One Mega Ride

It has been a long time since i have penned down a trip story... not that there has been a dearth of trips in the past months :P What i think, the last post was of my first trip outside of Mumbai to Karnala, and that was in March 2009... Today it is 30th of September 2009... it has been a long time... especially for a guy who has been waiting to join onto his first job since past 3 months (there are 3 more to go [:(] ), doing nothing but lazying around at home and blowing his/my parents' hard earned money through the exhaust of GadGad... (sorry bich mein electricity cut off ho gayi thi, this is Hydie for you :), so flow mein change feel ho sakta hain) Haan to kaha tha mein? But you know i dont regret my tripping at all... Ulta thats my only way of setting free... Living Life as you call it :) Its not that i hate the routine... its just that to acquire that Ultimate goal of life: Happiness, it is many a times necessary to separate oneself from one's LIFE... and believe me the Thought of Shunya or Nothingness is the greatest high you will ever great... (the power goes again... but no worries i m on a lappie ;)) So as it goes i have been doing this Tripping thing for past 7 months on my ride GadGad (RE TBTS) which has lead me to discover/explore/enjoy places like: Karnala, Raigad, Koraigad (Lonavla), Murud-Janjira-Kashid-Alibaug, Chhota Morbe Dam (Panvel), Kothligad, Tungareshwar, Mahabaleshwar, places some of which i had been to in my childhood, and some others that i never even had heard of :P
So this time it was meant to be Hyderabad... a journey of 750 km from Mumbai to Hyderabad was to be my first real long distance ride and that too solo. I so wanted this to be Mumbai to Goa... but that can wait... the ocassion was RK's (teacher, mentor and friend) marriage (Yes I need a reason to ride: a beautiful destination, an ancient place, or just to meet a friend, i am not one of those riders who ride to cover roads... sorry that is not me) I somehow convinced my parents for this trip, promising them it would be my last trip until December 2009. So for two weeks I prepped for this ride: collecting stuff like bungee cords (to hold the luggage), a hip pouch, high wattage H4 bulbs for headlight, changed the oil and filter. The headlamp thing was a headache since my stock bulb wasnt H4 and the reflector didnt even fit a new socket... i wasted a good 4-5 days, over 400 bucks and precious time on the trip (will brief on this ahead).
The day was decided to be 28th September (Dasara) and time 0400 hours... i knew i had to cover a good amount of ground and 15 hours would not be enough... I had even been to Koraigad with Surve bros (Harshad and Preetam), Abraham (Insti Bro), and newbie-Ajay, just the day before to test the bike's performance and it felt great... so early morning all my family members were there to see me off... Mammu performed the puja on GadGad (Dasara ritual)... i had oiled the bike and checked the chain and i felt it to be loose... and i had already lost a sprocket to this reason… so I was very cautious this time... i rode at a max speed of 80 kph and gear shifts were firm but delicate... I took off at 0600 hours (already late by 2 hours)

I wanted to be at Solapur for lunch so I made sure I didnt take any breaks and photography was minimal... The first break after the petrol fill up at BP (SEEPZ) was at Lonavla (100 km 0800 hours)... the ghats to Lonavla were fog filled and the sun was nowhere to be seen and I realised this was going to be one cloudy day.

By 0820 I was back on the roads leaving Lonavala behind riding towards Pune... I simply love the small length of Ghat that comes up just after you leave the Expressway intersection on the NH-4... The hills are a welcoming sight into Pune... I knew from studying the maps that I had to ride until Shivaji Nagar and then take left onto Solapur road... but before that I had to take care of the chain trouble... It was early morning (9:30 am) on a Dasara day... and I couldnt find any shops open... After asking quite a few Bike showroom guys and a few mechanics, I finally found one mechanic shop in Pimri, who had just woken up... Mind you I had been searching for a mechanic since Dehu road...

A boy of about 12-13 years of age adjusted the chain and oiled it as I had a chat with a guy on a Splendour, he was sharing with me a trouble he had with his Thunderbird wherein he had replaced his clutchplate to an endurance clutchplate (God knows what does that mean...) And on his way from Aurangabad to Pune his clutch got seized and he slipped and fell... I bid goodbye to Pune by 11:00 and after asking a few rickshawallas I was well on my way cruising towards Solapur... My second break was for lunch just ahead of Bhigwan at about 12:05 pm The roads until then had been very smooth but the ride had been really tiring since I didn’t make any regular breaks... I had only covered under 250 km and was really exhausted... that is when I realised I could not make the entire 750 today and had to take a break somewhere... While having my lunch of Aloo mutter and Tandoor roti, another person comes in from Solapur side on a 125-135 cc bike makes a stop to have lunch at the same place... He strikes a conversation with me noticing my number plate... He tells me he is going to Andheri... I tell him I m travelling to hyderabad... He tells me that he has also been travelling from Hyderabad, had taken a stopover somewhere in between and that he also took off from Hyderabad the earlier evening. He tells me to take stop at Solapur... to which I say riding 350 km the next day would be a bit too much for me... and that i wanted to be as close to Hyderabad as possible but i wanted to make the stop on this side of the border... which is when he suggested i should halt at one of the lodges in Umarga... So it was decided... to ride up to Umarga for the day and then take rest for the night and then ride the remaining distance early the next morning... how simple did the plan seem then... but little did I now the next 300km were going to be the most eventful and toughest ride I had made until then... The roads between Bhigwan and Solapur, in parts, are horrid to say the least...

