burninrubbr

Was just about to ask you about the plan for your trip, wanted to join you all but can't, have my exams, anyway have fun, ride hard and ride safe

__________________
The only thing standing in your way, the ONLY thing you can count on, at any given time.. Is YOU

sammyboy76

Way to go bro, all the very best. May the force be with you
Hats off to your enthusiasm man.

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RTR-180 - White - My Shopping Cart
Ninja 250R - Lime Green- My dream come true.

harikeshpk

atul all the best. waiting for a detailed feed back/tips.

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Mountain biking on impulse with my wife and our bike goes down in water

http://www.xbhp.com/talkies/tourer/2...own-water.html

my saddle sore 1600k is official - the story

http://www.xbhp.com/talkies/tourer/2...ddle-sore.html

my space
www.harikesh.com

atul_chang

Hi Guys came back last night from the 2,500 km ride in the burning heat on some of the most amazing roads for bike rides in the country.

How was the exams my friend. lets see if we can do a quick ride together post your exams.
Thanks sammy, smoking rubber on asphalt is like nicotine, you get addicted. any plans for mumbai??

Will soon follow. i always plan to write but then procrastinate and then dont do it. Same thing happened with my last trip, but this time I was writing notes with key pts of the trips daily. Would soon put it in words.

__________________
I ride in just 2 weather conditions...
1.When it rains
2. When it doesn't

_____________________________
Suzuki Intruder - 2010
CBR 250R - 2011


THAR DESERT RIDE IN BURNING SUMMERS - 5 days
http://www.xbhp.com/talkies/superbik...tml#post612177

burninrubbr

^^ My exams just got over today, saw an Intruder yest @ Hiranandani, Powai and thought it was you, followed it for quite some distance and then remembered that you were on your trip so how was the trip ?

__________________
The only thing standing in your way, the ONLY thing you can count on, at any given time.. Is YOU

Haariss92

Congratzz buddy for the Intruder and the narration was amazing ,I was like Cruising through the narration @100wpm.With occasional slow downs due to my mom....will keep an eye on this thread for updates and pics ....best of luck

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My Machine -Apache RTR 160


Love the feeling when overtaking another biker with twice the speed.Can only imagine their faces

BIG SARAN

Congrats Atul,
You are one of those true blue bikers who ride these machines for the purpose they are built for. Deep respect man.

Now for the plethora of pics and the journal.

atul_chang

The trip was awesome, have almost written the day 1 narration, will put it up soon.

Thanks buddy

Thanks Saran, no point keeping such a lovely machine and not using it. The pics and journals - First part coming up tomorrow morning

__________________
I ride in just 2 weather conditions...
1.When it rains
2. When it doesn't

_____________________________
Suzuki Intruder - 2010
CBR 250R - 2011


THAR DESERT RIDE IN BURNING SUMMERS - 5 days
http://www.xbhp.com/talkies/superbik...tml#post612177

atul_chang

I have never written a travelogue in my life, I used to write tidbits when trekking in the college days, but it was usually not for sharing it with others but more for its memories. I am not sure what level of detail would be appropriate here. I plan to clearly mark each part of the ride so that one can skip if it gets too long. I am writing this for 3 main reasons – Sharing my experiences with fellow bikers, providing information to people who might want to do part or whole of this route and lastly and most importantly to have a detailed log of this one of the most amazing experiences of my life that I can look back to when I am in need of good memories.

The Plan – I had always wanted to visit Rajasthan on two wheels, riding a bike on a deserted back road of a highway with dunes in the background has been a distant dream for over a decade. When I got the intruder, I was sure that this is the machine that will help make my dream come true. Almost planned a trip with 2 other intruders last year, but some last minute glitches and the trip got cancelled. However, this time thanks to the Birthdays of both Lord Rama and Dr. Ambedkar, we had 2 bank holidays this week so all I needed was 3 more days leave and I had 9 days to plan, travel, return, recuperate, write and post pictures and get back to work. The D-day was decided to be 10April, 2011 Sunday. I would have loved to travel with other bikers but since it was already the 7th of April, there wasn’t enough time. The itinerary was decided as Mumbai – Ahmedabad – Barmer – Jaisalmer – Jodhpur – Abu or Udaipur – Ahmedabad – Mumbai. The total distance would be in the neighbourhood of 2500 kilometers. There was some really long desolate stretches in this route so a solo ride was ruled out. Thankfully my cousin – Ritwik who was visiting from Delhi came to my rescue and agreed to accompany me.


The Preparations – 1. Made a long list of important things required for the ride, beginning from Flask, Electral powder, first aid, camera batteries, flash light, bungee cords and bungee net (for pillion comfort – we decided not to mount the leather saddle bags that I had used for my earlier solo rides), sun screen, tucks, puncture repair kit etc
2. Went gear shopping for Ritwik, while I had a spare helmet and a knee guard, we also needed a good quality riding jackets, a bandana, sun glasses and balaclava – Picked up an R-jays jacket for him from Bacchoo motors and rest of the stuff from closer home.
3. The second servicing of the bike was due so I took it to the Malad Suzuki, since they were out of Oil, arranged it from Performance racing and reached Malad Sat morning – a day before the d-day. They did a thorough job on the bike and I was quite happy with it. 2 caveats – The rear Tyre and the Rear brakes had approx 3000 km of life left in them and I should get it changed the moment I return from the trip, but they were in good condition right now – point noted.
4. did a thorough check on the bike in the evening because the trip was starting early next morning and it is not advisable to go on long rides right after the servicing. All checks done, I got the tank filled.
5. Parked the bike in the parking and reset the Trip Odometer to 0.0 Km. and to save time in the morning – Tied the bag to the bike using the bungee cords at night itself

Day 1.

