KNIGHT RIDERS
Ambrish Murty and Ashish Shah, Co-founders of Pepperfry, share a common love for biking
“WHEN WE STARTED working, we were bikers driven by need,” laughs Ambrish Murty (pictured, left), 50, who co-founded online furniture retailer Pepperfry along with Ashish Shah, 45, a decade ago. “But then for nearly two decades, we did not ride a bike. In a typical middle class way, we moved to cars,” adds Shah. But it was in 2018 that they rediscovered their love for biking. They hired bikes in Leh and rode to the Zanskar valley. That trip was memorable. In 2020, immediately after the lockdown, Murty bought the Royal Enfield Himalayan and in October of that year rode it all the way from Mumbai to Ladakh. Shah joined him there and hired a bike and they rode around the area. On returning to Mumbai, Shah bought a Jawa 42. Murty and Shah have three rules that determine their choice of bikes: 1) They should know how to fix it; 2) If they can’t fix it, anyone on the road should be able to fix it; 3) If no one can fix it, then it should be cheap enough for it to be left in the middle of nowhere. “Ladakh is a place that keeps calling you back,” says Shah. “We love off roading,” adds Murty. Besides Ladakh, they have done riding trips to Dhanushkodi in Tamil Nadu and also to Jodhpur, Jaisalmer and Udaipur in Rajasthan. Next on their list is the North-East, especially Sikkim and then Bhutan. Murty and Shah love their bikes enough to name them. Murty’s is called Roasie, named after Rocinante, Don Quixote’s horse, while Shah’s is called Neo, after Neo in The Matrix. They do at least two trips a year and prefer to ride with each other rather than some biking club. On their trips they stop at Pepperfry studios, which are now present in nearly 90 cities. Pepperfry has expanded from 65 to 195 studios in the past 12 months. “We are also planning to open studios internationally,” says Murty.
MURTY AND SHAH HAVE NAMED THEIR BIKES. MURTY’S IS CALLED ROASIE, AFTER ROCINANTE, DON QUIXOTE’S HORSE, WHILE SHAH’S IS CALLED NEO, FROM THE MATRIX