Millions of miles celebrate brotherhood

The Harley-Davidson Owners Group (HOG) recently celebrated the spirit of brotherhood in a peculiar way, ‘Million Mile Monday’. It was a event where owners of this leisure bike from all across the world set a record of covering 13 million kilometers within just 48 hours. Particularly in India, bikers traversed from the west coast to the desert of Rajasthan, from the Jaipur highway to the Yamuna Expressway and covered a total of 500,000 km.

Launched in 2008, Million Mile Monday has been an annual event on the last Monday of June that brings thousands of Harley-Davidson motorcycle riders together in a collective effort to celebrate the motorcycle riding experience. In 2012, Million Mile Monday was expanded into a two-day ‘World Ride’on Sunday and Monday (last week of June) to give more riders worldwide an opportunity to participate, and an experience of riding in unison around the world.

Whether it’s a ride across town or cross-country or simply around the block to work, every mile or kilometer was counted and recorded by logging into Harley-Davidson’s online mileage accumulator. A rolling odometer recorded the collective distance travelled by all participants in the World Ride. At the completion of the ride, a commemorative certificate of participation was sha­red with each rider, with the mileage total for the day on it.

Saurin Shan, a proud owner of a Harley-Davidson, who participated in the  event, rode an amazing 1500 kms in 48 hours and stamped his authority over the “mile muncher” honour.

“We rode to Kanha National Park, enjoying the light pre-monsoon showers. The sense of being part of a global event was surreal. Words cannot describe the kind of experience it is to ride with fellow H.O.G’s. To truly appreciate riding you need to ride in a group to experience the brotherhood which builds around the riders and gets stronger as the kms increase.”

Another participant Ricken Desai says, he rides hard and fast into the sunset and for him it’s the journey not the destination that matters. “For us H.O.G is a way of life, we saddle our machines as often as we can, not to escape the concrete jungle but to explore the unexplored and  live life on the open roads for as long as we can,” says Ricken.