Idiosyncrasies of a pillion rider
I was reading Spice–the free attachment with India Today this month. Spice is a trend magazine for the rich and famous or for oglers like me that go–“Oh wow, Porsche Cayenne S is now available in India, and it only costs 51 lakhs”. No, I’m kidding, really. I don’t have that kind of cash. Even if I did, I would lose my good night sleep forever dreading–what if someone hurled a stone at my Porsche while I slept. Ouch. And believe me, it is not uncommon in certain parts of India, given the enormous differences in the incomes and lifestyles.
And so, owners really become obsessed with their prized possessions. Sneha was narrating about an incident that occurred during her study tour while in her college. To give you an idea, these architectural study tours are like snapfests. These guys go berserk snapping and clicking until their pockets and batteries run dry (no particular order there). On the tour, a few of her batchmates spotted a Porsche and snapped a few pictures of it. Apparently, the owner of the car happened to be around and was so angry that he tore off their films from the cameras of these hapless kids.
To the magazine again, and this time, it’s about bikes. Now I meant to write about riders, but swayed-out enough from my intended post, so let me swing back in. Spice has a showcase on Super bikes this month. Those suave looking sleek wanton machines are every youth’s dream. Understandably so. I don’t know if girls dig bikes so much, but I know that the boys definitely do.
The landscape of motorcycle industry is quite unique in India. It is for a fact that almost everyone here is a biker. It is so common that the word ‘biker’ itself does not exist. It is simply understood. And, Indian bikes have some very unique user requirements. Not specifically for the rider himself, but for his pillion rider.
Since the biker dress code—or its enforcement—itself does not exist, the bike industry needs to cater to the safety of riders and especially their co-riders. The first among those measures is the provision for a saree guard. Yes, people—women—in India wear sarees while riding pillion.
Just purely from dynamics point of view, this is an amazing—yet a highly underrated—feat for the main rider—who has to balance the weight of his co-rider. The dynamics of balance take a dive when the co-rider typically prefers to sit sideways (like sitting on a chair as opposed to riding a horse). The G-force experience sideways is quite felt by the main rider—at the signals or at stops when the vehicle is in a halt. It’s only during motion–when the summation of all forces acting on a body is equal to zero in a relative motion—that the main rider feels a little at ease.
To that extent, I truly believe that engineers who made the original Bajaj scooter understood this concept perfectly. They mounted the scooter engine sideways to nullify this pillion force. Even by visual inspection, a scooter with a lone rider on a Bajaj looked tilted sideways (because of the engine weight mounted on the side), while a family riding—husband, wife and a couple of kids—on the same scooter would make it look almost vertical.
The second most important feature towards the safety of the pillion rider is the foot rest. A foldable foot rest on the sides exists for a pillion rider, but is often unused, especially if the pillion is a woman (who is not a jeans hugger, but that’s not a rule; I’ve seen jeans clad girls or women riding pillion sideways as well). Now, the gentler species of mankind love to wear and flaunt some exotic footwear, and so the foot rest needs some special attention so as not to break their stilettos. The foot rests are often made of either stainless opaque plates or a grill. The grill— I think —still threatens the shoe more than the plate.
And the last and the most important part: space for seating for a pillion rider. When you sit sideways, your man is going to be pushed to the wall of fuel tank. Never mind that he rarely complains. Most Indian motorcycle and scooter manufacturers provide an unmatched wide body of rear seat well cushioned to accommodate the G-sized tashreefs or bottoms.
Looking at those 1.0 liter, two-wheeled metal monsters, they lack all these primary HSE features that an average Indian and his family is used to. But then, you could well say that these are not for the masses. I wish they were.