A 1000 mile journey starts with a single step... or maybe a few 100 yards of bicycling...

I wrote this on Feb 7th, 2016.....

"I dunno what its gonna take me to get back on that saddle... But Ill be damned if I don't try harder everyday... every moment..."

Am I back on the saddle then... Nope! Not even close....

BUT...

I did do this.... https://twitter.com/VickramKrishna/status/752152610963005440

And this... https://twitter.com/VickramKrishna/status/758675554262364160

Last Wednesday I went to the optometrist to find out if there were any updates to my visual deficiencies....

Oh no no!! Don't get your hopes too high. I am still ~14% blind and my eye movement in my right eye is restricted. (-1mm - +2mm in the vertical axis). Diplopia is my new best friend.

However I had a 20/10 acuity in the combined vision and 20/15, 20/10 in my left & right eyes respectively.....

I remember how the ophthalmologists said I didn't have perfect vision EVEN before the accident. And immediately after the accident... lets just say you could have place a boulder right in front of me and I would have pile driven into it and split my skull even before I realized... it was something ridiculous like 20/120 in one of the tests.

Coming back to my last eye test... so how did I do that? 

I honestly cant give you ONE reason. 

But I can give you a bunch of things I did religiously(most of them even before the accident), that might have helped.

• I drank a glass of carrot, beet & lime juice at least 4 times a week
• I had my multivitamins everyday and hit the sack by 9:30pm at least 4 times a week
• I started boxing lessons and started doing at least 1000 mts swimming in each session
• I did my eye chart everyday and attempted recognizing everyday things even in diplopic vision
• I had a 6 method reminder system based on the priority, importance, urgency and part of my life for all my short term and long term tasks and objectives (And yes I made writing this blog a task to be completed in my task list.. Judge me all you want..) 
• I worked out at least 5 times a week
• I did at least 1 art work a month 
• I also drank a lot of beer.. AFTER every physical target achievement... :P and ate more pizzas since the accident than the 4 yrs preceding it..

Maybe the last thing didn't really help...


Wait..  How did all this pay off?  What does it have to do with my eye tests??

After the tests my doc said, "based on the earlier results and your condition post accident, nothing you did should have helped you get your ACUITY back... let alone get it better than before the accident... but this might just be your body acknowledging that you have taken good care of it"... I wanted to tell him the beer did its job then... :P

Jokes aside.. I still don't know why I could read 2 rows below the row of characters that demarcate 20/20 on an eye chart... the vision of normal human eyes. The doctors couldn't explain it either. 

I'd like to think the accident gave me super human strength to see microscopic organisms with my naked eye. a.la Bruce Banner turning into the might Hulk after being exposed to toxic chemicals or how Spiderman sprung out after Peter Parker was bitten by a deadly spider.... But nope.. no luck there.

So what changed? 


All I know is that, if I did things "specifically", "particularly" & "religiously" before... I just dialed it up to 11 since the day I could walk with a walker in the hospital. Nothing was MORE or LESS important. As long as I thought it would help me get back on the saddle, it was worth doing it. 100%... all the way. 99% wasn't good enough.

In other words.. I tried hard and gave it all... everyday.... every moment.. Always reminding myself that anything worth doing is worth doing all the way.
 
Again, nothing what I did might have ACTUALLY helped me, at least medically speaking. 
Or maybe EVERYTHING helped my body figure out how to fix itself. 

All I know is this.. no matter what I did, I did it CONSISTENTLY and maybe even adamantly.

I did em shoulder exercises even wen my scapula was screaming in pain.. or my knee cracked every time I did a squat... or my eyes hurt when I did eye exercises... or I was mentally broken after trying those cognitive tests and failed repeatedly, but kept trying till I finished them... or when I couldn't push past a mile or run anywhere close to the speed I used to and yet pushed myself to run those 5 miles. 

And here I am...

