vkavadia

"How do I begin this trip log?" - This question kept bouncing around my rather empty head every now and then while riding on this three day trip. The initial few sentences are the toughest to write and in this case the magnificent scenery along the journey is incredibly difficult to describe in words.

We rode through ghats where the quality of the roads, lane markings, banking, etc made anything below 70 feet snail paced.

We rode through places where there were more potholes than road.

We rode through forests with roads just about as wide as a car and a bike standing next to each other.

We rode through magnificent plains with scenery to rival Ladakh and roads to rival NH4.

We put in an extra 30kms to the odo looking for accommodation on the first night and on the next night, a stranger was kind enough to invite us to stay with him and his family.

Five people (later six) rode from Pune to Chikhaldara and Melghat, a forested area which is a tiger reserve over the long weekend of 13th-15th August. The bikers were Siddharth on his 2 month - 6000km old ZMR, Sudhir aka Revverend on his 25000km old RTR 160, Rohit aka Beruoist on his 3000km old CBR250R, Krishna aka Professor Biker on his 7000km old Ninja, Nachiket, a non-xBhpian on his 1300km old Avenger220 and also on his first long ride and I on my 13000km old - no issues - Pulsar 220.

A photo for each day:

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Get ready for the ride! 24 Hours on a Bike...

An amazing ghat, a beautiful beach and next to zero visibility fog - All in 150kms
Marvellous Monsoon!

Lavasa - Cornering into heaven!

A 3 day log for a 3 day ride! 3 Days On The Road

Visit Little Rann of Kutch in Kutch Calling...

MG

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rachitkohli

Lovely.. the log sounds beautiful... Eager to see more pix... Rivalry makes me curious
Great going guys..!!

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Mumbai - Leh - Mumbai June '09 :On xBHP: Ride With me to Leh

Blog : Mumbai - Leh - Mumbai : 21 Days, 6500kms. Journey to Heaven..June'09

GreatIndianRide - West India on a 110cc for over a month

2nd, Mumbai-Leh-Mumbai : July'11 (blog coming soon)

vkavadia

Day 1

Behind Every Great Ride There Is A Great Plan!

If only the riders knew what the plan was!
We spent the major part of the week before the trip deciding and re-deciding where to go and even after finalizing the destination, asking for opinions and changing the plans yet again. Some people wanted an overnight trip, some people wanted to go far, some more wanted to do a one day trip so on so forth... We were finally able to make up our minds 2 days before the ride and three people were 100% sure and one day before the ride two other people came in. So there were five of us ready for a 2 day trip (or so I thought). Beruoist aka Biru was to meet us at Chikhaldara on Sunday morning and we would continue the ride with him. That was the plan and looked good on paper as most plans do.

The night before the ride was a Friday plus the next day was Rakhi so I was sure that we wouldn't leave at 6 the next day. Sure enough, the departing time was to be 8 in the morning and we ended up leaving at 9 because of, of course, some unforeseen cirumstances


Waiting for the others


The riders


Gentlemen! Start Your Engines!

The day of the ride, Siddharth (henceforth called Sid) and I met up for breakfast and joined the others at Nagar road where the ride would commence. It wasn't early morning plus it was a weekend so the traffic was heavier than normal. More the traffic and pedestrians and by-standers, more the number of gawks and stares and drag race provocations because of all the riding gear... Being used to it, we covered the 15 or so kms from the breakfast point to Nagar road. After briefing Nachiket (the new guy) about various rules and hand signs and group riding formations, etc we fired up our engines and started the ride...

The initial 20kms were spent in dodging city traffic and trying to get as far away from it as quickly as possible. I'd prepared for a lot of rainy riding so I was wearing 3 layers of clothing which, in traffic, didn't exactly keep me cool . Cursing the weather for its lack of precipitation, I carried on at the tail of the group keeping an eye on Nachiket who was in the middle. Krishna (henceforth called Krish) being the navigator was leading, Sudhir was riding second to lead and Sid was in front of me. We managed to make it out of the city quickly and I soon had my highway smile on which pretty much looks like this:

We were cruising along at 90, keeping around that speed so that Nachiket would get used to his bike's dynamics at those speeds and also because the traffic was still thinning out and we'd encounter an intersection every now and then. About 40kms into the ride Sudhir complained of a wobble coming from his front wheel. We pulled over and after some inspection concluded that the tire was not fitted properly. There was a puncture repair shop in sight so we stopped there and couldn't think of anything but checking the tire's air pressure. The guy there filled it up to 30psi which didn't really solve the problem but there wasn't anything else to be done either... There was a restaurant there so everyone decided to eat some more breakfast.


