South India By Harley

Aren’t Royal Enfields compulsory in India? Not when you’ve got a Harley Sportster and Street 750

- Pat Thomson & Sheonagh Ravensdale

Never in our wildest dreams did we imagine we would be touring India on a couple of Harleys, the new Street 750 and an 883 Sportster. Nor, after Sheonagh's last trip (Rajdoot 350 in 1987) did she envisage cruising easily and comfortably on excellent highways at 75mph and more. In Europe, Sheonagh normally rides a Suzuki Bandit 600 and Pat a CBR600, so our rides are very different, but when HD India and Bike India magazine offered us two new bikes, we jumped at the chance.

Indian traffic is somewhat challenging to say the least, and we started out nervously in the late December morning rush through Pune on to Highway 4. We took the tunnel that carved through the first ghat, surprised by totally unlit vehicles in the tunnel and those that put their hazards on and honk their way through. The highway beyond was busy most of the way to Kolhapur and we soon learned to undertake the lorries hogging the outside lane, but had to watch out for bullying cars that squeezed into any available gap.

Still, the surface was excellent and the V-twins lapped up the kilometres easily and very comfortably. The Street has negligible vibration and handles remarkably like the Japanese bikes we are used to, plus the ability to accelerate quickly to get out of trouble.

After Kolhapur, traffic eased off and we could start to appreciate the changing countryside scenes.

Women walked down the side of the road with bundles of firewood on their heads; cartload after cartload piled high with sugar cane slowly made their way, and we were surprised to see a couple of them coming towards us in the outside lane of our carriageway. Speed bumps infest the villages and small towns along the way, and however slowly we rode over them, the Harleys ground all too often.