AFTER clearing my clinical assessment for driving... after clearing my vision and cognitive testing to get a special instructions permit.... AND clearing a behind the wheel assessment with my occupational therapist. Never have I been so happy to drive a Toyota Corolla.. Boy did I feel I was in a Ferrari.... and that kinda reflected in my driving... so much so that, one of the feedback I got from him was that, I drove predictably but quite fast. In fact he had a mild heart attack when he saw me accelerating hard on a ramp when the traffic was slowing, braking late but progressively hard to stop the car, when the traffic came to a stand still.

I dunno, but that sounded like a compliment to me and I wanted to tell him, they didn't name me "Speedy Gonzales" in the hospital for no reason. But he said I needed to slow down and blamed it on my head injury. :P ... Jokes aside I took his advice and did sign up for driving classes.

Maybe I was too ambitious in thinking that, I could do a 5K run, by the end of January. I was a few months late but I did it nonetheless.  The important thing was persistence.

I still remember telling my moto friends that I am going to start with cycling to train my brain again on maintaining my center of balance.... retrain my brain on spacial awareness to start riding and driving.  And the first day I did it, I looked like a real character with my moto off road knee guards and elbow guards and vibrams 5 fingers. But everything had a reason. The shoes will help me feel the pedal and avoid any grip loss issues and the off road pads would provide some industrial grade protection to my already broken bones. 

And I wore all of this to ride around my parking lot... I kid you not! I went round and round 20 times and looked like a complete weirdo doing it, to all the strangers staring at me. But 8 weeks later, I rode 16 miles in all.

Again have I gotten back on the saddle yet? Nope.. But, I have taken the first step to that 1000 mile moto trip I used to take every year... and.. I am trying harder.. everyday.. every moment.

This is Rome!!

This is Rome....

It wasn't built in a day... or a year... or even a decade...

It is scarred... from all the battles.. from the Punic wars in 3rd century BC to... WWII...

The walls of the buildings in this beautiful city are riddled with the pain, struggle and endless strife of all the men and women who built it... protected it...... through all those times of adversity.

However, it doesn't take away the fact.... it still stands today.... as one of the most iconic cities. A symbol of triumph; of human spirit and endurance.

This is a human form..... that is a metaphoric representation of the beauty of Rome....

These are humans etching a line in the space time continuum......  a metaphoric representation of the beauty of Rome...

Hardly anyone saw Arnold's struggle in moving to the US from Austria when he was 20, or the 100 lb dumb bell, that he did his biceps curl with. Or how he shouted in agony wen his trainer told him.. "ONE MORE... GIVE ME ONE MORE".

Almost no one remembers the time when, Dani Pedrosa broke his right shoulder in a racing incident.... had a plate fitted in it... to come back to race 8 days later... only to have the shoulder blade shatter again. And yet he still stands on the podium of Moto GP races.

Which begs the question, in this world of instant everything; are we forgetting what it really takes to achieve some thing? to reach a goal? Or is the mindset of "giving up even before we try; because its not instantly gratifying" a pandemic that needs a cure. Or is the pandemic widely spreading only in the general populous of "Everyday" life.

By no measure am I trying to do anything like these guys. I mean this ain't no Mr Universe contest or MotoGP championship. And neither am I gonna get a million $ for doing this. But this is the opportunity "I WORKED" for all these years and this might as well be Mr Universe or MotoGP for me.

After getting back to as normal a life as possible..... I reminded myself of the quote my senior used to say in the academy... "When the going gets tough!! the tough do pushups..." 

So..... I did em push ups.... 

And pullups......

And hand stands...

And punching drills.....

And squats.. lunges.. hip abductions.. kettle ball swings.. floor exercises.. sand bell throws.. weighted hip rotations ..  and the list goes on!

Why?

I am now 23% blind in my field of vision... no... its not one eye.. its both.. 

