Seto Aramyan, 1987. Jawa 350cc.
Avid adventurer and horse riding enthusiast.
Fell in 1994 under Leninavan, Martakert, shortly before the cease–fire between Nagorno–Karabakh and Azerbaijan was signed.
The Ones That Fell
Category: Flashback
Traffic Police, Story Three
After enjoying superb sushi and other great Asian food from some of Yerevan’s best cooks on a friend’s goodbye party at his house, we wanted to continue with an afterparty. Carlos is a marine at the Marine Security Guard Detachment Yerevan, so we decided to continue the party over at the Embassy. The Embassy car arrived to pick everyone up and drive them over, while I rode my motorcycle.
It was freezing cold late in the night, so I was pushing the motorcycle to get to the destination as quickly as possible. The entrance and the parking lot for the personnel are on the other side of the embassy. That means one has to ride all the way to the ramp across the road to make a complex U-turn and ride back. And here is Murphy’s law about rushing to awesome parties in action: just after the U-turn a traffic police car put on the siren and pulled me over. Speeding offenses in Armenia are usually fine and cheap, you can generally get away with just 5,000 drams, but then it struck me (Muphy’s law in action number two) — I left all my insurance papers in a friend’s car during the winter and never managed to take them back! Legally, this meant 50,000 drams. Realistically, this meant a little more than 5,000 drams (depending on luck and sympathy) after a long, tedious and largely humiliating chat with a person whose IQ, statistically, is below the city average. I can handle that most of the time; sometimes it’s even entertaining. But there was a party waiting for me ahead that had all the chances of being more entertaining than a conversation with an Armenian traffic police officer late in the night next to a stinking water reservoir! Now here goes all of the above paragraph and its continuation flashing through my brain on that very moment:
“Fucking cold!… Fucking pothole!… Faster’s always good when flying over potholes… Uh! (a traffic police car)… OK they won’t pull a motorcycle over… (the cops put on the siren) God fucking damn it!!!!… OK it’s only 5,000 drams (turning on the parking signal with my frozen left thumb)… I’ll explain them it was cold and the street was empty so I pushed… Shit, the insurance papers!!!!… (pressing the turn signal button to switch it off)… Only about 1km to the embassy… Honda CBF500 against Toyota Corolla… lets roll!”
“0434, driver of the motorcycle, STOP IMMEDIATELY!!!!”
Have you ever drag-raced with the police? It’s one hell of a fun! And guess what?
A 500cc Honda parallel twin engine carrying 195 kilos including its own weight plus 65 kilos of a fully–equipped Synopsys programmer smokes a Toyota Corolla carrying two tentatively chubby Armenian policemen on a distance of 1000 meters. Easily.
I threw myself towards the personnel parking entrance gate and stopped. After some seconds the cops pushed their brakes right behind me, so close I couldn’t get out if I wanted. Felt much like being in a sandwich. You know, one of those steel-gate—armenian-policemen sandwiches! Among the other ingredients, this one had some meat, a decent sausage, and a motorcycle inside. The Armenian security guards walked out of their booth amused, watching the sandwich.
“Get off the motorcycle!” Yelled the police car from behind me. I pretended I didn’t hear it and looked at the security guard that hadn’t yet said anything, and at that point was just looking at me inquisitively. Even though he had no idea what the story was about, I felt like deep inside his heart was on my side.
“I need to see Carlos!” I put out in English, trying to mimic some sort of an American accent.
“Carlos??” asked the guard
“Zero four three four, get off the motorcycle RIGHT NOW!!” Yelled the policemen again. I wondered if he realized he was being annoying. “Get a life”, crossed quickly through my mind. I repeated:
“Please sir, I really need to see Carlos right now!”
“He is a marine. This is very important!!” I cried, not even looking at the cops behind me.
The security guard looked at my visor, hesitated for a moment, then pressed to open the gate open. “He’s American. Drive off!” he threw his hand at the police car. Throwing the hand worked like a Jedi trick — the flashing siren that reflected on my visor through my mirrors during all this time immediately faded off.
“It’s always the same on this fucking road” mumbled one of the cops, annoyed. “Way to annoy me with the stupid mike!” I thought, as they drove away.
I smoothly rode into the parking lot and started waiting for Carlos, leaning on the bike. They hadn’t arrived yet.
Disclaimer: All characters and events in this post — even those based on real people — are entirely fictional. All celebrity voices are impersonated…..poorly. This post contains coarse language and due to its content it should not be viewed by anyone.
Traffic Police, Story Two
Riding home from the Rock Bar, after a friend’s birthday party, 4AM, drunk as all hell.
Speeding to quickly get to the destination and to avoid getting caught. The traffic police patrol car spots me at the beginning of Baghramyan and pulls me over. I don’t stop and keep riding along Baghramyan towards my home, with the hope that the policemen would give up on pursuing a motorcycle right away. The dudes seem tough; they put on the siren and start a pursuit. I cross the Baghramyan/Proshyan intersection under a red light, speeding somewhere around 130km/h, ride across the Barekamutyun bridge, and check my mirrors. The cops don’t appear to be there, and I no longer hear the siren or see the flashing lights. Looks like they’ve lost me. “Losers!”. I ride on. On the intersection of Komitas/Papazian, I turn left and — boom — smash my front wheel straight into the right door of the police car that was pursuing me! I barely hold the motorcycle. The policeman behind the door puts the window down, looking at me in awe, speechless.
“Hi!” I go on, looking straight into the guy’s eyes with a nervous smile on my face.
“Stop at the right side of the street!!” the other guy screams into the mike.
“Can I stop at the left side? I’m going to Papazian street, that’s where my home is.”
“STOP AT THE RIGHT SIDE!!” yells the policeman.
