Day2
Pune-Ahmedabad
After the night halt at Hydroxide's place, I am feeling good. No aching back, b**t or limbs. Perfect.
So Praveen and me leave till the main highway to Mumbai. Praveen tells all the useful info about the directions and I depart. Traffic is dense till the Pune-Mumbai expressway where I head further on the NH. No bikes allowed on the expressway.
The point at which we (Hydroxide and Me) stopped before bading goodbye
Praveen Shirali (Hydroxide) himself in his A* jacket. I have to thank him for the guidance till Pune and having me over at his place.
All saddled up again !
The route is awesome. Traffic is far less and very managable. At one point it is united with the expressway as well. Head down the khoppoli exit and continue.
The route from Pre-Thane till some 20 odd kms is hell. Traffic is dense , maybe riding over the car tops would be a better idea. But nah didn't feel like it. Stop at a chai thela and have a round of sutta and tea. Refreshing. Finally take the highway from thane and im off. the Highway now is a 2 lane one with moderate traffic. Head down this highway till i come across the 4 lane GQ about 210 kms from Surat.
The first proper signboard which reads "Ahmedabad", my home. Immense boost to the riding spirit.
Last pic of the day, because after this I got terribly late because of the dense traffic encountered later on, so I didnt take any breaks
And then I gun the throttle down, 100+ all the way till surat, people in cars are looking at me kaaarnering with the heavy luggage
. At a point I get stopped by a car who's apparantly interested where I am coming from. So it turns out he's from Belgaum , driving his MH reg Zen. I tell him I am coming from Tumkur
he is stunned and delighted.
And so I ride all the way to Surat, encountering some bad patches at bridges especially. Take a big slam at one of these bridges, but no damage to the alloys or anything else. Phew.
But upon reaching Surat I was disappointed. Huge jams courtesy to the lane widening work going on at the GQ corridor. At least 20 diversions all the way from Surat till Bharuch. Its 7:00 pm by the time I cross
Till Vadodara there's some or the other diversion which is plain irritating. Its already 9:30pm. reach the Ahmedabad-Vadodara expressway but bikes ain't allowed here too
! so well off to the detour to the NH8..
the HID works well. So well that some fellas actually follow me to show them the way through the utter darkness of the unlit highways. Finally I reach Ahmedabad on the sardar patel outer ring road and head to home.
Dad comes out with not-so-impressed look. He simply asks "how was it?" I said fine. he said "ok come in and have dinner and go to sleep." Maybe that's the reaction an ex-biker would give to such a tour done, esp his own son.