The Babe and The Bike

The Babe is Sugar, my Labrador Retriever.

The Bike in this snap is my 1979 Bullet.

This amazing story is about how Sugar ended up riding the bike, sitting on the petrol tank. She was so passionately fond of riding on it, she would charge at me the moment I entered our residential complex and would scramble onto the petrol tank, in the process scratching the tank and my trousers!

It all started when she was a little puppy and I had to take her to the vet etc on my bike. I would take someone with me on the pillion holding her in his lap. Occassionally there would be no one and for short distances of a few hundred metres I would pop on the petrol tank and cautiously drive around. Since she was still a pup, there was no problem as I would jam my thighs against the tank to ensure she did not slip sideways and she would lie down on the tank with her chin close to the tank cap. I had been training her and she in any case would be trying to respond to the 'Down' and 'Stay' commands while astride the tank.

As she grew up, things happened. For one she could no longer lie in the 'Down' position on the tank since she had outgrown the tank length wise. So she would now be perched in the 'Sit' position. Since she had grown, in the 'Sit' position I could no longer see ahead since her head blocked my view and so I resorted to tilting my neck to get a clean view ahead. Also now I had to jam my thighs against the tank real tight since she had grown wider as well ( you know how it is with women!) and her feet would rest in junction of the tank and my thighs.

We could ride like this for long distances but I would restrict the rides to within the campus of the IMA, Dehradun, not wanting to take a risk with her in the traffic outside.

It was a great experience when Dee and I would take her for a run alongside the bike on the road in the pictureque Tons Valley, and then when she was pooped, we would prop her on the bike and there she would be, tongue lolling out, ears horizontal from the wind rushing beneath them! A sight for sore eyes.

Sugar passed away in Dec 2006.
I had already sold the bike in 2004.

I miss them both.