I was told 3 weeks ago that its permanent... based on the medical and field vision tests. But I have known that for quite sometime now... 67 days to be precise... Couple that with the orbital fracture in the right eye socket, that has my inferior rectus trapped in the scar tissues... restricting my oculo-motor functions.... which in turn causes diplopia in extreme vision... And image processing is slow due to that blood clot over my medulla.. that has left some damage behind.

Long story short... its almost impossible to ride a motorcycle viewing the entire area of vision required from the vizor a of helmet.. more so in full tuck!

Why full tuck? This is why... (Pic: On my 2002 CBR954RR - T14 - Thunder hill raceway)

However I am still doing em pushups - to strengthen my shoulders - It will help push that weight of that bike through the turns.

I am doing em pullups - to strengthen the muscles around my scapula that is fractured twice - It will help me shift weight between the arms.

Doing em handstands -  to train my brain on balance.. irrespective of the orientation - it will help me maintain the center of gravity between me and my bike when leaning. 

Those boxing drills - to keep my focus on the point I need to punch while shifting weight between the legs - it will help me transfer weight from side to side when in turns on a bike. It will also help me estimate distances to braking and exit markers despite the diplopia.

All those absurd & weird, leg & hip exercises - to strengthen those muscle tissues around those screws holding those titanium rods in the leg - I mean.. it ain't no fun to have a piece of metal scratch all your nerve endings and give you a pinch of agony every time you take a step. Let alone sit crouched on a bike.

So why am I doing em? Even though it seems like I can't ride or race again.

I haven't found a way to compensate for the vision loss. But when I do figure it out..... I don't want to struggle moving on a motorcycle, because I didn't strengthen myself physically... or the fact I don't have the mobility I once had.

So I rode a bicycle last weekend... for 10 miles.. 16.093 Km.. in 1hr 2min 46 sec... And then swam for 500 mts.. at an average of 1 min 4 sec for 50 mts.....

I don't need to tell you why.. This picture says it all....

The ally called Fear

Let's start with the basic premise that "Fear" is important. 

However it's like a garnish of ghost peppers in a bowl of rice porridge. Too much and you will have self immolated your intestines.

Similarly with fear.

In most cases there is too much of it. And guess what? It doesn't let us reach our potential.

So coming back to the point... "Fear is important".

Here's why...

1. Fear keeps you alert

2. It doesn't let you take things for granted

3. Makes your check, recheck and check again

and in my case, it made me do the following before I set off each time for a track session...

1. Check my brake

2. Check tire pressure and tire wear

3. Oil level & viscosity

4. Battery amps and voltage

5. Suspension compression, rebound & preload(sag) settings

6. If all bolts and quick releases are snug

7. Suit, helmet, back protector and boots for wear/tear

And prior to a track day weekend..... well lets just say I had 2 bikes and enough tools and kit to run a small garage. So you can imagine the checklists that go into getting such an operation off the ground. 

Picture the logistical prep work you need to do to ferry 2 bikes from one city to another, load the gear and kit and then drive 150 miles to a race track, after meeting/project discussion filled work week, on a Friday evening, while trying to beat the traffic and planning the route based on the Friday evening rush.

Invariably such an logistical mission only ended at 12:00am... as the task is only complete when we I've unloaded the bikes and set up all the equipment to start strafing apexes next morning. And did I mention that after the tiring evening we just had, while most of the world is still on "beer o clock" schedule, we get up at 6:00am to wash and prep ourselves, prep the bikes, safety check, mount tire warmers, eat breakfast and attend the riders briefing before suiting for the warmup session? The funny thing is everyone ONLY sees those pictures on Facebook and presume its just riding a bike fast. How hard can it be?

I mean I've heard comments from some of my former acquaintances that it cant be hard to do track days. Well... you  see why I call them "former" and "acquaintance".

And while you are on the track.. there is more... 

