400 Jawa Yezdi bikes sputter at rally to attempt Guinness record

Engines roared and sputtered and wheels threw up dust as over 400 Jawa Yezdi bikes gathered at the St Joseph’s Indian High School grounds on Sunday to celebrate the 15th International Jawa Cz Yezdi Day.

The event, organised by Bangalore Jawa Yezdi Motorcycle Club (BJYMC), was not only a celebration of the bikers’ trustee rides but it was also an attempt to set a Guinness world record for the largest parade of Yezdi motorcycles.

In 2015, BJYMC and another club Jawa Nanna Jeeva entered the Limca Book of Records for the ‘largest gathering of out-of-production Jawa Yezdi bikes in India’.

“We wanted to make it to both Guinness and Limca at the same time but since Guinness has a lot of rules, we decided to split them up,” said Jose Martin, secretary of BJYMC.

“Guinness does not recognise a gathering of bikes for a record so the club is attempting to be the largest rally of out-of-production Jawa Yezdi bikes.

“We are the first in the category so Guinness told us that we needed a minimum of 200 bikes to take part in the rally. We had 407 bikes this morning,” Jose said. 

The parade of 407 bikes rode 5 kilometres, around Kanteerava Indoor stadium, towards Chinnaswamy Stadium and MG Road before returning to the grounds.

The ride was documented with the help of ‘Jeepers of Bangalore’, who made sure that every bike completed the ride, as required. The footage and related documents will be sent to Guinness for approval.

The Bengaluru riders were joined by many others from Mysuru, Mangaluru, Pudu­cherry, Mumbai, Pune, Kerala and Kanyakumari. Lani Zena Fernandez and her brother rode all the way from Puducherry to be part of the celebrations in Bengaluru. Lana was born in ‘97 and she rides a ‘96 Roadking.

“My father has a garage with many different bikes and that is where I get my passion for them. I learned to ride on Yezdi B-type when I was 16,” she said.

Following the parade, riders who had achieved feats on their bikes were awarded. Venkatesh, who used to part of the Research & Development team of Ideal Jawa (India) Ltd in Mysuru, and 84-year-old veteran rider R Chakravarthy were also felicitated at the event.