The day I saw the RD for the very first time, is a day that will be forever embedded within my very being. I remember being on my way to the stationery store, about to pick up some photocopies of documents for my tattoo studio. Riding down the lane on my RX100, I caught a glimpse of an RD350 leaning against a wall in front a garage. Beaten and battered, this RD had been parked at the garage for repairs concerning its shock absorbers.
With a gasp, I quickly parked my bike to the side and rushed to the garage. RD350s are revered for their significance in biking history; owning one would most definitely be a dream come true. I asked the owner of the garage if the bike was for sale, and I gave him an offer on the spot. He informed me that he would liaise with the owner of the bike, find out if the bike was indeed for sale, and that he would call me in the evening.
I had been saving up some money in order to purchase a KTM RC390: the plan was to ride from Pune to Bangalore, rendezvous with my friends, the The Kriegers (KTM 390 Duke Owners, Bangalore), and then ride from Bangalore to Goa for the India Bike Week festival. Once I laid eyes on the RD, though, all thoughts of a KTM were immediately dismissed. And who could blame me? An RC390 made sense to me at the time, as it boasted the latest technology, was a little faster, more mean-looking, and featured more of a racing theme as opposed to the 390 Duke. A street-racer seating stance was perfect for my taste and requirements.
For a while now, I had also been looking for a bike that could be the official mascot for my tattoo studio, Darkside Ink. In addition to tattoos, we also conduct custom airbrush work, which is why I wanted a bike that I could showcase these unique paint-jobs on, so that people in Pune could understand what airbrush work truly entails. When I took one look at that RD350, though, I knew that the Darkside mascot could no longer be a KTM. It had to be her –this beaten and neglected RD – that would be brought back to life at the Darkside.
Growing up, I had always dreamt of owning my very own RD350, but I never had the opportunity to do so due to a lack of funds. Instead, I had one of the first Japanese models in my possession: an RX100. I did a lot of street-racing back in the day, mostly a lot of night racing on MG Road in Bangalore. My RX had been completely converted into an RX135: it had an underbelly expansion chamber exhaust, split handlebars, a café-racer look, and a reclined gear-changing system. It had also been converted into a single-seater. So, doing something in a café-racer style has always been a part of me and my individual taste.
This is how I have always preferred riding a bike. The KTM390 did fit in perfectly with these requirements, though there was a slight snag in my heart since it was a four-stroke. However, this particular model seemed to be a lot better than the other four-strokes out there, since it doesn’t suffer from the knocking effect, and the deceleration isn’t as fast as opposed to the other models. The fact that these issues had been rectified by KTM had initially convinced me to purchase a 390.
However, I have always preferred a two-stroke: I need that raw punch of power. For those who know me, you will most definitely have been introduced to my small collection. I have five different models of Yezdis: for example, I have two Classics, one CL2, one Jawa, and one B Type. I am still in pursuit of a Roadking and Deluxe to add to my collection. As mentioned before, I also have an RX100 (again, a Japanese engine). It has always been a two-stroke that does the trick for me: the blue smoke has absolutely no substitute for me.
Coming back to the RD350: as mentioned, I first laid eyes on her when she was at her worst. To me, she looked like a fallen angel that had her wings chopped off, down on the floor, lying broken on Earth.Thus, it was more appealing for me to go for the RD instead of the KTM, because I love restoring bikes. Each and every bike that I possess has been restored by me. Some of them, I have picked up from scrapyards; while some of them had been lying around in people’s backyards, unused and neglected for years. Bringing back these beautiful items to life and making them as good as new has its own form of euphoria and fulfillment associated with it, which I cannot really describe in words. Doing up one’s own bike on one’s own comes with its own appeal and satisfaction, especially when one gets to ride it – I can’t really describe it, but I’m certain that some readers can relate to this.
This is when all thoughts of the KTM went out the window. Since the RD had already been converted into a café-racer style, this was, in a way, a dream come true for me. I had always wanted to perform such modifications onto an RD350. But, if I ever see a bike that is in standard condition, I cannot bring my heart to put after-market items onto the bike, because I feel that this is just not doing justice to the vehicle. She either has to look the way she had when she was first presented at the showroom, or she has to look completely different and radical.
With my heart pounding, I began to visualise what to do with this bike. There are so many ideas and possibilities when it comes to café-racers; so many things that other people have done to their bikes. No matter what I would do, there would be nothing that was truly different, because a café-racer is traditionally built in your backyard, so there will always be someone else that has thought of something before you. This is something that has been done for at least 30-40 years now, so whatever that can be done, in most cases, has already been done. If someone says that they are the first or only person to have ever done something to a café-racer in this day and age, I would either laugh in their face, or bow down to them in respect.
