Saturday, July 11. I woke up with that familiar feeling the one that tells you today is a ride day. No group, no plan, no destination pressure. Just me, the Triumph Speed 400, and wherever the road takes me. I decided to head to Kotilingeshwara first and then Antaragange. A temple run, essentially. The kind of ride that has nothing to prove and everything to offer. Solo rides have always been my reset button 30,000 kilometres on the bike and counting, and this kind of peaceful, unplanned morning is still what I chase most.
I had no idea how the day was going to end.
The Road to Kotilingeshwara, Beautiful Until It Wasn't
The ride started well. That early morning Bangalore air, empty stretches, the Speed 400 doing what it does best eating kilometres without drama. I reached Kotilingeshwara around 9:30 AM. Spent about 40 minutes at the temple it's one of those places where you don't rush. The scale of it, the calm around it, the kind of stillness that reminds you why you took a solo ride in the first place.
Left feeling good. Pointed the bike toward Antaragange.
But somewhere along the way, the road decided to remind me that Karnataka's highway charm ends very abruptly in certain stretches. The road from Malur to Bagalur deserves a special mention and not a good one. Loose stones scattered across the surface like someone emptied a quarry and left. Uneven patches every few hundred metres. The kind of road where you drop your speed, sit up straight, and stop trusting the tarmac. I've ridden through genuinely terrible roads across India over 30,000 kilometres ghats, forest roads, mountain passes and this stretch genuinely had me on edge on a flat highway. That's how bad it was.
I reached Antaragange around 12. Did what you go there to do took it in, sat with it, let the place do its thing. Left around 1:15 PM.
On the Way Back
The return route was different from the one I came on. Different road. Same problem. Actually worse. Construction or what passes for construction in Bangalore's road maintenance culture. Someone had dug up the road, scattered the debris across the surface in the form of loose stones and thick dust, left a water crossing in the middle that was deeper than it looked from a distance, and then apparently packed up and went home. No barricades. No warning signs. No timeline for when any of this would be fixed. Just open road that had been quietly converted into a hazard.
This is not an exaggeration. This is Bangalore. They dig it up, leave it, and reappear weeks or months later. In between, it's your problem.
I slowed down. Significantly. This is important because what comes next, some people will try to use against me. I was riding below 20 kmph. The road demanded it and I respected that. My action camera was on, which ended up being the only reliable witness to everything that followed.
The Man on the Pulsar
Ahead of me was a guy on what looked like a Pulsar 120 or thereabouts. I noticed him a little while before things went wrong. Two things about him I clocked without thinking much of it: his tail light was not working, and his number plate was flipped upside down not readable, not visible. I noted it the way you note things on a ride and kept my distance.
The other thing I noticed he kept pulling up his left trouser leg. Frequently. The leg closest to the engine, closest to the chain. I saw it happen a few times and filed it somewhere in the back of my mind but didn't focus on it. I had my own road to watch.
So this was the situation: the guy on the Pulsar in front of me, me behind him on the Speed 400, and a truck right behind me. A moving sandwich on a construction-damaged road with loose stones and a water crossing coming up.
The water crossing arrived.
The guy crossed it first. The moment his front wheel was through and he was on the other side he released the clutch mid-motion to reach down and pull his trouser leg up again. The bike responded the way a bike does when you release the clutch abruptly at low speed on a wet, uneven surface. It stalled. Lurched. And stopped. Dead. Right there. Right in front of me.
No brake light warning. No indication. Nothing.
By the time my brain processed what my eyes were seeing that the bike ahead had simply stopped existing as a moving object I had less than a second. Maybe not even that. I had nowhere to go. Truck behind me. Loose stones on either side. The road hadn't given me any options when I'd been paying attention to it for the last several minutes, and it certainly wasn't going to give me one now.
My bike hit his from the slight right side. He and his bike completely fine. Standing still, steady, untouched in any meaningful way.
I went down on my right side.
Both palms hit the loose stones on the road. I felt it before I understood what had happened that scraping, burning sensation of skin meeting gravel at even low speed is something that takes a second to register. My hands were bleeding. My leg was hurt. I lay there for a moment in that strange, stunned silence that follows any crash that split second where you're doing an inventory of your body before you let yourself feel anything.
30,000 kilometres. Every kind of road this country has to offer. And I had never gone down. Not once. Until this guy and his trouser leg.
The Aftermath Help From Strangers, Stupidity From Him
People came. That part I want to acknowledge strangers on that road stopped and helped. Some of them lifted the bike, some of them helped me up, someone handed me something to wipe my hands. In a moment that could have been completely isolating, people showed up. I'm grateful for that.
Then the guy walked over.
His first words and I want you to sit with this were something to the effect of: "Nothing happened to you, you were speeding."
I showed him the camera footage. Right there, on the spot. The video that shows me riding below 20 kmph, the water crossing, him releasing the clutch, the bike stalling, me going down. He watched it. And then said the same thing again.
