The home page of the online bike club

Siliguri, Aug 19: Motorcycle freaks, here’s your chance to meet like-minded people from across the globe and talk about Honda Fireblades, Suzuki Hayabusas and Harley-Davidsons, not to forget your very own Bajaj Pulsar.

Santanu Banerjee, a 25-year-old electrical engineer from Siliguri and an avid motorcycle enthusiast, has invited fellow easy-riders to meet, exchange notes and organise events through his online club, www.xkmph.com.

“I wanted to start an online community where bikers from India and abroad can register for free to share and discuss bikes and biking,” said Santanu.

The idea has turned out to be a hit: more than 1,800 bikers from different parts of the country, including Siliguri, Darjeeling, Calcutta, Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore and Chennai, and even from Bhutan have joined the community in the past four months.

The website offers a host of facilities like live chat, discussion boards, reviews, photo gallery, classified sections for buying and selling motorcycles, new launches and articles by registered users.

“We have a number of discussion boards available for our members on subjects like lady bikers, city bikers, maintenance, Indian bikes, super bikes, tours and designing,” Santanu said.

For those who own motorcycles, be it a Bajaj Pulsar or a Hero Honda Karizma, the online club is an excellent forum to exchange views about your prized possession and even post its photograph on the site.

“I found this website, or rather the online club, pretty interesting,” said Abhishek Bhalswal, a xkmph member who lives in Delhi. “I love the thrill of biking and a dedicated club like this one, where any motorcycle freak can join and interact with others, is just the thing for me.”

Santanu has a few more plans up his sleeve to make the club more versatile.

“We have already started distributing T-shirts and now we plan to strengthen our offline base,” he said. “Events like tours, competitions, and get-togethers could be organised in different locations for members to take part and chill out. We are also hunting for sponsors.”

In the online sector, blogging and webcam chat are next in line.

The community appears to be gaining popularity in Pune and Mumbai, said Santanu.

Vaidyanathan, who serves at a garment retail chain in Mumbai and owns a couple of motorcycles, concurred.

“Many of my friends have joined the community after me,” Vaidyanathan said over phone. “We hope to grow at this steady rate. However, I expect the members to be more active in taking part in the discussions and in posting articles.”