My mind was racing with the many possibilities of what could be done with this bike. For those of you that are reading this, you probably already know that an RD350 is world-famous for its power, its raw punch, and the racing heritage that it boasts. I strongly believe that Yamaha wouldn’t have had its R1 or M1 today if not for the racing legacy that the RD or the RZ had emblazoned upon the world in the 1970s. The RD350 can be considered to be the backbone of Yamaha’s racing heritage. So, I wanted to do something that would have something to do with the Kenny Roberts era. My mind reeling, I began to visualise this beauty: front fairing with the rear aerodynamic seating fender, something that looks as if it was made in the 1970s that has only been restored by me, rather than actually modified by me.
When the garage owner finally called that evening, I picked up the phone with shaking hands. Could I really be the owner of an RD350 – a prized piece of racing history; a bike that practically every biker yearns to own? As luck would have it, the owner of the bike, a Wing Commander of the Indian Air Force, was willing to part with it for a certain price. The bike had already been converted into a café-racer style, and the owner stated that he was now growing out of it, and wanted to purchase a more comfortable and convenient bike for his weekend rides instead, such as a Royal Enfield Classic or a Bullet.
So, we began to negotiate and move toward striking a deal. The only hitch in the road was that the bike was still registered under the state of Mizoram, and that the owner was yet to transfer the bike under the Pune RTO. Thankfully, the owner of the bike was a military man, which entailed that he was the kind of man that wanted everything done right, by the book and without a catch. Unfortunately for me, ‘by the book’ in India also necessitates a long waiting period. At this point, I realised that if Wing Commander Choudhari would take a while to get back to me with the documents, I wouldn’t be able to fix the bike up in time for the ride to IBW. The bike needed a lot of work, and I had plans to ride this baby all the way to Bangalore, catch up with The Kriegers, and then ride together to Goa. I couldn’t sleep that night.
Early the next morning, I called up Wing Commander Choudhari, asking if I could begin work on the bike before it was due at the RTO, and, on the day of the passing, I would ensure that the bike would look the same as it had on the day that he handed it to me. Following that, I would begin to work on the cosmetic changes for the bike. To make things more comfortable for the owner, I handed him a cash payment for half of the amount, along with a post-dated cheque for the remainder. On the day that the bike had to be rolled out to the RTO, something incredible happened: I realised that the engine number for this baby was 666.
The tattoo studio that I own is called ‘Darkside Ink’, while the customisation front of it is called ‘Darkside Customs’. Mind you, we don’t call our company ‘Darkside’ because we fancy ourselves to be dark lords or something equally ridiculous. We call it the Darkside because this is one side that each and every person possesses. For some reason or other – be it society, responsibilities, etc. – we have pushed our inner child, our inner wants and desires, into what is perceived to be our ‘dark side’, which we are encouraged by society to further suppress. At Darkside, we encourage our friends and clients to bring this side out: to embrace your true self, and unleash the beast within. This is the dark side of you: a side that we all own, where we dump all of our dreams, wishes and desires, never looking back while we adjust ourselves into a monotonous routine of 9 to 5.
So, when I realised that the engine number for the RD is 666, I couldn’t help but break out into a wide grin. How ironic is it that the number of the beast finds its way to the Darkside? This is definitely meant to be, I tell myself excitedly. This is when I decided to put the number 666 onto the bike; it played a good role, as it further enhanced its vintage racing appearance.
Amongst all of the chaos associated with ensuring that a deal is struck and that trust is formed with the owner of the bike, the owner of the garage where I had initially found the bike decided to throw another hurdle my way, refusing to give me the bike because he had failed to make his cut out of the entire transaction. I had to waste another day trying to convince him to give me the bike; according to him, he would not hand me the bike because its suspension monoshocks were broken, and that this needed to be fixed. Since he had a lot of work on his hands already, he wouldn’t be able to get it done for at least another few days. So, I went out, found a fabricator myself, brought him to this garage with his welding machine, fixed the problem on the spot, and brought the vehicle to a position where it could finally be rolled out. Following this, we moved the bike to the parking lot of our tattoo studio.
