Accessorise your bike

tells you how.

Aniruddh Kaushal is gutted. Working as an area sales manager of an FMCG company, he was looking forward to a biking trip to Ladakh on his Royal Enfield Thunderbird, but the trip seems to have run into rough waters due to his not getting leave.

"It's not only about not going to Ladakh," he says, "but also that I had got new accessories fitted on Columbus (that's what he calls his bike) and was looking forward to see how they work."

Kaushal isn't the only one besotted with his bike, there are a whole lot of others who keep on adding accessories to their beloved road-runners. Now, there are two schools of thought when it comes to accessorising your Bullet. The first is of the opinion that a standard, factory-fitted Bullet is the best and you should not tamper with it too much. But the second school is all for accessories and for constantly changing the look of a bike.

For other bikes, there is not much to accessorise with. But with an Enfield, you can do a lot of things. Put on a leather saddle bag, for instance. Or add a wind shield or customise the seats. Although these accessories are not provided by the company, they are still a huge rage among bikers and are available through various authorised dealers and other workshops. Says a company official, "Although we don't provide such accessories, the dealers can sell them if they want to."

According to Keerthy Jaisimha, owner of Bangalore-based company Cramster, which specialises in travel gear for bikes, one of the main reasons for the popularity of these accessories is that people have started taking biking seriously. "There are many people across the country who go on weekend trips on bikes and want to make their ride more comfortable."

For instance, Cramster provides leather saddle bags which start from Rs 2,200 and can cost as much as Rs 4,000. The bags are spacious, waterproof and very handy on a biking trip. Another accessory which is extremely popular are seats. The thing with the Royal Enfield is that you can tinker a lot with it.

For instance, you can change the standard fitted seat and have a single seat or modify into two separate seats for more comfort. "When on a long ride, the seat is extremely important and single seats make it much better," says Jojo Khurana, who works as a software developer for Quark Systems, but is an avid biker of the club Road Survivors.

He got a bag and a high-rise seat on his Thunderbird fitted about a year back and dispels the myth that non-factory equipment is not reliable and doesn't last longer. The seats start from Rs 1,500 and go upto Rs 3,000 depending on how you want to customise.

Delhi-based Lalli Singh, who runs a special workshop for bullet accessories, say that apart from seats and bags, windshields are something which a lot of people look at. "They make a bike look extremely classy but the only problem is that they look good with only select Bullet models."

On the Thunderbird and Machismo, windscreens are apt, but with the Electra they don't go down too well. One has to be very careful when getting a windscreen fitted as an inferior quality windshield could be quite dangerous. Not many people prefer windscreens as they increase the weight of the bike and can reduce aerodynamic performance. Windshields are available from Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,400.

Another accessory that comes in handy for long trips is a sidecar, like the ones which were used in movies like Sholay or, more recently, in Bunty aur Babli. Sidecars are used by people who frequently go on long rides and are probably not easily available in the market. They come in the range of Rs 15,000 (and above) depending on various shapes and sizes.

Apart from bike accessories, riding gear is also slowly gaining popularity among bikers "" gloves, jackets and pants made from special waterproof fabrics and multi-layered so that if one has an unfortunate fall, they give better protection. Most riding gear outfits are available between Rs 1,000 and Rs 5,000.

Of course, none of the lighter bikes can be properly accessorised, which means you need a Bullet so you can go Happy Thumping!