They are littered with potholes and at times the road is a giant pothole itself... At 3:15 pm it started raining heavily and I quickly took shelter under the nearest building I could see...

I took off from that place after a good 40 minutes that is when the rain subsided... In the mean time i was informed by a gentleman that Umarga was about 80 km from that spot and it was very uncertain if i would reach that place tonight... since there was a thunderstorm rising up between Chakur and Umarga... I didnt pay much heed to his comment but rode on after the rain stopped... But I had to stop again twice on the route for I wasnt even prepared for slightest of a wet drive...

At about 1645 hours I just looked up at the skies because it was really getting dark and I am bit wary of riding in the dark... And a circular formation among the clouds caught my eye... I hurriedly parked the bike aside and removed my digicam out of the hip pouch to catch the peculiar formation... It is then that a passing by herdsman advised me to take shelter in the building across the road... I initially paid no heed to his advice and continued to fiddle with my camera... It is then that he added that it is a hospital and I should take shelter there in the rain... "Paus lai daandgaa haay..." (the rain is mighty strong) He was right within seconds it started to pour heavily... I managed to click a few pics of the spinning clouds and of the oncoming curtain of rain as well...

The thundering accompanied with the lightening was so loud I had to cover my ears to prevent myself from going deaf (this is not an exaggeration) And the lightening was flashing all around the hemispherical solid angle… I waited in the hospital hostel wing for a good 25 minutes before it subsided and was back on my way...

It was close to 6:00 pm now and I had to cover another 50 km before I reached Umarga... Riding in the dark clouded atmosphere was really scary... As I passed Naldurg and entered a short Ghatmarg I just glanced to my left over the ghat ridge and was pleasantly startled to see patterned ups and downs on the adjacent rock face unlike that of a natural cliff...

It is then that I remembered of having read about the magnificent Naldurg fort... In that dark environment and with anxiety of reaching Umarga before it went pitch dark, I carried on without a second glance, promising that on my way back, I would give that medieval marvel the time it rightly deserved. Just a few kilometres off Naldurg... as I was switching my HL high/low suddenly the HL went off and my engine got cut off... that is when I steadily realised to my horror the calamity into which I had thrown myself... I exactly knew what was wrong with my bike the moment the HL went off… so there was no point in trying to kick start it... but with my limited techie knowledge and the tendency of non-pro mechanics to put their hands up when dealing with the bike’s internals... I was pondering on whether to leave the bike in the shrubbery/fields and hitch a ride to Umarga and then come back in the morning with a mechanic… at the same time i was thinking about the reception that i would be missing the next day... at first i couldnt even hitch a ride.. then a villager on a cycle came in towards me... i made a hand gesture and asked him to stop... it is from him that i came to know that the nearest town Jalkot was about 1 km just across the hillock in front of us... It was he who got down from his cycle and encouraged me to push the motorcycle up that hillock for more than 1.1 km (I checked it on the tripmeter on the way back)... and found a mechanic "Kashinath" in front of the PP in Jalkot...

Initially he was hesitant to touch the bike... but then after me having explained the problem to him and with some tough words from the owner of the Oil/parts shop, he got to work... he quickly replaced the blown fuse with the spare one (thats the first time i came to know that they have spare fuses :P) but having gone just a few metres up the highway it blew once again... that is when i explained the entire problem to him once again as I explain it to you now: "See before the start of this trip... I had this obsession of putting in a higher wattage bulb so that i would have better sight in the night... although i had no plans of riding in the night... I had gone to a lot of trouble into modifying my BA20d holder into a H4 bulb socket fit and in the process cut open all of the three wires in two different places each... finally it all resulted into the hot wire for the high beam being shorted to body of the bulb(ground), hence the blown fuse... after the problem was completely rectified this time i took off for Umarga (25 km) in the pitch darkness... I followed a tempo (probably a TATA 407) until Umarga chowk running at 40kph all the way... took me quite sometime... I booked myself a room in Dattaraj lodge for the night...

