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Waiting for the trip logs and pics...

Come on dude....post it quick...waiting...

It all started with planning on last Monday 29/11/2010 where i wanted to finish my new R15 Run - in period with a long ride or weekend escapade, initially many people from pune XBHP told they would or may join us but lastly on Friday night it was like me ( the newbie with R15), my friend Clayton ( the silent and most patient pillion one can rely on) non XBHP member, Karthik pai ( the best rider one can have to tail the group), the dazzler (one of the best route explorer), Pads (the group leader who will make sure everyone is safe at any given point), nitin ( non xbhpian rider who never rode in group or used safety gears but was perfect as the middle man one can expect in a tour).

I will never forget to thank for the help provided by pune xbhpians and senior member by lending us safety gears without which this ride would have never happen.

oh man..... bring on the log....

Nice pics.
Where is rest of pics and the report ! !
Waiting patiently.

Day 0 :

Dazzler calls me up informing that a ride is coming up for this weekend. I was very skeptical about joining in , cause main reason was gears and the other one was my bike was given to service. Luckily , I got my bike on time and the next thing I do is call up dazzler to put me on confirm list. In the mean time, my roomie nitin also developed some senses and I pulled him in provided gears could be arranged. All these series of events were happening on thursday and guess what the ride on a saturday !
Finally on friday I meet up dazzler to check on whats the status of gears. Interestingly he had gathered almost everything , but the only issue was it was resting far away . Ankit and ram's gear in magarpatta and were around 20 kms off that place. In mean while biru bhai calls up saying he is nearby so myself and dazzler head to PCMC where in we meet up biru and head to DSG so that I can buy myself a pair of gloves. To our luck DSG was down by 8.30 and as the moment we came out we had cops welcoming us saying "No way ". I could see that wicked smile on face of that cop. Man you look like devil man ! Huh ! . . As usual we paid him the tips and made our way. By the time we reached roopali , we met shrinath and pads. DJ also joined in but a little later ..Had our discussions and decided that pads would go to ram's place collect the gear. With all this hassles , myself and dazzler sat on the benches of roopali ordering "Tomato-Onion-Cheese Uttapam" and coffee. . Finished off the food .. Everything was in place and we knew that it was high time to burn some rubber tomorrow . .

Day 01: (4:30 am | Place : Pimle Saudagar)

My cell beeps indicating we need to get up. All had informed that we must reach well on time and were scheduled to leave by 5:15 form chandini chowk and myself and bhalu would meet up at hinjewadi flyover. And just then for the first time, I kick up nitin to indicate him to wake up. Finish off the daily chores and started gearing up . Inital few steps were felt very weird. We got on our bikes and as we approach the gate we get very hasty luks by our watchman . No worries. We reach Hinjewadi flyover by 5:20 and as soon as I call up dazzler I get the news that he is about to leave his home. My roomie stares at me saying "Bada time pe jaana hai bol raha tha" and I keep queit. We do some interesting observation about interstate buses with people trying hard to bargain their seats to mumbai. After a few mins shri bhai arrives with his beast . It was really a scene when everyone in bus stand were staring at the bikes and gears. Dont know but it gives me a nice and proud feeling. And 10 more mins and other riders too arrive. And with no more time to waste we decide to head to RK for the breakfast(NOTE this time it was not shrinaths treat. Who every had missed his treat can ride with him anytime to RK for a sumptious breakfast) .

Time to quote incident 1:

Just as were about to move , we were told that pads would be leading and dazzler would follow him . Then our shri --Nitin-- Myself. All of us were in our 80's (i mean speed) . Just then shri bhai stops all of a sudden , and I see nitin braking real hard on his pulsar to avoid a hit. Though I was directly behind them , I was a little eccentric so I just pass out and see nitin stop just inches before R15. huh ! sigh of relief..

Then on we decide we will ride with little more distance. And within 45 mins we reach RK and usual set of breakfast. Delicacies ranging from cheese omlets to vada sambhar were flowing with a dense smoke from the tobbaco around the table. We finish off our breakfast in an hour and head towards khopoli.

To be continued..