The next step on the agenda was to find a craftsman who could turn my vision into reality. I needed someone that could conduct all of the metal-work for me: the denting, the tinkering, etc. It took me about a week to find somebody for this, but this also gave me some breathing room to think about the bike and truly visualise the colour patterns on it; the front fairing, the rear fender, and all of the different aspects and changes that the engine would go through in order to be transformed into Darkspawn, the official mascot for the Darkside. I surfed through countless designs on the web, such as Oberdan Bezzi’s Yamaha XS 750, and then began to formulate my own lines and designs. I had to scale down on a few items while bringing everything into proportion in order to ensure that the body matches the chassis and engine’s size.
I didn’t want it to be like one of those infuriating cases wherein something that is supposed to be put onto a Hayabusa is put onto a Pulsar. There are quite a lot of people selling kits like these, and there are also quite a lot of people that are moronic enough to buy these Hayabusa kits for Pulsars. This has got to be one of the most annoying things to witness on the streets: imagine, a Pulsar, which is a single-cylinder engine, with two exhausts. Seriously?! Alright, alright, I digress. Back to the point: I wanted to achieve the racing feel that looked authentic on the bike. Authenticity was key for me; I didn’t want it to look as if an R1 kit has been put onto an RD350, because that would be disrespectful both to the R1 as well as the RD.
To achieve all of this, I needed to find a craftsman who would work according to my design – someone in whom I could forge the right level of trust and understanding, so that whatever he did would be an accurate reproduction of what I was visualising. Having finally found somebody that acquiesced to doing the bike up within 20 days, I was stressed enough, as this would only leave me with about 5 days to complete the paint job. I paid the craftsman an advance, and we move the RD from the Darkside Ink parking lot to his workshop.
As is common in a country like ours, after having paid this man an advance, he didn’t show up to work on the first day. Apparently, he had to be at the police station, as his brother had stolen some goods from his workshop. I spent the entire day waiting outside the workshop while he rejected my numerous phone calls, praying that he would show up in time so that we could get some work done. After an entire day of waiting under the beating sun, I went home with a heavy heart, worried about completing the project in time. On the second day, the craftsman finally showed up. We did a little bit of work, cut out some cardboard layouts, and made templates for every aspect of the bike. On the third day, again, he didn’t show up. Ten guesses why? His mother wasn’t feeling well.
This went on for three days: I would go to the workshop, get frustrated by his absence, and sit around and wait for him. This is what you have to go through in order to get anything done in India – pay an advance out of your hard-earned money, and then listen to the incessant “my so-and-so isn’t feeling well today”s. Since I had already paid the craftsman the promised amount and a deal had already been struck, I couldn’t even take the bike out and work on her someplace else. This cycle goes on: he shows up on certain blessed days, we work a little bit on the tank, the front fairing, the rear fender, etc., but it is all completely chaotic. None of the jobs that were being conducted were following the plan. Each day, he would show up, and would want to work on something different, instead of completing what he had already begun working upon. Until, of course, he would vanish again, owing to yet another personal issue.
By now, it is Day 18, and I am beginning to lose my cool. As is natural in situations like these, the craftsman and I begin to face conflicts, as I feel cheated – having paid a man not just the first, but also the second installment, he simply does not do his job right, if he ever shows up for it. Things begin to get frustrating, as I am leaving my tattoo studio and coming to this craftsman’s workshop, and I am putting in all of my money into this project without being able to earn any income, as I am spending all of my time waiting for him to show up to work.
On Day 23, he finally walks up to me and says that he doesn’t feel that we can work together on this bike, because – and I quote – “our stars are not matching”. It was the most frustrating thing to hear, because it wasn’t about our ridiculous stars matching – it was about him doing his job and being responsible enough to do it right, since he had always been paid when he had asked for it. At the same time, though, I was elated that he had said what he had, because this meant that the bike was finally out of his clutches, and that I would no longer have to deal with him. Now, I just needed to find someone else that could work on the bike and complete it within a week’s time.
By now, the work has been postponed to such an extent, that there is no longer a chance that I can take the bike to Bangalore and catch up with the Kriegers. However, there is a slight chance that we could, perhaps, enter this bike into the Mod competition at the India Bike Week. It was more curiosity than surety – not expecting anything at all, we send an email to IBW, wondering if this bike could be worthy of being permitted to stand in the ring with the other contenders. As luck would have it, we received an e-mail from Mr. Shrijit Patil, informing us that it would be a delight to see an RD350 stand in the circle. Now we had even more reason to push things even further. This roller coaster ride had only just begun.
To be continued.....................
