Even though “all the world’s a stage”, what a group of bikers required was a measly 1.3 km to “make their grand exits and entrances” this weekend. Welcome to The Dirt Bowl! Covered in dirt and slathered in slush, 25 participants signed up for the event that saw them riding on a dirt track. Why would people want to subject themselves to all that muck? “To have fun,” was the emphatic response of the participants and the organiser, Motovation Track Days, which came up with this unique idea. The high-energy event took place at a sleepy village, Tukkuguda, 10 km from Shamshabad airport. From early morning to late afternoon, people rode around the track and maneuvered their bikes across slush pits, wading pools (a small shallow area full of water) and jumps.
Amidst all the fun, there was also a message — don’t hesitate to take the road less taken. “The true essence of biking is to be able to go anywhere. Say for instance, you are on a highway and you come across a picturesque but dilapidated road; the outcome usually is that you won’t get on it because you don’t want to fall or lose your balance and get hurt. This event was a training ground for people, to teach them how to handle their bikes on inhospitable terrains,” says Anoop Pamu, one of the co-founders of Motivation Track Days. The organisation aims to “promote safer roads for motorcyclists as well as those around them through continued training and its application in the real world”.
“In dirt biking, the road is not tarmac, so to begin with your bike is going to be unsteady as it’s a new track and that heightens your senses and you are immediately on guard. When you are going through slush pits, you can’t just speed through it or else your bike will get stuck. We even ploughed the mud, so that it would get softer and become more of a challenge for riders,” he says.
“Our friend has a 12 acre land in Tukkuguda and he lent it to us to do whatever we wanted. I am certain this was the best possible thing we could have come up with.”
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