Mumbai – Vapi – Surat – Vadodara – Ahmedabad – Palanpur

1. I needed a good night’s sleep but I couldn’t sleep properly, it was finally happening, felt unbelievable.
2. We got up at 5:15 Am and were out of Vashi by 6am sharp
3. Taking the Ghorbunder Road, we were out of the Mumbai area in no time and did not encounter any trouble till we crossed Vasai
4. We had planned to have an average speed of a kilometer a minute including breaks – since we planned to stop every 2.5 hours. The bike was sounding beautiful in the early morning silence of the road. The engine was ready to flex 1800 cc of muscles.
5. Right before Virar, I remember thinking that I would easily meet this target, just 5 minutes later, we ran into a monster traffic jam. I was really not expecting this early in the morning. But there was some construction being undertaken on the road and just one lane on our side of the road was open. Taking a cue from some other car owners, I turned the bike around to the cut on the road 50 meters back and started driving on the wrong side of the road, with around 10 other cars. In about 30 minutes of riding on the other side, most of the times in the dirt trail on the side of the road, we crossed the 2 kilometers of the affected area
6. We decided to break at Palghar for breakfast. A kilometer a minute plan went for a toss, it had taken us 2 hours to cross just 90 kms. But we knew that the bike was now ready to fly, to do what it was conceived and designed for.
7. It was a breeze for next 1 hour and we crossed the Maharashtra border cruising at around 100kmph. Around Vapi area, huge flyover construction work was going on. While it slowed down our speed considerably, thankfully there were no traffic jams.
8. Premium petrol had always been a problem on long rides, so I saw a Petrol pump with Power written on it, so decided to get the tank filled.
9. The cruise continued and we were at Surat by 11:45 am and decided to break for tea, barring the jam that had wasted our half hour, we were doing good time and we knew that the roads ahead would be sheer 6 lanes bliss albeit with heavier traffic.
10. The Surat Bharuch stretch made me cross my self imposed 140kmph limit and soon we were hovering around 160 to 180 marks. One could clearly see a kilometer ahead and in case of overtaking, you could do that cleanly with an empty lane in between
11. This was not meant to last as right before the bharuch toll booth, there are 2 bridges of 2 lane each for each side of traffic, but the bridge to the right was closed for traffic. I remember that this was closed even when I did my last ride on this route in January. Got stuck again as there was no way to cross to the other side of the road. I don’t understand the point of making 6 lane highways and then creating a bottleneck with just 2 lanes active. Thankfully when traffic moved a little, we got some room for a bike to pass in what looked like a bike/footpath lane on the left side of the road. This jam cost us just fifteen minutes, but the sun had been doubly harsh on us with the bike heating up on the inching traffic, both of us dressed in full gear and exhausts from trucks and buses on the road. We were tired and uncomfortable but then this is what we had planned to endure. Swig of ice cold water laced with electrol and we were ready to move ahead.
12. The amazing roads till baroda made up for the pain earlier. We were refreshed by the ride and the sweat had completely dried up. Truly world class highway with amazing traffic. Barring few vehicles trying to race or to take pictures, we had a lovely time riding. The wind on the face made the afternoon sun non-existant
13. We were at Anand by 2:45 PM, we were behind schedule, but 460 kms before lunch was not bad. We decided to have lunch at Anand and then rest for a short while.
14. After the lunch, an drinking plenty of water and a refill at Anand (Speed this time) we were back to the 2 lane highway for Ahmedabad (expressway not for lowly 2 wheelers). It was 4 pm by the time, we hit the highway and despite the 2 lanes without a divider, we were riding at around 80.
15. In an hour and a half we had hit Ahmedabad outskirts. We took the Sardar Patel Ring Road round the city and then moved to the highway to Mehsana (took us around 45 min to leave the city behind).
16. Mehsana was around 70 kilometers and we were able to cover this distance on the amazing 4 laners in just an hour. The sun was yet to set and we decided that we were still not dead tired, so thought of riding for another hour or so.
17. We were soon at Unjha, it is famous for cumin (jeera) and most of the trucks that we over took were smelling of it. We stopped for Tea at Unjha, it had just gone dark. All the bikers we had overtaken on the way stopped at the same dhaba to admire the bike and soon it was like a carnival. We did not want to stop at Unjha since it was a small town and were not sure about hotels there.
18. Palanpur was less than an hour ride away and we reached Palanpur at 810pm. 14 hours of riding on the first day to cover 720 kilometers.
19. We found a petrol pump and filled the tank and right infront of the pump found a hotel with a boundary wall and drove the bike right into it and settled for the night.
20. Next day we were entering Rajasthan, we had hoped to cover for 600km in a day and were thrilled that we had enough buffer. If we start on time the next day, we can be in Jaisalmer in time for a late lunch.

__________________
I ride in just 2 weather conditions...
1.When it rains
2. When it doesn't

_____________________________
Suzuki Intruder - 2010
CBR 250R - 2011


THAR DESERT RIDE IN BURNING SUMMERS - 5 days
http://www.xbhp.com/talkies/superbik...tml#post612177

rakshit rana

congratz sirji for completing the tour successfully.very nice narration.loved every bit of it.Nice to see unleashing the raw power of this BIG monster & exploring new places.waiting for the rest of log & pics.bring it on...
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