29 July,2010 08:44 AM IST | | Shashank Shekhar
India's first dedicated adventure sports store opens in Gurgaon
You may have seen a lot of monster All Terrain Vehicles (ATVs) splashing water and going up and down hilly terrains, on television. Now it's your chance to own a piece of adventure for yourself and give wings to your aspirations to join the daredevils who make merry and challenge death.
Indulge: The new store has a range of ATV and dirt bikes and aims to
promote an exclusive club. Pics/mid day
India's first exclusive store dealing in all kinds of adventure sports gear and utilities has been opened in Gurgaon.
Behind the novel concept is the mind of Ashish Bahl, 33, a resident of the satellite town. Bahl's Adventure Wheels will promote adventure sports in India and has four ranges of ATVs and Dirt bikes with different price tags. Apart from these vehicles, the store has a wide range of imported safety gears and accessories.
"I have always believed that if you want to avoid traffic, go off the road. I am a passionate biker and a mechanical engineer from the UK. I love adventure sports so I went to New Zealand where for the first time I did a two-day trail on ATV in 2007. After I came back, I decided to buy an ATV from some random importer," said Bahl.
The importer allegedly cheated him and Bahl decided that he would ensure that no other adventure sports enthusiast should fall prey to fraudsters.
"I got in touch with a Chinese manufacturer who specially-designed ATV and sports machine as per my specification and quality standard and we named the brand Adventure Wheel," said Bahl.
Since 2008 Ashish has sold around 200 ATVs across India and to his surprise a lot of demand is coming in from tier two cities, which have the terrain to test the endurance of these machines. "As these vehicles cannot be used on public roads as they are strictly for offroading I thought most of the buyers would be from Metros. But I have sold around 10-15 ATVs in cities like Indore, Allahabad and Nagpur. I am getting several queries from many adventure sports enthusiasts from across India, as there is a lot of scope of adventure tourism and adventure sports here," said Bahl.
The store will also promote an exclusive club, which would invite people to experience the power and thrill of ATVs. "Selling machines is not enough. To create the buzz we will start the club where we will take all the enthusiasts to Aravali ranges where they test the limits of their machines. Aravali range is close to Gurgaon and has perfect terrain for such activity. I am sure it will draw lot of people," said Bahl.
The range
Adventure Wheel has a vast collection of Tamiya model hobby products, which ranges from remote controlled tank, trucks, racing car to Formula1 cars. If you are automobile collector then you can get licensed scaled vehicle from the store.