Working on the Apache's tire

After a 20 minute break, we started riding towards Ahmednagar again. The highways were pretty smooth with well marked lanes and proper banking and relatively well behaved traffic. We stopped for an early lunch at a restaurant which seemed to be popular with tourists.


Lunch at The Smile Stone




From left to right: Nachiket, Krishna, Sudhir, Siddharth and me (one of the very few pics with me in the frame)

There were many cuisines and we wasted about 10 minutes deciding what to eat. After a half an hour break and some curious and jealous looks from car/bus people, we hit the highway again. We had no difficulty maintaining 90-100 on the speedo and it was textbook highway cruising till slightly before Ahmednagar ~ 100kms. When you're approaching a city its pretty evident because of the exponential increase in two-wheeler traffic. Bad roads and obscenely undisciplined traffic forced us to slow down to stop and go speeds and we decided to follow the local bikes and went off road on the left side of the "road".

While riding in the city, my tachometer rarely goes above 4k rpm but while on biking trips, its the other way round so that I have a healthy dosage of torque whenever required. One fellow on a R15 came up from behind us just as I was overtaking a truck. There wasn't anything rash or provoking about it but because of the high rpms the R15 guy (who didn't have a helmet of course) got offended I suppose and decided to race with the group. Upon spotting the Ninja his fervor only increased and he started maneuvering in and out of traffic like a cat with its tail on fire. We were carrying along at a merry pace, as fast as the traffic allowed and soon took a right turn onto a highway leaving him with an ego boost - How he must have boasted to his friends about beating a Ninja .

Just out of Nagar we saw a board which read 'ghat aarambh' - ghat begins. I got all excited and got ready for nice twisty roads! We negotiated the first turn which was barely even there, I was waiting for the next curve when I spotted a speeding ST bus going the other way in the distance. Speeding ST buses are not a rare sight. ST buses driving around and overtaking recklessly are also not a rare sight. But this particular ST bus - the driver was either drunk or half asleep. I was to the extreme left of my lane, not wanting to take chances with a speeding ST bus. Now as this bus is coming towards me, I notice that the axles aren't aligned properly and this gives the bus a drifting type stance, very disorientating for me. It was coming in at a weird angle and on top of that, the bus started drifting into my lane! Imagine a 5000kg red demon at 90kmph coming head on ! I myself was at around 80 and when this bus passed me, it was, literally, a hair's breadth away! I lost my breath because of the wind blast and I'm sure if I'd loaded my bike with saddle bags, I'd have been lying on the road the next instant... All the safety gear in the world can't protect you from a head on crash. Luckily, nothing happened, I was able to shrug it off and continue riding.

The ghat continued and I saw no curves. At one point there was a pothole covering the width of the road so we had to slow down to first gear speeds. Next I saw a bike in a ditch with 20 people around the scene. And the next sight was a board which read 'ghat samaapt' - ghat ends. I was like ! Who the hell would call that a ghat??

But my thirst for the twisties was quenched soon enough when the roads became super smooth and well marked and properly banked. The view at the start of this ghat was irresistible so we stopped and took a few photos.





Krishna started leading after this small break and I didn't want to miss out on the action so I followed close behind him. Sudhir would have been able to keep up had it not been for his wobbling front. So it was the Ninja and 220 attacking the curves at break neck speeds ! There's something about ghat roads that gives me more inner peace than even highways... I completely lose myself and find a level of concentration that I never knew I had! Only and earthquake would make me budge when I'm negotiating a ghat... Maybe its the track guy inside me . So we went through the curves, hair pins, me scraping the ridiculous center stand a couple of times, Krishna fishtailing into a curve. It was all like a well choreographed dance, perfectly executed with no hiccups - well except one. And a very classic one at that. We encountered a curve that kept decreasing in radius - really classic place to crash. But we both were looking far enough into the corner to realize what was happening so no harm done. The others, I later learned, had a scare at that point.

We didn't encounter many vehicles on the way down so I was all ready to go back up but time limits didn't allow it so we carried on after marveling about the roads.

We soon reached a junction and after asking for directions a couple of times we were on our way to Shevgaon which ended up taking more time because of the more-pothole-than-road syndrome.