I asked him to look at the damage to my bike. Brake lever broken clean. Handlebar bent, scratched. The bike's safeguard scratched. Number plate bent. On a Triumph Speed 400. Not a bicycle. Not a local brand. A motorcycle where even basic parts carry a premium because they have to be sourced specifically.
He looked at all of this and said he would pay ₹80 for the brake lever.
Eighty rupees.
I want to be clear about something: at that moment, bleeding from both hands, leg hurting, standing next to a damaged motorcycle I had paid significant money to own and maintain, being told by the person whose direct action caused all of this that he would pay eighty rupees I have never felt more genuinely speechless in my life. And I have been in some situations on the road.
The Negotiation From Hell
The bike went to the service centre. Total bill: ₹6,000. Handlebar replacement, brake lever, other damage. I have the bill. I have the video. I have his admission on camera, his own voice, saying it was his fault.
I didn't want to go nuclear. I'm not that person. I consulted a friend who has a legal background, got some clarity on what I could actually do, and decided to be reasonable. More reasonable, as it turned out, than the situation deserved.
I texted him the bill. Asked for ₹3,500 just the handlebar and brake lever, the two most significant items. He said no.
I came down to ₹2,000. He said no.
I came down to ₹1,000. He said yes and then didn't send it. Said he'd send it tomorrow. Tomorrow became the next day. Next day became a week. I texted him. He responded by saying go to the police station and get them to confirm ₹1,000 is the right amount in writing, then he'll pay.
I contacted the nearby police station. Police called him. He agreed to come the next day. I texted him to confirm. He said he wasn't coming.
This is a person who admitted fault on camera. Who watched video evidence of his own action causing my fall. Who agreed to pay ₹1,000 after a week of negotiation. And then decided he wouldn't come to the police station and wouldn't pay.
I asked him again recently. He responded by saying it was actually my mistake and that his advocate told him the legal penalty would fall on me since I was the one who hit his bike.
His advocate. For ₹1,000. After admitting fault on camera.
I don't have words for this. I genuinely don't.
Why I'm Writing This And What You Should Actually Do
I'm writing this because I made mistakes in how I handled this, and I want other riders to not repeat them.
The moment someone admits fault on camera that's your window. You go to the police station the same day. You file an FIR. You don't start a WhatsApp negotiation that gives the other person time to change their story, consult someone, and drag it out until you're too exhausted to pursue it. I was too reasonable too soon and I paid for it with a week of back and forth that still hasn't resolved.
Document everything immediately. Photograph the road, your injuries, the bike damage, his vehicle, his number plate. Get witness phone numbers if you can. Don't let the scene disperse before you've captured it. My action camera saved me from having zero proof without it, this becomes his word against mine and his word was already proving to be worth very little.
Don't negotiate at the scene. I know it feels like the human thing to do try to resolve it between yourselves, be civil, move on. But civility only works when both parties are operating in good faith. The moment someone tells you your hands are fine while looking at your bleeding hands, good faith has left the building.
Know what your parts cost. This sounds obvious but in the moment, when someone confidently says ₹80, you can second-guess yourself. A Triumph brake lever is not ₹80. Know what your motorcycle costs to maintain before you're standing on a roadside trying to remember.
The Roads Because That's a Whole Other Problem
I want to come back to the roads because the human stupidity is only half the story.
The stretch from Malur to Bagalur if you're riding in that direction, go in knowing it's dangerous. Loose stones, uneven surface, no warnings. The construction zone I was in when this happened had a water crossing that had been left open and deep, loose stones scattered across the full width of the road, and zero indication that any of this was being monitored or was going to be fixed anytime soon.
This is the pattern in Bangalore and in much of Karnataka's secondary road network: roads get dug up, the debris gets left on the surface, and the timeline for repair exists only in theory. For car drivers it's an inconvenience. For motorcyclists it's a genuine hazard one that contributed directly to what happened to me that day. The loose stones gave me nowhere to swerve. The debris narrowed my options before the crash even began.
If you're a rider in Bangalore and you haven't thought about this specifically think about it now. The road is not neutral. Sometimes the road is actively working against you.
Where This Stands
It has been more than a week. The ₹1,000 has not arrived. He is not responding meaningfully. The conversation with the police station is still technically open.
I'm sharing proof here screenshots of the conversation, the repair bill, and the footage once I've processed it properly. Not because I think ₹1,000 is going to change my life. But because this kind of behaviour admitting fault on camera, agreeing to pay, and then simply not paying and eventually claiming it was the other person's fault deserves to be on record somewhere.
I'll update this post as things develop.
Ride safe out there. Watch the roads, watch the people ahead of you, and trust your camera more than you trust anyone's word at the roadside.
And if you're planning the Kotilingeshwara and Antaragange route it's worth every kilometre. Just go prepared for what the road between Malur and Bagalur is going to ask of you.
Here are some of the visuals from the incident.
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| This is the guy, who caused it. |
I believe, a human being should not be this dumb to play with someone when they are in problem and you are the cause...
If you have any suggestions let me know...