I was so exhausted at that time that I bought a pack of cigarettes which i thought i would have with a cup of tea and go to sleep... The room was pretty shitty but for INR 150 a day i was getting a secure place to rest for me as well as GadGad and that was fine with me... plus the place was a daru kaa adda (something like Hotel Descent from Jab We Met) so what do you expect? :P



The tea and two ciggis with one 15g pack of Lays and i was fast asleep... I had slept at 9:30 pm but i was up by 2:30 pm dont know how... i had decided to take off by 4:30 so that i reach hyderabad by 8:00-8:30.. but to my surprise as i went down with my bags packed i found that the lodge had been locked up (for security reasons) after a lot of shouting and banging on the grills i gave up... smoked two more cigarettes as i waited for time to pass by... At about 5:45 am these guys wake up and open up the shutters... I leave the Umarga Petrol pump after filling up the tank at 0600 hours and i reach Ani's place at 1000 hours covering 225 km... I can say for sure I must have covered the 200 in 3 hours and the last 25 km in the city must have taken me 1 hour... This is to say least about AP roads... they are simply awesome... :)

THE VIEW IS ALWAYS WORTH THE CLIMB!!!

This is my first attempt writing a post. This blog has been in existence since quite a few months. Other than pompously displaying my IQ, I haven't done much to add to this blog. So here I start with my first post!!!

I always wanted a bike since my school days but due to many reasons unsaid I had to restrain myself to riding my father's Kinetic (Kinetic Honda DX 1997 model, weighed 100kg, 97cc engine ~7hp). Then in my 12th class I got my mother to promise me a bike in return of my performance in JEE (and this was even before the results were declared or I had appeared for the exams). But as they say "All good things happen in good time". What with all the IC at IIT, the bike ban in the first year, I had to prolong my wish of buying a CT 100 (imagine this is what i wanted to buy back then). To those who are a bit less knowledgeable in the field of Indian Bikes here is the link (What with the craze of Hayabusas, Ninjas, R-1s, bikes like the CT100, BYK are bound to get unnoticed by our generation :P, this is meant to be sarcastic, i wonder if I am reaching the masses :P). Well I was very ideological back then, things are far different today :). P.S: The CT100 is claimed to deliver 101kpl.

So finally just before passing out of IIT-B, and after my placements :), I bought a Royal Enfield TBTS (2009 model, weighs 182 kg, 346cc engine ~20bhp) in February this year. Dont ask me why I chose this bike out of the numerous ones available on the Indian market today, because if you dont get the reason on your own, I dont think I would succeed at making you understand either. Imagine my second but distant choice was the YAMAHA FZ (recently launched), the chickest bike after the BUELL i have seen till date. Hey just to add something interestingly embarassing here, I had never riden a geared bike before in my life and my virgin ride was on Gadgad (thats its name :P) at the age of 22years and 60 days. I was tired of riding it at speeds of under 60-70 kph on the WE highway and the JVLR, so to get a real good feel of its performance I decided to go for a ride to Karnala. Plans were made, maps were printed, the terrain was studied (all bakwaas yaar itni koi jarurat nahi hoti, the local junta on the road is your saarathi and keep your head level on the road without getting too much wind in it, [:P] u will sail thru smoothly on most road trips.)
After much coaxing I got Gaikwad baba to accompany me to Karnala (for the Fort and Birds). On the morning of the 22nd March 2009, I got up early, washed Gadgad sparkling clean. Some birds had blessed it the earlier day in Powai [:P]. Just the night before I had filled the tank full. The fuel added was 7.2 L for the 304 km travelled on the tripmeter. That amounts to a mileage/fuel efficiency of 304/7.2 = 42.22 kpl. Just close to what RE claims 40-42 kpl. I left home at 5:50 am. On the way, I had to pick up Saching from Powai. It was a very chilly morning and being a Sunday there was hardly any traffic. I opened the throttle to cruise at 80 kph on the WE. Thats when I realised why bikers wear jackets (the chilling wind just keeps pricking sharply all over your torso). I reached hostel at 6:10 am. Twenty minutes flat!! Thats an average of 60kph!!! (achievement) [:)]
Saching as usual was unwilling to wake up from his nidra-awastha. But thanks to Saching's enthusiasm we were soon on our way to Karnala at 6:50 am.
Sorry but dont have much to say about my ride from hostel to the first break. It was pretty uneventful, we took the following route: Powai --> LBS Marga --> EE highway --> Airoli bridge --> PWD road to NH4 --> NH4-C --> and finally the blessed NH-17 (i love this road). To the less aware junta its the Bombay-Goa Highway [:P]. At 7:50 am we took a break at a roadside dhaba as i wrote this down. "Had fun ridng the T-Bird. Gadgad is just awesome. Discovered a new characteristic about his personality (will tell about this later). We were cruising at 70-80 kph continuously. Topped at 85 kph. The bike is just 400 km old and is in the run-in period hence the cap on the top speed. I havent really seen such good quality two-lane roads in any other state. Plus thanks to all the truckers that plow this strip, a lot of mullah is generated for the PWDs. I had great respect for the ST drivers until now, and was terrified of the truckers. But this trip I had a completely opposite experience, the ST wallas just wouldnt let me pass by."
At the dhaba, I had brought alongwith me POHE (made by Mammu) for breakfast. Saching had his regular boiled eggs and Chai alongwith the POHE. The Chai was special and cost us Rs.8 each :P. But was worth it after the ride. The highway-side dhabas are always a great fun on road trips and the NH-17 is dotted with some good ones. The constant hum of the cars, trucks and buses passing by is sounding music to my ears right now. The sanctuary and fort are just 4 kms from the dhaba. We took some pics of the bike, answered the questions of some curious onlookers and rode off.







