Aliens Space station ride

“Loose control…loose control…” went off the alarm on my cellphone at 5:00 in the morning. It took me a while to come to my senses. “Oh yeah…I have my maiden HBC ride today”. Less than an hour later, I was on the saddle of my Firefox Target, riding down towards Kothaguda. As I was enjoying the fresh morning breeze hitting my face, I heard a voice – “are you coming for the ride?”

“hi…yeah…the HBC ride”

“yeah we’re also going there. Hi, I’m Sunil”

That was my very first encounter with HBC. Soon I realized there’s one more guy following him – Satish. We all made it to the stadium well in time, with a few joining us enroute and the rest meeting us at the ‘meetup’ point. A couple of Gary Fishers, a few Treks, couple of Targets, a Hercules and 9 riders on the saddles started the ride towards HCU gate.

Riding through the university we took some muddy short-cuts to the rear gate of the university. Early monsoon glory could be seen everywhere. The soil was no more dry and barren. The leaves looked as if they just had their ablution before the early morning pooja. Scattered clouds in the sky were telling the story of last night downpour. It was a beautiful day to ride. Soon we found ourselves off-roading (I know that’s not even a word but what the heck…) on a trail behind the “Alien’s space station-I”. No, it is not the India call-center of NASA. It is just a residential community…yes, for humans. Off road riding was real fun. Few of us decided to get a little more adventurous started sprinting on the trail. High speed off-roading is fun!

The trail runs parallel to the railway track for quite sometime. I was immediately reminded of “mere sapno ki rani” from Aradhana. Remember Rajesh Khanna with his mouth organ on an open jeep? The difference is that today, it was a goods train running on those tracks and there was no Sharmila Tagore peeping stealthily from behind a book. But then again, I am no Rajesh Khanna.

A rain probably would have made this trip even better. Nothing like riding through the rain. But the clouds didn’t co-operate. Never mind, if the skies don’t pour, we know how to lift up water off the ground. Speeding your way through the waterlogged roads under the railway bridge would do for now. Every soul got drenched in the muddy water. Rains – may be some other time.

Riding through Lingampally, we reached the University where we stopped for a ‘bye-bye-see-you-again-nice-meeting-you’ chat.

The ride was fun and I being on my maiden ride with HBC, really enjoyed it. This route was new for me and anything undiscovered is always more than welcome. That’s the spirit of adventure I believe.

Some moments shared here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/trulyani/HBC#

Animesh
Team HBC