In a scene in the movie "Gone in 60 seconds", Nicolas Cage lectures a bunch of kids on how to achieve greatness in karting.... "Speed is the outcome" he says.... "Of focus, concentration and smoothness of throttle control".. Okay the last part my track day instructor told me when I qualified for my AFM racing license. (Don't tell Mr Feeny that I compared him to Nick Cage.. :D.. I am not sure he ll take it well)

What he didn't tell me was you need to do all of the above while being scared to death because the guy behind you dive bombed in to the corner or you had massive front end shake while braking or the rear wheel is sliding as you got on the gas exiting a turn. 

But then... its the fear in the first place that tells me not to get greedy on the gas when I exit a corner... and EVEN when the rear wheel started sliding one day... over coming that fear, taught me to hold the throttle steady when it happened... the bike WILL come back in line.

You know what else? It made sure, I put on my tire warmers before the riders briefing because the tires need at least 40 min before the start of the day. Too long and I will be riding on rubber goo and too little and I am on for a nasty "front tuck" the first time I brake hard. Why brake hard in the first lap?? Hey guess what.. That's how you bring your brakes up to temperature.. Which kinda is necessary as you go faster and faster.

Right!!! So .. still think its not complicated to do a track day/go racing? I mean there are less complex launch procedures for aircrafts than this.

The fear also taught me that the more organized I am with my track day prep, I am keeping my mind free of clutter and I focus better, when I am trying to place a bike in an exact spot of the turn...... in full lean....... at over 90mph.

The fear made me clean and condition my leather suit after EACH track day as it lets me inspect every stitch on the suit.. why?.... the last thing you want when you go down is a seam coming out and giving you flesh burns that will be a grim reminder of how you took things for granted that one time in life.

While the fear made me do a lot of things.. maybe even over do some things.. What I didn't let fear do to me was.... bog me down....... by doubting my ability to do things. 

There was a quote on the wall of the academic block in my military school that read....

"Courage isn't the absence of fear. Its acting in spite of it." 

That quote aptly describes Courage if you ask me. Overcoming fear isn't necessarily saying, "to hell with the world" and head butting your way through things. It might help you get stuff done 4/10 times. But using that fear to prep your self really well and then moving forward might help you meet your objective 8/10 or 9/10.. or hell.. maybe even EVERY time you try to accomplish a goal.

Which brings me to now.

The fear to do ANYTHING normally.... is real. I mean I feared running into things and furniture in my house when I first went home after 4 months of not being there and losing my memory... ALL OF IT. 

So what did I do?... I counted steps. 

The study table is 6 steps from my couch..... 

The tea table is 4 steps from the kitchen counter.....

And the fact I knew the bed was 3 steps away from my bedroom door prevented me from falling face first one day.

I am kidding myself if I think I can drive like Schumacher and ride like Rossi now that I am better than before. Especially after the doctor confirmed last Friday that my visual field index IS 80% at best. And the practical implications were confirmed the next day when I was sitting in Alex's car and I still couldn't see the cyclists on the road or the car darting out a intersection. 

But as Roshini tells me often, "Now that you know the problem.. do what you do best.. FIX IT.. find an alternative"

So the fact remains. I fear EVERYTHING.  To keep pushing... especially when every step I take makes me feel that the goal has moved farther away... and getting back on a bike seems impossible.

But now.. more than ever... I need to believe that, Fear is an Ally.. I need to use it... use it to prep my self and keep pushing.

Fear is important.

Only motorcycle wrenching? or life lessons too?

I am perpetually skeptical of people. People change.. their character changes.. their thoughts… beliefs.. moral values… and the list of things that change on a lopsided pretext of evolution is endless. People change.

So for someone to be on my trusted list, they have proven it beyond reproach.. they have earned it..

However, the symphonic high pitched and almost operatic wail during a throttle blipped downshift on a Yamaha R6 on the other hand doesn't. Not one bit. Not in the 400 shifts of the gear lever on a single track day or the 4 million that it's designed to do across its lifespan.

The way I see it, there is some absolute evil in the world. Hunger.. terrorism.. oppression… threat to human life in any form. But just about every other problems humans claim to have are made up... born out of ignorance mostly and lack of perspective.