Riding Through Village Highways

The next phase of the journey was characterized by squeaking shockers and there were many patches where I'd have had the time of my life if I had a dirt bike . This was the traditional more-pothole-than-road syndrome... Every tourer at some point in his/her life has to suffer from this abnormality. In fact, on some routes, this abnormality is the normal order. We arrived at a junction where we had the choice of two roads leading to Shevgaon. One was a a highway but much longer and the other passed through a series of villages. Apparently, the group hadn't had enough of potholed roads so after confirming from a local (who said the road ahead is 'ek number!' - first class) we continued through the 'potty' roads .

This was just the beginning of a number of times we'd hear 'aage ka road badhiya highway hai!' - the road ahead is a great highway! - and end up with abrupt bad patches, diversions and, of course, potholes. To put it simply, we learnt the village definition of a highway. I'm not complaining here, just stating the difference in perspective most of us have from villagers. So we continued down this AWESOME road and after a while, I swear I could hear strange squeaking noises coming from the front of my bike! The road seemed never ending and every now and then we'd almost come to a stand still when two trucks would try to overtake eachother and fail miserably. I have no idea how the Ninja didn't scrape its fairing!

After an unknown number of kms of this type of riding we came across a smooth patch and decided to halt for a few minutes. We drank some water and had a little entertainment at our disposal - Trucks and cars coming in from the opposite direction weren't doing less than 70. We'd stopped just outside the bad patch so almost every vehicle bounced around like a ping pong ball as it hit the bad part of the road. The locals knew better and slowed down but the truckers and tourists won't even bother slowing down even after we signaled for them to do so. So we had a merry time listening and looking at the bashing the vehicles got.

With rested spines, we carried on along decent roads interspersed with bad patches. Krishna was nice enough to let me ride the Ninja after a while and I noticed two things immediately. First was the rock hard shockers in comparison to my ping-pong 220. Second was the frustrating lack of torque around 4k-5k rpm. I'm used to bouncing around on bumpy roads but on this bike I could feel almost each bump - I liked that, that much feedback is confidence inducing while cornering. The 220 is a torque monster in the Indian biking context so anything below 5k rpm just didn't feel natural on the Ninja. But once past 5k, I could feel the power kicking in. I tested the brakes, the rear brake was rather scary compared to my 220's rather easy going counter part. The front was a different story altogether! A one finger grip was more than enough for any kind of emergency braking! The bike was very flick able and I found myself over steering because of the 220's hard handling characteristics.

Overall, its one of the best bikes I've ever ridden (not like I've ridden many) and even if I had the money for a Hyosung GT650R (which I've ridden for 30 odd kms on a highway), I'd go for a Ninja 250 (Keeping in mind Ninja 650 is a different segment).

So that was the Ninja ride for 20kms or so. Back on my 220, I felt at home and gave the bike a pat for its low end torque . We took another break for water and tea along the way and soon we were on our way towards Jalna.








Goofing around


A Contract To Break Roads

After Paithan the roads got progressively better. We had four laned roads once more but every now and then there was a diversion so the traffic was always on one side of the divider. This road work has been going on for a few years now and there's still some significant work left to be done. The condition of the roads is good and bad at the same time. The good part is that the roads are smooth, like a good NH. The bad part is that there are HUGE potholes cropping out of nowhere. It was almost like a contractor was hired to make the road and another to make the potholes! Hence the heading.

It was near twilight now. We stopped and asked a local for some directions. It was nice of him to let us know that the roads ahead were unsafe because the area was forested and there were lots of animals around.
My crazy mind formed the image of an elephant roadkill . But we didn't encounter any such dangers and the only threat was the road which now had abrupt patches with loads of gravel lying around. Twilight is a hopeless time to ride, or even drive for that matter. The headlights are useless, natural light is fading, concentration becomes difficult, etc etc. It was understood without saying that the Ninja and 220 would lead at night but at this point, both were equally worthless in terms of lighting. After Krishna narrowly missed a few potholes, I decided to move ahead and ride second to lead.

The light kept fading and the roads didn't get any better. I started leading after a while. It was going good for a while and I was switching between low and high beam continuously scanning the road ahead. But I wasn't ready for what the road threw at me and twice that night I out ran my field of vision by riding too fast. Twice I ran into decently sized potholes and twice the bike stayed upright. I was given two chances and luckily neither of the rims suffered any damage. Krishna decided to start leading again and I was more than happy to follow him. After a while it was pretty much as dark as it would get and there was not a moment's rest what with the number of ugly potholes lined up like the bad guys in an Indian movie!

