My First Bike (Suzuki Samurai) - 2001

It is very hard to explain what all feelings a guy goes through as he enters adolescence about different things, but I am damn sure that one of the very important acquisition / achievement of a guy would always be his first bike. I know a lot of you guys will definitely agree with me on that, wont you? I had no opportunity to get one while I was in college neither I was keen on getting one as I had enough friends and their bikes to ride on. But when I got into my first job – the first thing which I wanted to own ever was a damn good bike. High priority was looks, pick up, nice noise and the last was an average mileage. As I lay my hands on my first pay check – my wish of getting the bike became stronger and right then – a very good friend of mine got one for himself – that happened to be a brand new shining Suzuki Samurai, his was a combination of Blue and Green. I decided right at that moment while taking a test ride on his bike that THIS IS IT. I have to get it now – high time – I had a bike of my own. First thing I did was run to the closest Yamaha showroom and to my shock they had already discontinued the Yamaha RX135 too and RX100 which was a dream bike of the whole generation of my likes was anyways discontinued long back. Thanks to the increasing pollution norms – India was moving towards a four stroke revolution which made less pollution as per whoever was deciding on that. They had the dumbest looking dead bike on display – I wasn’t keen on taking a test ride, let alone buying it. Bajaj had nothing to offer as they were already selling their 4S as Kawasaki too was long gone which as per me was the second best bike after Yamaha’s RX100 when it comes to looks, pick up and awesome noise it made. We shot to a TVS Suzuki showroom with a hope that they were still selling Suzuki Shogun but we got another heartbreak – they had a Shogun standing in showroom but the owner warned us to not to take it as that was the last of the lot and they weren’t getting anymore delivered. He advised me to rather go for a Samurai which was still in production than to settle for a bike which was going off it. 

Shogun was an awesome looking bike with a neat and well powered engine – I was drooling looking at that fire red bike in the showroom but I guess my friend warned me too to not to go for it and I had no other option but to settle for Samurai as the last resort. Even Suzuki had launched a four stroke bike recently and the sales guys were too keen on that to sell than Samurai but I had to take it because it was the only two stroke bike in the market with average looks but a nice pick up in comparison to those 100cc Four Stroke bikes being sold in the market then. Finished off the paperwork in a jiffy, issued 24 cheques, paid the down payment and immediately I was handed over the keys of a brand new Black and Yellow bike. Our office was hardly 5 lanes behind the showroom hence the owner let us take the delivery immediately as he knew the company we worked for, quite well. I wish I could explain my feelings on that day as I took the delivery and both of us went to our office in our brand new achievements. I rode it with such awe and panache while my neck tie fluttered in air behind me; it was too good a feeling that I can’t seriously contain them in words today. The whole day I was looking for an opportunity to go out and ride the beauty. I waited till some announced “Who is going to Bank today to drop the payments?”, and I immediately got up saying “Oh yeah, I have other works on that side of town, let me go”. I had already picked up a helmet from the showroom and a helmet lock which was fixed on the rear end of the bike as you can see on the picture below. Leg guards were duly fitted with a Sari guard on the back as I was already looking forward to drop whosoever wanted to be dropped amongst my office colleague to wherever for the whole upcoming month. First thing I did that day was – we went to the nearest fuel pump and got it tanked up, to my amazement it drank almost like 10 liters of petrol, I guess company claimed somewhere around 55 KMPL and that should be more than enough supply for the whole month, as my office wasn’t too far from where I stayed.

Power and Specification: Samurai was a 98cc Bike with 7.5 BHP’s air cooled engine, which was good enough for a light weighed guy like me and I made sure to take a flying start every time I started from home or office or any traffic signal, with bike making awesome pick up noise. The meter console was quite straight forward and simple with no tachometer, it just had the speedometer with turn indicators on the top left and right side with two more lights showing neutral and head light high beam. Two turn indicators on the head lamp and two on the tail light. I totally loved its broad and bright tail lamp which actually looked good from a distance. Fuel tank capacity was I guess around 11 liters with one liter will went to reserve. Showroom guy instructed me to not to go beyond 60 KMPH till I hit a minimum 1000 kilometers and get the first service done. With a two stroke engine and four speed gear box – it was fairly easy to ride with simple all 4 gears down, it wasn’t confusing like a Yamaha where you have one down and 3 up and a neutral in between. One thing that I loved about a two stroke engine was – if your bike stops on any of the gears – you could start them again by just pressing the clutch and kicking, unlike the four stroke bikes of that era on which you need to get to neutral first before kicking them alive. I guess now that’s a default feature on all bikes.

Fun on Samurai: I had a lot of fun with my bike, was totally in love with it right from the day I acquired it till the very last day when I bid it goodbye. Although the day I took its delivery, I thought I am never going to dispose it – being my first important acquisition but I guess fate had something else in store for me, more on that later. As its advertisement said during those days on TV, it was indeed a “No Problem” bike. I hardly remember doing anything other than just refueling it and getting the regular service done that too was hardly any cost. The way I used and abused it was totally awesome, as I remember my office parking was like over a footpath, that’s quite a trend back in Delhi which is always out of space. It was quite a tedious task to park the bike in the morning as I had to actually ride it up to the footpath from the ramp and find a location or gap to fit it in. But in the evening when I returned – the scene was chock a block as with so many bikes parked – it was too tough to take it out and cross all the way to the entry of the ramp and go down on the road, the other option being going down a flight of three stairs right from where the bike was parked – I always took the shortcut as bikes clearance was quite high and I had no problems jumping it down three stairs at a slow speed and then take a nice pick up, it was quite a stunt everyday. I even took on the highway too in an emergency as I had to drop a friend’s wife to Meerut from Delhi (Around 90 kms one way) that too she wanted to take her own car. So I took a friend of mine along, on the way to Meerut I drove her car and my friend followed us on my bike. We returned right after reaching her home and parking her car, didn’t even stop for a cup of tea and had no issues doing almost 200 Kms in one go – non stop. That’s the only trip that I did on the state highway on my bike. My everyday ride was around 25 Kms a side and total 50-60 kms a day as I had a history of not coming straight home – ever from office. The mileage that I got from Samurai was exact 550 KMS per 10 Liter of fuel, I guess that was quite decent for my style of riding it and I was indeed happy with it.

Two Years Later - One fateful day – on my way to office around Connaught Place – an over speeding Esteem guy hit me from the back. Fortunately, nothing much happened to me or to the bike, I flew a little bit and landed on another cars roof going ahead of me, with couple of broken teeth. I received around 15 stitches inside my mouth. Bike’s front shock absorber was bent and rear view mirror broke. I was shocked and surprised that Delhi Police was quite helpful as they immediately took me to the nearest hospital and even settled bill too. The dude got picked up too but I did not press charges as it was a mistake and nothing that he did intentionally. I sent the bike to service station for repairs and it took me indeed couple of weeks to come to terms with the accident. One good thing which came out after the accident was – I had to quit smoking because I couldn’t smoke with my mouth almost sealed. I indeed had a great time with the "No Problem" bike – but we had to bid good bye soon after the incident as I decided to settle for a car instead as that will be more secure than riding a bike in today’s growing traffic.