It still vividly plays in my memory, my first encounter with a motorcycle. The first time I was under the impression that I was riding a motorcycle. She was my father’s beloved Yamaha Delux 100 (which I crashed later!).

I was sitting on the petrol tank in front of my father as we were gliding over the Kaptai damn with blue calm waters on one side and lush green slopes on the other. He took his hand off of the handle and let me be in control. I twisted the throttle as hard as I could and she screamed past everything. The wind beating down on my face and the iconic two-stroke sound tearing through the silence and I became awestruck — the kind of awesomeness that lasts throughout someone’s life.

Since then, motorcycles never left me. Or, I should say I could never leave motorcycles. Alhamdulillah, I have had the luck of owning more than a few motorcycles. Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Italian, Austrian you name it I have ridden it. They are amazing in their own ways. From a mere 50cc and to a 1000cc, the sense of freedom on the open road is always the same. Every motorcycle, as I have learned them, comes with a character of its own. There are the witty ones; the angry ones, the temperamental ones, the soulful ones and the list goes on and on. If you can see a motorcycle as more than a commuter, you are guaranteed to discover things that you would miss out on otherwise. Like the way my daughters love to get on the bike and go for a short ride every now and then, like the way I discovered that my father’s Yamaha didn’t need a key and she could be started with a mere spoon end and there are a lot of stories.

The natural progression of a true motorcyclist is to become a customizer. It’s only a matter of time when a biker feels the urge to be an individual. I have tried my hand and customized a bike or two.