Yamaha RD350 Reincarnated- Darkspawn Part II
Yamaha RD350 Reincarnated- Darkspawn Final Part
By: Sachin Ramesh Shinde
With a gasp, I quickly parked my bike to the side and rushed to the garage. RD350s are revered for their significance in biking history; owning one would most definitely be a dream come true. I asked the owner of the garage if the bike was for sale, and I gave him an offer on the spot. He informed me that he would liaise with the owner of the bike, find out if the bike was indeed for sale, and that he would call me in the evening.I had been saving up some money in order to purchase a KTM RC390: the plan was to ride from Pune to Bangalore, rendezvous with my friends, the The Kriegers (KTM 390 Duke Owners, Bangalore), and then ride from Bangalore to Goa for the India Bike Week festival. Once I laid eyes on the RD, though, all thoughts of a KTM were immediately dismissed. And who could blame me? An RC390 made sense to me at the time, as it boasted the latest technology, was a little faster, more mean-looking, and featured more of a racing theme as opposed to the 390 Duke. A street-racer seating stance was perfect for my taste and requirements.
For a while now, I had also been looking for a bike that could be the official mascot for my tattoo studio, Darkside Ink. In addition to tattoos, we also conduct custom airbrush work, which is why I wanted a bike that I could showcase these unique paint-jobs on, so that people in Pune could understand what airbrush work truly entails. When I took one look at that RD350, though, I knew that the Darkside mascot could no longer be a KTM. It had to be her –this beaten and neglected RD – that would be brought back to life at the Darkside.
Growing up, I had always dreamt of owning my very own RD350, but I never had the opportunity to do so due to a lack of funds. Instead, I had one of the first Japanese models in my possession: an RX100. I did a lot of street-racing back in the day, mostly a lot of night racing on MG Road in Bangalore. My RX had been completely converted into an RX135: it had an underbelly expansion chamber exhaust, split handlebars, a café-racer look, and a reclined gear-changing system. It had also been converted into a single-seater. So, doing something in a café-racer style has always been a part of me and my individual taste.
This is how I have always preferred riding a bike. The KTM390 did fit in perfectly with these requirements, though there was a slight snag in my heart since it was a four-stroke. However, this particular model seemed to be a lot better than the other four-strokes out there, since it doesn’t suffer from the knocking effect, and the deceleration isn’t as fast as opposed to the other models. The fact that these issues had been rectified by KTM had initially convinced me to purchase a 390.
However, I have always preferred a two-stroke: I need that raw punch of power. For those who know me, you will most definitely have been introduced to my small collection. I have five different models of Yezdis: for example, I have two Classics, one CL2, one Jawa, and one B Type. I am still in pursuit of a Roadking and Deluxe to add to my collection. As mentioned before, I also have an RX100 (again, a Japanese engine). It has always been a two-stroke that does the trick for me: the blue smoke has absolutely no substitute for me.
Coming back to the RD350: as mentioned, I first laid eyes on her when she was at her worst. To me, she looked like a fallen angel that had her wings chopped off, down on the floor, lying broken on Earth.Thus, it was more appealing for me to go for the RD instead of the KTM, because I love restoring bikes. Each and every bike that I possess has been restored by me. Some of them, I have picked up from scrapyards; while some of them had been lying around in people’s backyards, unused and neglected for years. Bringing back these beautiful items to life and making them as good as new has its own form of euphoria and fulfillment associated with it, which I cannot really describe in words. Doing up one’s own bike on one’s own comes with its own appeal and satisfaction, especially when one gets to ride it – I can’t really describe it, but I’m certain that some readers can relate to this.
This is when all thoughts of the KTM went out the window. Since the RD had already been converted into a café-racer style, this was, in a way, a dream come true for me. I had always wanted to perform such modifications onto an RD350. But, if I ever see a bike that is in standard condition, I cannot bring my heart to put after-market items onto the bike, because I feel that this is just not doing justice to the vehicle. She either has to look the way she had when she was first presented at the showroom, or she has to look completely different and radical.
