Progress gets to everyone at some point. In both interpretations of that sentence. As long as older and younger people exist together, there will always be that particular point of resistance. And there is no human on this planet that doesn’t know what I’m talking about, one way or another. Any meaningful journey involves the passing of time. In my case, for reasons that continue to be a mystery, NH 66 is a space-time mesh of personal, geographical, historical and hopeful fascination. That doesn’t change the fact that as roads and machines get more capable, people around me seem to be going the other way. And you will unfortunately see digressions of that nature as you read along.
The first time I took NH 66 from Panvel to Goa, I was all of 19 years old (on my silver first-gen Pulsar 180 with an actual physical map book in a backpack), and it remains one of my favourite rides in the world to this day. This highway was built in the 1960s, and I’m willing to bet that it has seen more than its fair share of old cast-iron Bullets and two-stroke Jawas over the past 60-odd years. Today, however, NH 66 feels nothing like the road that lives in my memory. The same can be said of the Bullet 350 and the Jawa 350. The question is, which one of these bikes matches the vibe of NH 66 the best?
Our eyes and our brains have been defined by a rectangular frame for several thousand years — why has everything we look at today become overwhelmingly vertical? What sort of voluntary cognitive aberration is that?
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Esta historia es de la edición April 2024 de Motoring World.
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BUILDING BLOCKS
Harley-Davidson takes us on a tour of the Hero Motocorp garden factory plant in Neemrana
SEDAN CHIC
The Mercedes-Benz A200d has style and function and makes a compelling case for sedans
SOFT LANDING
City slicker by day, off-road warrior by weekend: Land Rover's Discovery Sport tackles it all.
MORE IS MORE
And less is a bore seems to be BMW's philosophy with the iX. Does it work?
BAVARIAN BOOST
The BMW iX1 offers thrilling performance and luxurious comfort in a compelling all-electric package
URBAN SPRINTER
From school trips to boardroom meetings, the Force Urbania reimagines the van experience with surprising comfort
THE ROADS AHEAD
Volkswagen India's Annual Brand Conference revealed what's in store for India this year.
RIVERSIDE SOJOURN
How much can you accomplish on a single charge?
SANDS OF TIME
The quest to find out if these vehicles do justice to their relation with the desert gave us more answers than we sought
INTO THE SHADOWS
Truthfully speaking, there is no such thing as too much carbon fibre, is there?