I was sitting in Kickstart Cafe, a small but impressive joint inside IIT Madras’s vast campus. The people who set it up call it a bikers’ cafe. Sure, on the inside there are a lot of photos on the walls, of Enfields and Triumphs touring all over the world, and the owners themselves are avid bikers. But the fact that when I rolled into the parking on my own Enfield, the only bikes around were the non-motorized ones, was a disappointing one. And the people inside were all IIT students, wanting to catch a break from the usual hostel mess food. Still, I try not to be judgmental (you can’t really blame me – I’ve been to a few biker cafes and the parking lots are usually the most interesting parts of these cafes).

But then I realized why I was actually there in the first place, and all the mental rant about what a biker cafe should and should not be, just disappeared. Just the thought that I was meeting Jonathan Gibson reminded me of what biking is all about. It’s not about where you go. It’s about what you make out of the places you go to. And the stories that you collect from these rides. So who is this Jonathan Gibson?

I can tell you the run-of-the-mill version of who he is. He’s a man on a road trip on his motorcycle, alone, from Sydney to London, across nearly two dozen countries.

I can ask you to read the piece on him, when it comes out – I’m a journalist and that’s why I’m here to talk to him, to get a story for my newspaper – and you’ll go all oooh and aaah and be in awe of him.

But this isn’t about that. This is about how much I’m in awe of him. Because before I say I’m a journalist, I say that I’m a motorcyclist. I take pride in saying that I go places, travel, whether on work or on my own (the latter is rare, as I’m perennially broke).

So, Jonathan Gibson.

I met him first by chance. I was out on an impromptu Sunday ride down the coast, up to Mahabalipuram, for some good seafood for lunch with the people who I’ve now come to call family. The previous week was, to put it politely, full of shit. If I start on that, I’ll get lost and more importantly, be called a whiny crackpot. But the fact was that the ride that day was important for me. It cleared up my head, I had good tiger prawns after a long time, and that my new yellow Royal Enfield Continental GT was finally out on the highway. And then this other biker friend of ours gives us a call and tells us that he’s in Mahabalipuram too, catching up with some dude from Sydney who’s on an inter-continental road trip on an Enfield, and has just landed in India on the said trip.

Sure, I wasn’t going to pass on the opportunity to meet someone like that. And heck, it was a Sunday, I’d recently broken up with my girlfriend and I needed some more time for the food to settle down before I could get on the highway back to Chennai again.

Before I met Jonathan, I was expecting someone older. Maybe in the 40s, because that’s usually the age when you really get fed up with corporate life, and have saved enough for a trip around the world. But meeting a 27 year old, (a couple of years older than yours truly), who’s left almost everything behind, is quite new. Yes, I can hear you saying that this isn’t the first time anyone’s doing it, so young, but for me it was new. To have actually met someone like this.

We all start talking about his ride, how his bike is still stuck at Chennai Port, with customs, and I ask him if anyone press has gotten to him yet. He says no, and I tell him, “Well, here’s the first.”

See, that’s why we ride. We ride because we go places, meet interesting people.

I’m sorry, I digress. So I fix up an appointment, so that I can get the story out of him. Which brings us to Kickstart Cafe. At this point I know you’re cursing me for beating around the bush for so long, but hey, I like writing.

I’ve done my homework – I’ve checked out his blog, read about why he’s doing it, and the usual drill before I meet any subject for a story. But here’s why meeting this man was different – he’s doing what I’ve been planning on doing for so long. And that puts me in a dilemma – do I talk to him as a journalist, or do I talk to him as someone who wants to do the same? Because whenever I come across such people, I have just one question. And we’ll get to that in a bit.

The first thing I want to know, obviously, is why he chose a 1969 Royal Enfield Bullet 350. As a motorcycle journalist myself, I know how nightmarish these old machines can be. But even before I asked the question, I knew the answer.

“Sure, I could have chosen a BMW or a Honda to go around the world. But I’m a fifth-generation Enfield rider. I love these machines. My grandfather rode the same model, and he’s the man I’ve always looked up to. Sure, it would have been more convenient, because my bag of spare parts is bigger and heavier than the bag carrying everything else. But then mate, no great stories ever started with the sentence ‘and everything went according to plan.'”