We reached Jalna after a while and it was a relief from the potholed roads. Jalna seemed to be a busy town with lots of vehicles and ST buses and vendors and shops. We passed through the city with the customary non-challant attitudes ignoring the irritated and surprised looks at the sound of the Ninja. Right outside Jalna we asked a trucker a few directions and road conditions. He was a nice chap and told us a lot more than we asked for. Basically he confirmed what I feared. The roads ahead were pretty much the same and worse in places.

We rode on a bit more and after a while pulled over again. Krish as usual had not rested after his night shift on Friday so he got drowsy rather early. By then I'd gotten used to the darkness and the general speed of the group had slowed down. We were taking a water and pee break when three guys on a Splendor pulled over in front of us and started walking towards the group. Within no time we noticed that they were drunk. They asked the usual questions and we answered and then one guy went to the edge of the road to pee. This one was the most drunk and he couldn't even stand straight! He lost his balance and fell into a ditch by the road and didn't emerge for quite a while . His friends went to help him up and advised us to leave. We obliged and this time I led the group as we rode towards Chikhli.



220's Projectors!

I was careful this time and stayed on high beam whenever the road ahead was free of vehicles. As many of you might know, 220's high beam is rather murderous and I am yet to ride a bike produced in India that has a better high beam. As for the low beam projectors, only the CBR and Ninja seem to be better. The headlights on my bike are a great source of pride for me . The high beam proved to be very useful not only in lighting up the way but also in forcing the oncoming vehicles to switch to low beam ! Everytime I saw an idiot coming in on high beams, I'd switch to high beam too and 80% percent of the times I'd get good results . Its encouraging to know that you can scare the hell outta a Tata Sumo with your headlights .

I'd like to add something about truckers here, something like an ode to truckers. To all the bikers out there who have any road sense and good will for others - respect trucks and truck drivers. That truck that you're honking at could easily slam on his brakes or veer into your lane and you'd be dead in an instant and on a secluded highway, no one would even know. I say respect them not just out of fear but also out of genuine appreciation for their patience and the sort of work they do. Riding at night, I've noticed that trucks are the most well behaved yet suffer the most abuse. You have to understand that it is not easy maneuvering such big machines. Stopping them requires a lot of distance so if the driver spots an obstacle, the best option is to drive around it, not wait for the traffic in the adjacent lane to pass! Whenever you flash your lights at an on coming truck at night, the truckers switches to low beam. If you're on high beam, he'll do the same!



When you're riding in a group and are left behind because a truck is overtaking another, don't try to squeeze between both and make your way forward - Be a biker, have and show some patience! Its for your own good. I don't care much for Sumo or Tavera type tourist cars or ST buses but for truckers I have nothing but respect. True they drive rashly sometimes but don't you ride rashly from a trucker's perspective? - Food for thought . . .

Anyhow, getting back to the ride. We carried on along the winding roads and every now and then we'd move to the edge of the road when a vehicle was coming in since the road was one and a half laned. I upped my pace after I got used to the road conditions and kept an eye out for potholes plus the group of 4 behind me. Its a good feeling when you're leading a group of riders through unknown roads. Biking teaches you a lot. Cooperation would be among the top 3 in my list. The other two being respect for other motorists and being friendly with people. So this road continued for a while with a couple of high speed curves and the ups and downs of a number of hills.

At one point when I was leading I noticed some lights on my right side. I didn't look at the RVM thinking it was Sudhir. Just then I spotted a large pothole to the right and immediately signaled for Sudhir to get back behind me. Imagine my surprise when a white Hyundai i10 tries to overtake me and ends driving into this huge pothole! At first it was disbelief as I looked at this car bouncing around throwing dust and debris around! Miraculously the driver didn't lose control and fell in behind me and in front of Sudhir. I gave the car a 'what the hell are you doing??' gesture and carried on. The car slowed down and the rest of the bikes were able to overtake it. We reached Chikhli after a while and stopped for a couple of minutes. That was when the car passed by with stupid awestruck faces on the passengers inside. They were completely dumbfounded at the sight of us and didn't seem to care that they'd almost crashed about 10 minutes ago!

