Highway Star

The ultimate Harley-Davidson and a long, straight highway. Sweet American dreams are made of these...

- Ashok George

This is so weird that it almost sounds made up! I had just crossed over the border into Karnataka and the traffic had thinned down while the roads had opened up. And just as the 1745cc V-twin under me settled into a steady rhythm, mister John Kay comes on. “Get your motor running”, he says. “Head out on the highway”, he adds. Okay, mister John Kay. You read my mind…

It was 11 in the morning and I had just left the mad rush of Maharashtra’s highways behind. The Street Glide I was on was gently, err, gliding over the welll-aid tarmac. The thing was so smooth that you could almost not tell that the engine was running. There was just an eerie sense of calm. And if it weren’t for that rogue gust of wind that pushed my helmet around every now and then, I could shut my eyes and imagine myself in a fairly comfortable couch back home, listening to a recording of the Milwaukee-Eight.

But as everybody knows, shutting your eyes and pretending to do anything while on a motorcycle capable of 200kph without breaking a sweat is just not a good idea. There is just no scenario where you come out a winner there. So, with eyes wide open, I carried on.

Steppenwolf moved over for Stevie Nicks who made way for the Red Hot Chili Peppers and, later, even Justin Bieber. Yes, my playlist is as random as our 20-year old intern Sonny’s American accent – nobody knows what on earth is going on with it. You’ll find everything from Madonna to Robert Cray to System of a Down to Shaggy on it. But that’s not the point. The point here is that as the weirdness that is my playlist unfolded, much to the surprise of most passers-by (the Harley’s speakers are loud enough to power a mini-concert, you see), the Street Glide kept eating up the miles without even breaking a sweat.