“Aye, officer”
I pull the motorcycle over to the right, get off. The guys are extremely pissed. The one with the higher rank runs towards me and goes on enumerating, hardly catching his breath:
“You refused to stop at a traffic police officer’s demand, you ran away from the traffic police, you crossed a red light, rode on the opposite lane, more than twice exceeded the speed limit for riding in a residential area, you smashed into our goddamn door, and I can already feel standing here that you are drunk! Do you even imagine what kind of a fine are you going to pay?!”
“I’m sorry officer, I didn’t see that you pulled me over!”
“Are you kidding me? You’re lying! You saw us stopping you and you rode away, jumping under the red light!”
“Did I? I thought it was yellow!”
“It was red, and you’re lying! Now tell me that you didn’t realize you were riding on the opposite lane!”
“I didn’t!”
“You’re lying!”
“OK officer, what now?”
“Now I’m taking away your driving license, and you’re gonna have to pay enormous fines! Look at our door!”
“Please sir, it was really late and I just wanted to get home quickly! How about we solve this otherwise?”
“What’s your occupation?” the officer looks inquisitive
“I’m a student!” (Rubik says that this always works with the police. They start pitying you because of your social standing and income. But the officer didn’t buy that.)
“You’re a student riding a brand new 2009 Honda CBF? You’re lying!!”
“Uh sir, how about I just give you all the contents of my wallet and we part?” I take out my wallet.
“How much have you got in there?”
“Well I only have 5,000 drams!”
The officer looks in my eyes suspiciously for a second, then goes on: “Deal, you’re gonna give us all the contents of your wallet. Except we’re gonna check your wallet ourselves!”
He grabs the wallet from my hands, opens it… and takes all ~70,000 drams that I have in it.
“Some twisted goddamn asshole you are!” he mumbles, walking back to his car.
Disclaimer: this story does not represent my personality in any way. Honest!
Safety disclaimer: this story is fictional. I mean, what’s with the filing a lawsuit shit?!
Dilijan Fantasy
Season 2009 and a Happy New Year!
Happy New Year to all of my dear readers!
Season 2009 was truly an amazing motorcycling experience. Yerevan started really getting on two wheels. A lot of riding events took place. New dealerships, motorcycling clubs and pubs opened!
As 2009 goes into history, it leaves only wonderful positive motorcycling memories. This was my most intense riding season, I put about 9000 kilometers on my odometer and I’m planning to do nothing less in 2010! During the rides there were of course wonderful friends and ridemates to share the joy and the most wonderful places and roads to discover and explore! And of course I blogged a lot!
On this I want to wish us all a very happy, a very exciting and a very passionate 2010. Let’s ride through it on two wheels and be safe, healthy and excited in doing so! Vroom!
Some of my memories from 2009 are in these pictures, and they are clickable too! Muah!
The pictures are also available on my Picasa account for your viewing pleasure!
Growing through motorcycle classes. Part 3: Ride it off
Other parts of the series can be found here.
So you take your motorcycle on a ride every day, and on the weekends you trip the countryside. You quickly accelerate on the intersections and smile at the girls who look at you from the cars. You enjoy the sun glaring on your chrome while you’re chilling at a cafe and you bet with every 5-series BMW in the town that you will beat them to the next intersection. You do it for a year. Two years. Three years. But with every kilometer rolling on the odometer, the motorcycle whispers to those who listen: motorcycling is not about speed or looks… well, not primarily.
Being a fresh rider, I used to hate rides with no destinations. I remember the old riders looking at me with indulgence when I rushed to get there, and how I thought they were old cripples to not push their motorcycles to the limits. But when you hold on to the grips for too long, the motorcycle does whisper to you.
It is not about where you go. Not at all about where you go. It is not about how fast you get there.
It is about the road you take to get there. It is about how you ride that road. Not about how fast. Just about how. And then this realization strikes you and you stop for a moment. You breathe, you look around. You realize you don’t want more destinations. You want more roads. And what you once hated very sincerely becomes the most beautiful vehicle to your eyes that could ever be designed.
I used to hate offroad motorcycles. I knew, I was certain that an offroad motorcycle was going to be the last one I ever own. Turned out so, but absolutely not in the negative way I meant it to be!
So after my current CBF500 I know exactly what am I going to own next. I cannot wait. And who could? I am finally going to ride a vehicle that is really essentially designed to be a ground vehicle, from its core. I am going to experience freedom of movement unimaginable with any other vehicle. It is going to be fast. Not too fast. It is going to be sexy. Not too sexy to the ones non-transcended. It is going to be a Honda.
Remember, kids. If you think Enduros are not cool, you are wrong. If you think motorcycling is about speed, it might be — but only for the select few like Valentino Rossi and on very specially designed tracks and events. If you think motorcycling is about style, and you’re ready to spend that much on style, way to go — give me a call to have some beer together! And especially, if you are just starting to get into riding and you’re wondering about what you want to stick to, give the offroad a second thought after you initially disregard it. Keep in mind, it is very probably that offroad is where you will get anyway, with time. Just in case, watch the Long Way Round starring Obi Wan Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman.
The Enduros opened my eyes in a way no other motorcycle ever could. They opened whole millions of roads to ride in my small beloved country. They turned Armenia into a paradise for motorcycling.
Motorcycling stopped being about the speed, so I stopped noticing the next-year ultra-cool Sportbike JAP-09900XXX year 2050 riding along Baghramyan. It stopped being about the style, so I stopped noticing the 10o-years-old style shiny and loud Darley Havidson sinking in its own chrome.
It started being about the adventure.
Other parts of the series can be found here.
Quotation
“Լավ աղջիկը էն չի, որ մոտոյով հետը տեղ ես գնում ու ամեն ինչ լավ ա…”
— Hett