With my heart pounding, I began to visualise what to do with this bike. There are so many ideas and possibilities when it comes to café-racers; so many things that other people have done to their bikes. No matter what I would do, there would be nothing that was truly different, because a café-racer is traditionally built in your backyard, so there will always be someone else that has thought of something before you. This is something that has been done for at least 30-40 years now, so whatever that can be done, in most cases, has already been done. If someone says that they are the first or only person to have ever done something to a café-racer in this day and age, I would either laugh in their face, or bow down to them in respect.My mind was racing with the many possibilities of what could be done with this bike. For those of you that are reading this, you probably already know that an RD350 is world-famous for its power, its raw punch, and the racing heritage that it boasts. I strongly believe that Yamaha wouldn’t have had its R1 or M1 today if not for the racing legacy that the RD or the RZ had emblazoned upon the world in the 1970s. The RD350 can be considered to be the backbone of Yamaha’s racing heritage. So, I wanted to do something that would have something to do with the Kenny Roberts era. My mind reeling, I began to visualise this beauty: front fairing with the rear aerodynamic seating fender, something that looks as if it was made in the 1970s that has only been restored by me, rather than actually modified by me.
When the garage owner finally called that evening, I picked up the phone with shaking hands. Could I really be the owner of an RD350 – a prized piece of racing history; a bike that practically every biker yearns to own? As luck would have it, the owner of the bike, a Wing Commander of the Indian Air Force, was willing to part with it for a certain price. The bike had already been converted into a café-racer style, and the owner stated that he was now growing out of it, and wanted to purchase a more comfortable and convenient bike for his weekend rides instead, such as a Royal Enfield Classic or a Bullet.
So, we began to negotiate and move toward striking a deal. The only hitch in the road was that the bike was still registered under the state of Mizoram, and that the owner was yet to transfer the bike under the Pune RTO. Thankfully, the owner of the bike was a military man, which entailed that he was the kind of man that wanted everything done right, by the book and without a catch. Unfortunately for me, ‘by the book’ in India also necessitates a long waiting period. At this point, I realised that if Wing Commander Choudhari would take a while to get back to me with the documents, I wouldn’t be able to fix the bike up in time for the ride to IBW. The bike needed a lot of work, and I had plans to ride this baby all the way to Bangalore, catch up with The Kriegers, and then ride together to Goa. I couldn’t sleep that night.
Early the next morning, I called up Wing Commander Choudhari, asking if I could begin work on the bike before it was due at the RTO, and, on the day of the passing, I would ensure that the bike would look the same as it had on the day that he handed it to me. Following that, I would begin to work on the cosmetic changes for the bike. To make things more comfortable for the owner, I handed him a cash payment for half of the amount, along with a post-dated cheque for the remainder. On the day that the bike had to be rolled out to the RTO, something incredible happened: I realised that the engine number for this baby was 666.
The tattoo studio that I own is called ‘Darkside Ink’, while the customisation front of it is called ‘Darkside Customs’. Mind you, we don’t call our company ‘Darkside’ because we fancy ourselves to be dark lords or something equally ridiculous. We call it the Darkside because this is one side that each and every person possesses. For some reason or other – be it society, responsibilities, etc. – we have pushed our inner child, our inner wants and desires, into what is perceived to be our ‘dark side’, which we are encouraged by society to further suppress. At Darkside, we encourage our friends and clients to bring this side out: to embrace your true self, and unleash the beast within. This is the dark side of you: a side that we all own, where we dump all of our dreams, wishes and desires, never looking back while we adjust ourselves into a monotonous routine of 9 to 5.
So, when I realised that the engine number for the RD is 666, I couldn’t help but break out into a wide grin. How ironic is it that the number of the beast finds its way to the Darkside? This is definitely meant to be, I tell myself excitedly. This is when I decided to put the number 666 onto the bike; it played a good role, as it further enhanced its vintage racing appearance.
Amongst all of the chaos associated with ensuring that a deal is struck and that trust is formed with the owner of the bike, the owner of the garage where I had initially found the bike decided to throw another hurdle my way, refusing to give me the bike because he had failed to make his cut out of the entire transaction. I had to waste another day trying to convince him to give me the bike; according to him, he would not hand me the bike because its suspension monoshocks were broken, and that this needed to be fixed. Since he had a lot of work on his hands already, he wouldn’t be able to get it done for at least another few days. So, I went out, found a fabricator myself, brought him to this garage with his welding machine, fixed the problem on the spot, and brought the vehicle to a position where it could finally be rolled out. Following this, we moved the bike to the parking lot of our tattoo studio.
