FOR MUCK'S SAKE!

No scooters, commuters or old bikes... this year's Pune Off-road Expedition was serious work

- Manaal Mahatme

Ambegaon Ambegaon, a sleepy village on the outskirts of Pune, has been the host to the yearly gathering of an ever-increasing species that thrives on mud, the smell of adventure and, of course, two-stroke engines. For over a decade, the Pune Offroad Expedition has welcomed a bunch of tribes of this species, and this time, Keshav and I were part of the annual gathering, too. But, as it turned out, we belonged to two different tribes... or so we thought.

First, and what seemed to be the biggest tribe was the Impulse-ive Joes - a tribe that took pride in their decade-old Hero Impulses, and who, over the years, have learned to make their weapons as resilient as their decision to not upgrade to newer, tech-heavy weaponry. Right besides them were the few who seemed to have moved with the times the Extreme XPulses. Fully-adjustable suspension, multi-mode ABS, fuel-injection and a 4-valve engine made them feel like the superior tribe. Keshav blended right in there with his Hero XPulse 200 4V Pro... well, almost.

Then there was another tribe that swore by the brute force, tech-savvy features and the pedigree of the weapons they used. Some of the people of Adventure Freaks tribe didn't bother with getting better rubber for the job, for they entrusted the control of their right hand. Some went too far to make their weapons stand apart, and succeeded at it, too.