What worries me more is not the lack of exposure in people. But their inability to open their minds when the world presents itself. Classic case in point; forget the fact that the human body exerts severely to digest a piece of meat, my earliest memory of being told not to eat meat was, “God punishes people who do wrong and eating meat is doing wrong.”

I wasn't old enough to question, how the man in the other corner of the world, ate snakes since he was 14 and live a 100yrs?  Disease free... Free of any form of punishment from god.

Just about everyone I have told these stories to say, “you are passionate about it” and, assume the sole reason driving me to get back on a bike and race is that. Oh! I am passionate alright!! But, almost no one even takes the effort to understand that there might be other reasons.... Something deeper..... Even after repeatedly explaining it.....

3 years  back, I bought a 1995 CB1000 for 900$. It was called the “Big One” and somehow I missed the clue. You should google it if you don’t know how it looks like. And for something that looks like that, it weighed in at a neat 560lbs(246 Kgs). And I can tell you from experience that it really did weigh that much. How? It fell on me…. In traffic… and my leg was trapped under it and the hot engine was burning through my riding suit and boots. Cause? Engine overheated and seized as it ran out of coolant. The cooling system had a leak and it doesn't have an temperature gauge to warn me.

So picture this…  a 500 lb bike falls on you in the middle of a road.. Filled with people.. Mostly young and agile.. and who comes to help you? No one! NONE!

Still wonder why I still started this blog with that specific statement?

I told this to my then team mate and the first thing I heard was - “You should get rid of it”

So I got rid of it right? Nope! I stripped it apart.. EVERY BIT OF IT even made a meme about it.

Yes… I was angry and took it apart to fix it. But, I didn’t have an inkling of where to start or what to do

And when I did start working on it*, I stripped 13 bolts on it before I understood the concept of torque. 

That was a crash course in “PATIENCE”.. A life skill if you ask me. How? It took me 6 hrs of careful drilling without damaging the threads of the brake rotor mount on the wheel. And damaging that would mean..  no brakes….  Which would mean no bike…

 

*None of it would have been possible without MotoGuild (formerly: MotoShop), its awesome owners (Wilder, Aleks & Tracker), the mechanics who teach there(Shawn, Aamir) and the community around it.

To make matters a tad bit more difficult, as if it wasn't already, buying another wheel wasn't an option. Honda had the genius idea of putting on an 18 inch wheel in an age when all the manufacturers had 17 inch inch wheels as standard.

What else did this experience teach me?

1. Effective planning
2. Getting into things only after doing research
3. 1 step at a time
4. There are no short cuts
5. Everything can break. Just have to give the right force at the right angle and in this case, I shouldn’t have
6. There is fix for every known mechanical problem to man, some less than ideal, but there is… just have to search for them….

Sound familiar? 

And over the next 14 months, 

I serviced the forks..

Replaced the clutch…

A valve adjustment and changed the entire ignition system and spark plugs…..

Re upholstered the seat…. Yes!! I even learnt how to pressure steam a (faux)leather piece for the perfect fit and then staple it to the seat frame after applying a composite adhesive......

Changed the chain and sprockets….

Indicators… head light…. Loose connections in the wiring harness… and the list goes on.

Oil pan… tires … air filter.. 

And the list goes on

But the most brutal life lesson came when I had to sell it…. "Every good thing comes to an end.." Life moves on…. We move on…

In the next 2 months, I learnt 3 new programming languages, designed some of the most complex data pipeline projects at work, ran 4 half marathons, paid of my debts in a systematic fashion & started volunteering.

Here is the bottom line... Motorcycling made me a better person back then and it continues to do so no.

So for that reason alone.... I want to make motorcycling a way of life.. 

Motorcycling makes me a better human....

Persistent?...... Adamant?

There is a thin line separating persistence and adamantly pursuing things. For most my life, I have never stopped to think what classifies as what? But then some things you pursue can be classified either, depending on how important you perceive the outcome to be.