The next step on the agenda was to find a craftsman who could turn my vision into reality. I needed someone that could conduct all of the metal-work for me: the denting, the tinkering, etc. It took me about a week to find somebody for this, but this also gave me some breathing room to think about the bike and truly visualise the colour patterns on it; the front fairing, the rear fender, and all of the different aspects and changes that the engine would go through in order to be transformed into Darkspawn, the official mascot for the Darkside. I surfed through countless designs on the web, such as Oberdan Bezzi’s Yamaha XS 750, and then began to formulate my own lines and designs. I had to scale down on a few items while bringing everything into proportion in order to ensure that the body matches the chassis and engine’s size.
I didn’t want it to be like one of those infuriating cases wherein something that is supposed to be put onto a Hayabusa is put onto a Pulsar. There are quite a lot of people selling kits like these, and there are also quite a lot of people that are moronic enough to buy these Hayabusa kits for Pulsars. This has got to be one of the most annoying things to witness on the streets: imagine, a Pulsar, which is a single-cylinder engine, with two exhausts. Seriously?! Alright, alright, I digress. Back to the point: I wanted to achieve the racing feel that looked authentic on the bike. Authenticity was key for me; I didn’t want it to look as if an R1 kit has been put onto an RD350, because that would be disrespectful both to the R1 as well as the RD. To achieve all of this, I needed to find a craftsman who would work according to my design – someone in whom I could forge the right level of trust and understanding, so that whatever he did would be an accurate reproduction of what I was visualising. Having finally found somebody that acquiesced to doing the bike up within 20 days, I was stressed enough, as this would only leave me with about 5 days to complete the paint job. I paid the craftsman an advance, and we move the RD from the Darkside Ink parking lot to his workshop.
As is common in a country like ours, after having paid this man an advance, he didn’t show up to work on the first day. Apparently, he had to be at the police station, as his brother had stolen some goods from his workshop. I spent the entire day waiting outside the workshop while he rejected my numerous phone calls, praying that he would show up in time so that we could get some work done. After an entire day of waiting under the beating sun, I went home with a heavy heart, worried about completing the project in time. On the second day, the craftsman finally showed up. We did a little bit of work, cut out some cardboard layouts, and made templates for every aspect of the bike. On the third day, again, he didn’t show up. Ten guesses why? His mother wasn’t feeling well.
This went on for three days: I would go to the workshop, get frustrated by his absence, and sit around and wait for him. This is what you have to go through in order to get anything done in India – pay an advance out of your hard-earned money, and then listen to the incessant “my so-and-so isn’t feeling well today”s. Since I had already paid the craftsman the promised amount and a deal had already been struck, I couldn’t even take the bike out and work on her someplace else. This cycle goes on: he shows up on certain blessed days, we work a little bit on the tank, the front fairing, the rear fender, etc., but it is all completely chaotic. None of the jobs that were being conducted were following the plan. Each day, he would show up, and would want to work on something different, instead of completing what he had already begun working upon. Until, of course, he would vanish again, owing to yet another personal issue.
By now, it is Day 18, and I am beginning to lose my cool. As is natural in situations like these, the craftsman and I begin to face conflicts, as I feel cheated – having paid a man not just the first, but also the second installment, he simply does not do his job right, if he ever shows up for it. Things begin to get frustrating, as I am leaving my tattoo studio and coming to this craftsman’s workshop, and I am putting in all of my money into this project without being able to earn any income, as I am spending all of my time waiting for him to show up to work.
On Day 23, he finally walks up to me and says that he doesn’t feel that we can work together on this bike, because – and I quote – “our stars are not matching”. It was the most frustrating thing to hear, because it wasn’t about our ridiculous stars matching – it was about him doing his job and being responsible enough to do it right, since he had always been paid when he had asked for it. At the same time, though, I was elated that he had said what he had, because this meant that the bike was finally out of his clutches, and that I would no longer have to deal with him. Now, I just needed to find someone else that could work on the bike and complete it within a week’s time.
By now, the work has been postponed to such an extent, that there is no longer a chance that I can take the bike to Bangalore and catch up with the Kriegers. However, there is a slight chance that we could, perhaps, enter this bike into the Mod competition at the India Bike Week. It was more curiosity than surety – not expecting anything at all, we send an email to IBW, wondering if this bike could be worthy of being permitted to stand in the ring with the other contenders. As luck would have it, we received an e-mail from Mr. Shrijit Patil, informing us that it would be a delight to see an RD350 stand in the circle. Now we had even more reason to push things even further. This roller coaster ride had only just begun.
To be continued.....................
Yamaha RD350 Reincarnated- Darkspawn Part II
Yamaha RD350 Reincarnated- Darkspawn Final Part
By: Sachin Ramesh Shinde
