About Chetan Rao

Hello. I’m Chetan. I'm a serial entrepreneur, writer, former pilot and flight instructor, and a lifelong motorcyclist.

I’ve been besotted with motorcycles since I was eight years old. A kindly uncle let me steer his sensational Yamaha RD350 on a bumpy farm road, and I was hooked. There’s been no looking back ever since.

Over the years, I’ve been fortunate enough to ride more than a few motorcycles in more than a couple of countries around the world. My personal favorites so far include the 2004 BMW F650CS, the 1994 CBR600F2, and the 2009 Yamaha YZF-R15.

When I’m not reading, writing, or riding motorcycles, I like to dream up our next motorcycle trip with my wife. Someday, we’d love to ride through Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego.

Together with a buddy of mine, I launched RideMaterial originally in 2017. After running it for a while, we felt that it wasn’t fulfilling its objectives as well as we had intended. Rather than compromise, we decided to shutter the site temporarily. Now, RideMaterial is back, reinvented from the ground up, this time as a solo project.

I hope you find RideMaterial useful. If you have questions or feedback, please leave a comment below. I always respond to every comment.