Baseline? its Subjective...

I remember, I joined the arts club when I was 14 yrs old. And on the first day, I painted a couple of dinosaurs over looking a volcano spewing ash. Needless to say, the art work ended in the trash pretty emphatically 4 years later. How did it survive 4 mins, let alone 4yrs? 

It survived because, 5 mins after the paint dried it was hidden in a non descript corner of the arts room never for such an abomination to be seen by anyone.  The session was followed by a hesitant encouragement from Mr Rajah, the arts teacher, that maybe I should consider "crafts". And I didn't take the hint. I sold origami frogs and birds that year in the arts club annual meet for 1Rupee a piece. I was the highest earning member for the arts club that year. All of Rs. 56 (1$). 

Persistent?...... Adamant?

Then for the next 10 yrs I kept practicing the art of graphite and silicon making shapes on a paper. And I ended up with specimens like these.

Over the years, this also helped me pay my bus fares, get my first girl friend a gift from the money I "earned", get a job as a graphic designer and helped me pay for the innumerable "extra curricular" activities that teenagers do.

So when I was in the hospital, mostly blind, what do you think were my first thoughts? Since I am talking about art, you must have guessed about, me drawing again.

Nope.... When will I ride again? Will I ride again? 

Again I digress...

So one day I decided to challenge myself with drawing something... anything; despite the partial vision and lack of depth perception. (A big thanks to Alex and Marta here for getting me my sketch book and pencils and encouraging me to take the first step) And after a few too many failed attempts, I ended up with this...

Persistent?...... Adamant?

Most of my friends who used to hear about my weekend plans to run a half marathon always thought I was an athlete in school and college. I was anything but that. You can ask my class mates how un athletic I was by any school kid standards. Let alone a military school's standard.

You honestly don't want to know the repercussions of missing "ONE" pushup count in your morning physical training session, in the training in National Defense Academy. How do I know? 28732/Echo/109... that's how I know.

I was 13 when I ran my first cross country race in school. You typically have 20 min from the time the first guy enters the enclosure to finish the race. I can 20min 46sec later. Needless to say, I was "rogered" by my seniors for the foreseeable future.

But then I ran... even when I had an infection in my leg that threatened to have me amputated. 

I ran for 8 more years; even when I didn't have to. Now, considering the 4 medals I earned in college athletics (1500mts/5000mts/4X400 relay) I believe I ran for the right reasons. 

Persistent?...... Adamant?

Well I ran even 15 yrs after that... and came second in a half marathon trail run in California.

Persistent?...... Adamant?

I ran 1 km on the treadmill last week.. holding the side rails.. losing my balance every 10th step.. yes, I kept track.

Persistent?...... Adamant?

Just yesterday, I joked with my friends, that I have either a. run a half marathon or b. been admitted to a hospital in almost every country I have visited. And I have visited few. Again, not sure that point b. is a good stat. But then it begs the question..

Persistent?...... Adamant?

Not a day goes by when I don't hear granny's scolding, about how adamant I am. Coming from an iron willed lady like her; I now understand, how adamant I really was. But then I am glad I was adamant. For all the "unnecessary" arguments I have had over the years and for all the times I believed that I need to stick to my guns despite taking the path less traveled, I am really glad I did them. 

If I got a dollar every time someone asked me, if I am going to give up motorcycling because of this accident, Id be a millionaire by now.

The rationale for "not" to ride again is consistent across, everyone I have heard it from - "It hurt you so badly and so much.. you should GIVEUP". On the flip side, the rationales I have been told, on why I should pursue, varies from; "its your passion" , "its your hobby" or even "it defines you". Maybe it does.....

But my reason is simple.. in both art and physical training... there was a day when I was told I needed to choose an alternative path(directly and indirectly)... and yet .... here I am.... still drawing... running.... doing em pushups....... handstands..... swimming

Persistent?...... Adamant?