ritwik23

It had been almost two months since the Ripperz had unleashed their beasts on the roads and all the guys were itching to go for a long one. After pondering over different locations, we finalised on Dapoli as our destination for Meet 9 and the 4th of October as the D-day for the ride. After much deliberation on which route would best suite our riding requirement, we decided to take the one which goes through Mahabaleshwar via Poladpur, then onto NH-17 and finally to Dapoli via Khed phata. The distance came up to around 235kms one way. So after planning this ride for over a month, we were finally set to go.
It was 3am, when my alarm goes off. I pulled myself out of bed and freshened up. The disadvantage of waking up early is that you need to sit down and call up all the guys who can’t. So a battery of phone calls followed and by the time I was done it was almost 3:30am. The lazy buggers had left me with just 45mins to get ready and meet them at the rendezvous.
So after a quick dash in the shower, I kitted up, packed my bag with water and the first aid kit and left my house in a frenzy. I reached our usual meeting spot on F.C road- the Probiking at Ghole road at 4:20am and found a lonely Shailendra waiting for the rest to arrive. Fortunately we didn’t have to wait too long for the gang and after 15mins or so we’re off to Mahabaleshwar, our first stop of the day.
You know, a lot of people tell me that it’s dangerous to ride at night on the highway, but I would beg to differ. I just love riding on the highways at night, lighting up the road with my P200’s brilliant HIDs and cruising leisurely at 95kmph. Plus, when u have 8 bikes in a formation lined up one behind the other, it’s hard not to be spotted by other road users. We took the NH-4 all the way to Surur, where we regrouped and headed to Wai and Panchgani. Dawn was about to break and a sliver of light had lit up the horizon. The Pasarni ghat was covered in a jiffy and before the sun came up, we were at Mahabaleshwar.
It was 6:30am and the lazy town was yet to open its eyes. After searching for about 15mins, we finally found a restaurant open for business. The orders for breakfast started flying even before we were seated and like a hungry pack of wolves we devoured the Idli Sambhar and chai in a matter of minutes. After an hour or so we decided to get moving again and everyone put on their rain gear as the dreary weather promised to greet us with rain.
The fantastic ghat section from Mahabaleshwar to Poladpur lacks just one thing- a good road surface. The serpentine road of Rudtondi definitely has the potential to give Lavasa, our holy biking ground, a run for its money, if it were to be resurfaced with the same grainy tarmac. The combination of the winding corners and the broken road made it essential that we kept our speeds down. After 40kms of slow riding we finally hit NH17, the Mumbai-Goa highway and the next 35 odd kilometres from Poladpur to Chiplun were pure biking nirvana.
The superbly banked, wide ghat section boasts of everything from hairpins to fast sweeping corners. Considering the visibility that every corner offers and the wide runoff area, you can take some of these corners at speeds exceeding 100kmph! Needless to say, the ride up this ghat made up for all that we had missed out on in the last ghat section and before we realised, we had already reached the Khed fata from where we turned right for Dapoli. From here on, the road to the coastal village was about 60kms long and we decided to take it easy to skip all the proverbial balls-in-the-mouth experiences if a goat or a cow ran into our paths to say hello! But to our pleasant surprise, there were barely any villages on the road. So it didn’t take long before our throttles were again pinned to the stop and we covered the 60kms in less than 45mins.
We asked around for directions for going to the beach and finally we had arrived. We got out of our gear and took our bikes straight onto the sand. An hour long power sliding session followed before we decided to hunt for food again. We had sea food on our minds and the prawns curry, Surmai fry, Tandoori Pomfret seemed to fit the bill just fine. As we feasted on these delicacies at a local restaurant, the heavens opened to hit the coastal beach with a torrential downpour. We paid the bill and waited for the rain to stop. It was already 3pm and I wanted to get to Mahabaleshwar before dark. But the Rain gods had something else in store for us, because as soon as we left the place, we got rained on so hard that we were soaking wet in a matter of minutes. Stopping now did not make any sense and so we continued our journey back home. Thankfully the rain eased a bit after a while and we were able to ride at a fair clip.
By the time we reached Poladpur it was close to 5pm. We stopped again to regroup here before turning right at Shivaji Chowk in Poladpur to head back to Mahabaleshwar. When you ride in a group, there is a very high possibility that someone might fall behind and take the wrong route and that’s exactly what happened with us! Two guys who were at the tail end of the group asked us to move on and promised to catch up. But that was not to be as they did not turn right at Poladpur and continued straight on the NH17 towards Mumbai. After waiting for these guys for a fair bit, I decided to turn around and look for them. A traffic cop at Shivaji Chowk told me that he had seen a couple of guys on Pulsars dash straight towards Mumbai. So I asked the rest of the group to proceed to Mahabaleshwar, while I waited along with another friend of mine for these lost souls to return. After a good 45minutes, we spotted the two and without wasting any more time we recommenced our journey towards Mahabaleshwar.
Riding up on the broken ghat section turned out to be one hell of a task and it took us a good hour to reach Mahabaleshwar. We stopped at the hill station to quickly freshen up and left for Pune by 8pm. The journey back home was a slow affair partially because of the rain and partly because of the restricted visibility of the night. I finally reached home at 11:45pm after seeing off all my mates at Chandni Chowk and reflected on this memorable journey as I lay in my bed. This was arguably one of the best rides of my life and I hope I get to do more of these in the years to come.
Here are some pics from the ride.

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Aryan

Topic Approved.

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ritwik23

@aryan-thnx for the approval.

Arzin

truely an amazing meet ever after divyagar.though as was red and i couldnt just get outta ma bed for a day and was sitting on a pillow all day long(lil exaggerations) but still this meet was one of the most unforgetable meet ever

tourer_kashif

First I read Rubber Ripperz,then thought that it must be Ritwik
Nice trip bro...Maha to Poladpur is in bad shape?sad to know bcoz I loved that ghat when I visited it before monsoon.

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abhifusion

It was a nice meet except some unfortunate events ...

Ritwik ,how about writing a log of Dive-aagar meet ??

dual disc 200

4 220's and 4 200's?? Must have been a pulsar mania Amazing line-up man!!

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niks_devil666

I thot you were a p220 specific group (remember pavana dam ride last year feb), now I see 200's too.

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inder.cool

@ Dual Disc: There are around 20-22 220's in the group..

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dual disc 200

Holy Moly!!!! U have a pic of that!! That will really be a feast to the eyes man!

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Whenever there is a Rainbow in the sky, I know it's u mastering the art of Cornering. U will always be remembered brother, R.I.P Arun.

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