Initializations..

On a lazy Tuesday evening, few new guys from my neighborhood express their interest about a small ride to learn basics and enjoy an early morning NH2 ride..

So it was planned that on Wednesday (August 04, 2010) early morning, we would do small ride till Gurap may be..

At around midnight, I was having a chat with Sayan (theguitarfreak) as he was expressing his own plan of ridding in Old Delhi road (SH17).. So by 2.30 AM, I was confused as if I can turn the course of mine too to adjust with the route what sayan wish to take..

Turn of events

Anyway I woke up by 4.45 and got my self ready and down stairs by 5AM.. However surprise of the morning was ZERO turn out of all would be tourers .. Found only one of my old pal, waiting to company me..

While we kept on waiting, we explored many options as where to go.. Finally by 5.30AM we decided to ride till Sundorbon via NH117..

The NH117

The NH117 always a challenge for any rider.. Not because of the road condition but mostly because of the traffic..

It was while since I was not been to this route hence wanted to explore as what condition the road now was in.. There was no set target as till how far we would ride, as we decided to take the call in route it self after judging the pace of it as we had to made sure the ride stays a "single day ride"..

Route Taken

Google Maps

Good old NH34

The early morning NH34..







Morning traffic, but jali traffic



Usually from here most of the time we take the GQ to enjoy the pleasure of ridding, but today, its today to head towards Kolkata..



Airport / VIP Road

From Airport Gate No. 1 we turn left and take the VIP Road...



VIP Road felt busy even in these early morning hours.



From "Haldiram", we left VIP Road to take the Rajarhat Bypass..



Rajarhat Bypass / New Town connector

We crossed a deserted CC2 (Usual hangout in late evening hours). Matter of fact this is the first time I saw CC2 in these early ours .



unlike VIP, Rajarhat bypass was empty.. No car / bike could be seen till horizon .. It felt like idle condition to push hard but since on touring mode, we decided to go slow but enjoy the flow







EM Bypass

After the Rajarhat bypass, we took the EM Bypass till Science City !!! Usually jam packed road, crawling with slow moving vehicles was empty..

Metro Rail projects and recent rain seems to had made the EM Bypass a pretty bumpy ride..





Park Circus connector

From Science City, we left the EM Bypass and took the Park circus connector (JBS Haldane Avenue).. We enjoyed as all those signal's were not yet operational, so it was free flowing traffic towards the seven point connector..

Normally in office ours, this stretch says busy and signals are like never ending .





AJC Bose Fly Over

The Fly over is meant to by pass the central Kolkata bound traffic and make it easy for south to access north or vice versa. This 3km stretch of fly by, is matter of fact the fastest and smoothest stretch of road in Kolkata.







Getting in to NH117 - via National Library / Alipur Zoo

Hmm.. Left turn, Kolkata PBK (service n delivery) - Right Turn, NH117 .. Yeah off course we took the right decision ..



NH117 - Behala Area

Wow.. On paper, this stretch was suppose to be the best with double lane and widest of the road, but in reality the stretch was in pretty bad shape.

Rainy season had left its mark, plenty of potholes all around.. But the main problem was, Half of road is covered with damaged tram lines and the other half is blocked by either parked bus / autos or KCM garbage ..

Understandably, traffic was pretty slow ..









However, we had our fun too.. Saw the Kolkata Treasury .. Found a van full of school going kinds, chatted and made faces later exchanged greetings too





Single lane towards Diamond harbor, The Actual NH117

Soon enough the double lane stretch of the NH117 ended and immidiately we were greeted with some jali traffic





The adrenalin rush made sure, what ever little sleepiness we were having was gone within seconds

Open Country side, destination unknow..



Overcast sky, smooth road but jali traffic, we found our self asking, "how far can we go ??"..

NH117 - Towards Diamond harbor



Some smooth (possible highspeed) stretches



Followed by some traps like these typre of broken culverts



Pit stop @ Diamond Harbor

We reached Diamond Harbor at around 7.30 while it was drizzling there.



Felt sleepy and hunrgy too, hence thought of giving a quick pit stop for food and let the rain stop ..



NH117 - Kupli / Kakdwip

With a full stomach and rain slowing down, we start the next stage of NH117, towards Kulpi / Kakdwip..

The rider side ride while it was drizzling, was something to remember .. An evening here with girl friend would be something to really cherish about



The NH117 was butter smooth, stretches allowing high speed.. It was lot greener also.. More like a view one would get from a train ride.. rice fields and agriculture..





However, every now and then, NH117 shows its true color , right after a smooth and high speed stretch, death traps like this is common .. that too without any warning



One more thing that caught my eye was the common / living constructions.. No wonder why the cyclone / Strom fatality ratio is so high in this district , majority of the construction is like this



NH117 - Kakdwip and beyond

Right after Kulpi and between Kakdwip, we slowed down to take this picture. To show the DOC, he aint the only one playing with lights



Further south we went down the NH117, the more greener it started to get..



Road was lonely, very light traffic.. Sometime little/little village traffic slowing us down ..



Gangasagar ?? -> we said to our self, "umm.. may be someother day "



End of Roads - Namkhana

At around 10 we reached Namkhana.. The Gates of Sundorbon. Here we literaly run out of road as NH117 straight went to a rider stream where one has to take ferri service to cross over to continue the later stage of NH117.



With road, we ran out of luck also as we found the ferri guys were having some protest about some demand and the service was in hold for temp . We were told it would resume for sure but no certain time was given

hmm.. we wanted this to be a single day ride hence question we faced to wait or not to wait ??



Waited for few mins but that stinky fishy smell forced a decision, lets ride back home ..

Return Ride

Didn't waste much time at Namkhana. As soon as the decision was made not to wait for ferri to resume, we started our return ride.





Sky was getting darker by minute and we were facing those patches or drizzle from those passing by clouds

Faced a little traffic jam in Kakdwip. All because of Jali traffic of NH117, where the main road is treated as a bus depot and BUS from both direction stops for ages in main road, blocking traffic both direction till they are satisfied with their passenger count



After Kakdwip, we started to push bit harder since those darker clouds of horizon was getting closer and closer



Ringing phone forced in a little PEE STOP . Got bashing from mom as I was missing since early morning ..



We not click detailed picture in return route since we had to pack in the CAM and mobile, in fear of the rain however NH117 started to feel bit monotonous . Very little sleep we had last night and now we had been in road since last 6 hours I guess so this time @ Diamond harbor, sleep forced a little pit stop.



At the river side, it was cool, windy with overcast sky . My pillion enjoyed a little "power nap" of few mins as I kept on trying to capture a better panoramic view of the river side



That is what I managed along with exhausting the camera battery .

We left NH117 at Khidirpur to take the AJC Road Fly over and via Bypass to come back to good old NH34 and back home . Kolkata City traffic slowed the pace compare to what we found in morning. Had to stand and wait in all those signal some time, hot sun, something in rain

At Rajarhat, near CC2, we spotted Mr. Orengy speeding in opposite lane towards Kolkata, in his RTR eFi

Ride stats

By 2.30, we reach our garage to finally switch of the bike.. It was total of 305 kms ride lasting 9 hours. Yawn a quick shower and I went straight to bed for a long NAP