was a brand spanking new Royal Enfield Bullet Machismo 350. Never in my life did I anticipate such a purchase, but I was assured by onlookers that the Bullet was a very fine motorcycle indeed, and since this was always accompanied by the ubiquitous “head wobble”, who was I to argue.

Anyway, after several attempts to mirror, signal, manoeuvre, it became clear that this was no way to break into traffic here. From watching others, it seemed the best approach was to just lean on the horn, proceed without looking and let everyone avoid you. After a further few moments of observing the locals’ complete disregard for personal safety, I finally took a deep breath and wobbled out into traffic - my technique being to have a bit of a look, a bit of bib on the horn and a bit of a coronary.

To say laughing out loud was my first reaction to riding a Bullet, may be taken the wrong way. I think I was more laughing with it than at it, however I was in absolutely no doubt that this was the crappest motorcycle I’d ever ridden. The throttle seemed to alter only the volume with which I trundled down the road, and this being the apparently superior disc brake model, didn’t. Having said that, my scariest experience to date is the one where some time later I tried out the vintage drum brake model… Oh, how we laugh about it now.

I really felt like I was quickly getting the hang of navigating through this disorganised chaos, and I was beginning to see the beauty of the “fastest thing on the road” advice, as it meant that I only had to worry about the anarchy unfolding in front of me. There I was popping and vibrating down the road quite merrily, when without warning, the music stopped. With a backing track of 20 horns being leant on in unison, I wrestled my silenced Bullet to the side of the road, where I started the usual ”I have no idea what’s wrong with this” routine of waggling wires and furious tutting. Soon, the gathering crowd of inquisitive onlookers helped me locate the problem. Apparently, overwhelmed by my ruthless negotiation skills, the salesman had misunderstood what I meant by “full tank”.

Fortunately, the shop across the street that as well as selling sugar syrup, (recklessly referred to as coffee in these parts) had bottles of yellow stuff outside that I was assured contained at least 50% petrol. Retrieving said “fuel” involved a leap of faith in crossing the road, but finally I broke through the smoke screen laid out by the rickshaws’ collective external combustion engines and dived into the relative safety of the shop, where I negotiated the purchase of a litre of Esso’s worst. Safely back with the bike, and feeling like a bad parent feeding his baby single-malt, I sloshed the fuel in and crossed my fingers. After several attempts, my sandal-clad chicken legs thrashing away at the kick-starter mercilessly, it finally roared again, and I was back on the road.

My understanding of the Indian road hierarchy was also beginning to develop, and so my ability to stay alive. On the face of it, it’s fairly simple to understand, and goes according to size. You have pedestrians at the bottom of the food chain, going up through cyclists, pony and trap, scooter, motorcycle, auto rickshaw and so on and so forth up to bus. However, the cow is king, and ambles nonchalantly through India’s highway network as it damn well pleases. Riding a motorcycle puts you fairly low down in these ranks, so can be pretty stressful, there is however a national hobby that can offer some light relief though. Should a pedestrian inadvertently fall asleep in the middle of the road, as one is wont to do (I hoped due to narcolepsy, rather than reasoned decision) all traffic would play a game called “Let’s-see-how-close-we-can-drive-to-this-guy-without-hitting-him”. This was clearly an extremely rewarding game for all involved, judging by the number of people laying down to participate.

A car’s light clusters are apparently supplied for decorative purposes only, and it’s customary to rewire these so the vehicle looks like a travelling disco. For safety’s sake though the now redundant reverse lights, are replaced with the delightful audible warning of “It’s a small world after all”.