The man was right. As he himself explained, and Enfield riders over the world would agree with him, that the reason why we ride these motorcycles is because of the little imperfections. We ride these because they break down in the middle of nowhere and then we meet new people, make new friends, and the more we break down, the more stories we get. Moreover, these bikes are easy to understand, and you can fix most of it all by yourself (unless it’s something major like a busted piston or something). It’s a more personal experience, riding an Enfield. You’re one with the motorcycle. Oh, and also because the spares are cheaper and easier to source.

But it does get frustrating at times too.

“Trust me, I love this Enfield dearly but I swear at it a lot. There have been times when it has broken down and I’m pushing it over a hill or something, and I’ve just felt like flicking my cigarette lighter on and dropping it into the fuel tank and just walk away. I haven’t done this so far, but there’s a fair chance I might.”

Later, over a smoke, he told us that he doesn’t need a GPS (no, he doesn’t use a GPS like the rest of us) because he rides an Enfield. If he gets lost, all he has to do is follow the trail left by oil drips from the engine.

And then comes the biggest reason of all – “If I had to see the Taj Mahal or the Petronas Towers, I could have Googled the pictures. It’s because my bike broke down, that I could go see the back alleys of Jakarta, looking for spares, and instead came across a different world altogether.”

There you go – the man’s a traveller, and not a tourist.

The reason why Jonathan set out in the first place, leaving behind a career was because he wanted to find out answers. Answers to questions that arise when you see someone deciding to end their lives due to depression. He’s funded this whole trip by himself, but he’s arranged for sponsors, and the money goes to a charitable organisation that works for men’s health. And when he says this, I reckon he’s right – men usually don’t open up that easily about what they feel. And more often than not, especially for a biker, it somehow becomes important to keep a masculine facade.

So can one man make a difference?

“One man? No. Not really. Do I think I can make a whole lot of difference? Absolutely no. But I get to spread the word. I get to talk to other men. I get to understand what masculinity really means and how it is perceived around the world. Moreover, I’m being able to help the guys at Beyond Blue back home. And if even one person benefits from what I’m doing, I’ll be very happy.”

I’m glad I’m a biker. And I’m glad there are people like Jonathan Gibson who use their passions to find answers to questions that nobody dares to ask.

There were a lot of questions that I had in mind, and I did ask them. And I will write a story for my newspaper with all those questions (I shall update the link here in case anyone’s interested in reading that). But there as a motorcyclist and a traveller, I had two important questions to ask.

How often have you been called insane?

“Almost every day, by almost every person I meet. There are a lot of people for whom it is quite difficult to understand why someone would just get on a bike that spills more oil than it keeps in, and decide to travel across 23 countries to one particular cafe in London. There are people who do not get what biking means to people like you and me. I’ve left behind family, a stable career and whatnot. I’m behind on my schedule by five months – I was supposed to be in Turkey now. There are people who have asked me ‘Couldn’t you have just taken a holiday’. In the middle of nowhere, I sometimes even ask myself, if I’m insane, to be doing this.”

Which brought me to the most important question. The one that I wanted to ask for myself.

So do you have any regrets, leaving behind everything and just getting on that Enfield, halfway across the world?

“It’s not that I don’t miss home. I have family and friends back home. I did have a comfortable job and I had a girlfriend. Two years ago I was 25, and I rode across South America and at that point of time I thought that after this ride maybe I’ll get a mortgage, settle down and all that. And now here I am. But to answer your question, no. I have no regrets.”

No regrets. That’s what I had hoped to hear.

I can’t imagine how I’d get to the day when I get on my yellow GT, and travel across the world. I have enough reasons to do it already, and I have planned it almost every day. I was never really afraid of what I’d face out there on the road. I’m almost certain that I’d enjoy even the most testing times. I’ve been saving for it for years, and I’m quite positive that I’ll get sponsors too. I love meeting people and I’m sure I’ll never be truly alone. But I’ve always had this one nagging question – will I have any regrets?

Turns out, when you’re doing something like this, you really don’t have any regrets. You get one life. One life to ride. One life to see the world. One life to make a difference. One life to live.

PS – There’s a lot I couldn’t mention about Jonathan. Follow him here. Trust me, he’s awesome. We at GI wish him the best of luck to complete this trip, and many more. Ride on, mate.