We rode and decided to halt on the way for dinner. There was a well lit restaurant by the side of the road and we decided to halt there for dinner. It was around 10pm by then and save me and Nachiket, everyone looked tired . Dinner was served in no time and it was a rather sumptuous meal. Our waiter was a very polite guy and was very nice to us in a place where I'd expected a lot hostility - Vidarbha. He kept calling us sir and it was very embarrassing since he was middle aged. We requested him not to do so and thanked him for the food. While we were eating, a tourist bus pulled over at the restaurant and there were many awestruck faces when people noticed high-end bikes standing around. After a little chit-chat, they seemed to decide that we were the bikers there and as usual - the curious stares . Its always like we're from another world !! A couple of teenagers took photos of the Ninja. After dinner I spoke with our waiter and learned that he was from Rajasthan - Mr. N.G. Joshi. I'll surely visit the restaurant next time I travel along that route.


Dinner time!!



After a while a couple of policemen came around. They must have been on patrol and we were leaving around the same time. The others explained the purpose of 5 bikes being out on the road at 10 in the night and they were happy to note that we had good safety gear on. I guess to them it meant that we'd ride safe. The plan at the beginning of the day was to ride to Chikhaldara and halt there for the night. But the numerous breaks and awesome village highways had taken their toll on our average speed and so we had to halt at Khamgaon. I led the way once again and after a short ride, we reached Khamgaon and began our search for a hotel...



The Hunt Begins

It was almost midnight now. We were happy to see a hotel just as we entered Khamgaon. We went inside to discuss rates and amenities. We were 5 people so the guy there said we'd have to take two rooms and one extra cot- fine with us. He was charging 250 bucks per room and 50 for the extra cot which was a good rate and we were happy with it. But when we asked him to show us the room first he didn't budge and started saying that if we wanted any other hotel we'd have to go deep into the town and that nothing would be free right now etc etc. He was acting too pricey for our liking and of course, something seemed to be amiss so we decided to move on and look for another hotel.

We negotiated the streets of Khamgaon and asked the few pedestrians there were the whereabouts of a hotel. We finally found one which was cheaper and had decent rooms but the parking was completely open and not to our liking plus there were a lot of auto spare parts shops around the area . So we decided to go back to the first hotel we encountered. Once there the guy said that the rates had now gone up. It had hardly been half an hour since the last time and this hotel's happy hour had started! I didn't even bother asking the rates and we decided to look for yet another hotel. This time we found a good deal at about 120 bucks per head. One room with an attached toilet (which was pretty much non-operational) where Krish, Sudhir and Nachiket slept and a normal room where Sid and I slept. The parking was relatively safer so we all slept without worry.


BED!!
It was around 1 by the time we tucked in and though I wasn't tired, I fell into a nice and refreshing slumber. Dreaming bout flying over potholes and dodging fiery trucks on the highways and flying above the clouds on my very own bike!

__________________
Get ready for the ride! 24 Hours on a Bike...

An amazing ghat, a beautiful beach and next to zero visibility fog - All in 150kms
Marvellous Monsoon!

Lavasa - Cornering into heaven!

A 3 day log for a 3 day ride! 3 Days On The Road

Visit Little Rann of Kutch in Kutch Calling...

beruoist

Awesome write up..It seems i have to write my part of Day 1 and Day 2 separately

Cheers
Biru

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vkavadia

I'll incorporate you from day 1.5 onwards

There's lots more! Day 2 and day 3 and a lot more photos!

Keep visiting when you're online!

__________________
Get ready for the ride! 24 Hours on a Bike...

An amazing ghat, a beautiful beach and next to zero visibility fog - All in 150kms
Marvellous Monsoon!

Lavasa - Cornering into heaven!

A 3 day log for a 3 day ride! 3 Days On The Road

Visit Little Rann of Kutch in Kutch Calling...

trustvishwas

Really good writeup. Keep up the good work and update before others forget about this ride. :-)

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ridermax

Beautifully written ! And some awesome pics too ! Kudos guys, waiting for more (??).

Take Care & Ride Safe !

satyenpoojary

Oh so you guys met the nomad uncle beeru somewhere near the destination! Nice!

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amitredefined

Nice - Keep going

Sorry had to back out as it was for 3 days and didn't want to ride at nights. Also I was right, reaching Chikaldara by 8PM (as per original plan) was not possible...