9:02 am: On the way to view some birds. It was our understanding that the caged birds had been released. So we started off the base parking the bike in the wrong spot and starting off on the wrong trail. (I should have understood, who would create a parking lot next to the toilet!!!) We were greeted into the Abhyaaranya by 4 langurs (Grey Langurs, Genus:Semnopithecus) out gathering food early, before the sun would really start to blaze and then it would time to retreat into the shadows. One was sitting on a very low branch close to the ground. But by the time I had steadied myself to take a snap, it ran away upwards into the foliage in the comfort of his other companions. Unfortunately we didn't have a Digicam with us so we had to make amends with the 2.0 Mp cam on my cell, which died midway and refused to click any more snaps (the reason that u will see no pics from the top of the fort [:P]) On the way upwards along the trail a bird with a very sweet call guided us all along the path. we tried to spot it in the dense, but even after gazing for a good couple of minutes, we could spot it only for a few seconds before it took flight. Animals in the wild have an acute sense of awareness!! [:)]







As the trail got steeper we started to gauge the feel of a strenuous trek. The path was a bit old and unused for a while (we realise the reason for this later [:(]), with dried leaves making it difficult to guess at times. The forest became so dense at times that even Saching with his thin frame had a difficult time. From the base we could see that we had to reach a long first plateau, then there was a shorter second plateau and finally the fort. The trek from the base to the first plateau was very steep (it took us exactly one hour and i was panting every 10 mins all along the way). I had enough fun riding the bike and didn't want to climb any more but Saching cheered me upto the first plateau. After that it was a piece of cake. As we rested on the first plateau, we heard some groups coming along a second path. On enquirng we realised that we had come up along the steeper but shorter path and decided to take this one on the way down.
By 11:00 am we were in the fort. We didn't know this earlier but the fort has a genuine history attached to it. I feel now that the Govt. of Maharashtra isn't doing enough to safeguard and protect some of the lesser known but important forts of Maharashtra other than Raigad, Pratapgad, Sinhagad. To share the knowledge, the Killedar of Karnala Fort was none other than the grandfather of Vasudeo Balwant Phadke, "Father of the Armed Struggle for India's Independence", until little after the fall of the Maratha Empire. After spending a good half hour at the top holding back as much of the scenery as we could in our memories, we started our descend to the base. The heat was immense and we had already exhausted 2 litres of water on our way up. Along the way, we met many fellow trekkers, some families, some college buddies, some couples and some married folk with little children, all with the same questions:"How long is it to the top?","Is there any water supply up there?","Is the the view worth the climb?" (one chick asks me) (this one was the funniest, IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN, THE VIEW IS ALWAYS WORTH THE CLIMB [;)])
I was not prepared for what was at the bottom (at the base of the actual trail) there was a proper parking lot for bikes, the cages weren't really empty, we saw parakeets, peahen, peacock, rabbits and some firang duck (most enthued animal there, the rabbits were lazily dozing and didnt seem bothered by the human folk gazing at them.)
Funniest part was from the house with the plate that read "Mukhya Vanarakshak" meaning "Chief Forest Officer", out came a muchhiwaala Maratha and served us two bottles of maaza and local mineral water. So between the two of us, in 3 hours we consumed over 4 litres of H2O, damn the heat!!!
We took off from Karnala at 12:30 pm and with the help of some really nice folk from Panvel and Raigad dist. reached Powai by 2:00 pm.