Nicely Written Kartik...Baaki kaa chithha bhi jaldi jaldi samne pesh karo

Cheers
BIru

starting me hi brake laga diya???
I meam log ke starting me....bring on the rest

So now after riding towards khopoli , we made the first entrance to the ghats. Was a nice welcome though ! Just before crossing lonavala , there was a jam where in truck had invaded half way into a divider on a turn. Each of the vehicles are eager to make their way past , so are we ! :P . . Copz had come by the time we made it to the end and they had stopped the public as the trailer was trying to lift the truck and get it on the right side. . After this milestone we headed directly towards the ghats where in dazzler bhau stopped saying "lagta hai puncture hua hai " it was the cross winds which were wobbling the bike to the opposite side. . Time for incident 2

Place: Exactly diagonal to the place where ram had fall

This time it was shri bhai's turn. As we stopped to decide on which route to take up , one being the express way and the other being a road less taken. ..After a small warm debate we decided to go through , the road less taken. Just then as shri started to remove his R15, he stumbled upon some bunch of stones and laid is R15 flat on the road. Though , it was not exactly a fall. I myself was pretty dizzed thinking about the ferring . Thankfully not even a single scratch both to the bike and the owner. I guess this place needs to be mentioned in the EPIC DIARY. Later on it was just a smooth ride till pen , where on we had our first encounter with potholes on NH17. With some breaks in between and little chats for a while, we made it to alibaug at around 11.30 . And believe me heat had already started building up. Jackets had started boiling us , and a warm layer of salt was being deposite admist our bodies. In other words we were sweating like hell ! . . As myself, shri and dazzler took a break in between to hydrate ourselves the remaining group rode to alibaug. . Now here the most idiotic thing of trip was noticed. Our great dazzler bhai was in full josh, he lighted up his gudang garam (damn I wonder how he smokes so many garam) . . and was checking is fuel by opening up his tank. Shri litreally screamed and same with me. If at all by mistake a small light had entered his tank . It was a clear full stop ! ! Somebody please put some light on this point and make him understand that cig on one hand with tank open can be dangerous. . . . ..After all this fun we made it to kashid at around 1 pm where in we had a surprise waiting for us. . The place was decent enough to accomdate all of us . Mainly it was very clean and cozy . . Insipte of informing the owner that we would be arriving for lunch, he had yet not prepared it which disappointed pads and all of us . .Pads was literally screaming "Sala bhook laga, khana nahi " and as time passed all of us were bhukkads ! ! The price was simple, the owner had to pamper us with loads of food. . But it was really nice, in the shade among the trees he arranged our table and got plates one by one. Fried fish, chicken dry . chicken curry , rice ,chapatti . Man ! That was hell alot to eat and all of us were gulping like bakasurs. . Except shri bhai , who had ordered veg thali :P . . After such a heavy dosage of meat , we decided to take some rest for a while. This resulted in everyone sleeping upto 5:30 in the evening. Except for dazzler, he was watching kya kool hai hum on tv :P . . . Later on , in the evening we went to the beach where in we just relaxed with chai and suttas along side the shacks. . . Pads made a great dare of taking his exposed chain P220 in the sands. . Though it struggled to move at 5000 rpm even at 1kmph . . he finally made it to the hard surface, rode along the beach side for a while and kept it back in parking. .. Meanwhile, myself shri and other hopped on a horse ride . . It was nice fun to experience 1 horse power !:P . . After all the mast we made back to our room . . Here comes one more incident . .

Incident 3: In middle of no-where

Pads suddenly realises that cool breeze is soothing him too much. Just then , bell rings and he finds that he has forgot his riding jacket along the beach somewhere. In no time pads rips back to the beach which is somewhat 7 kms from the current position. . All the shacks were closed. Then just enquires, finds the shack owners home and gets confirmation that she had kept the jacket in the shop safe.

After all this fun. The whole night the chat continues with evolution of bikes, various stories from XBHP some fun, some inspiring and others very disappointing. Discussions on bull, yezdi , RD350 continues where in we start to get in our beds one by one. This might be the same evening in frames of time, but when we sit with people who talk , think and speak about motorcycling it just feels so <no words to describe>

I am proud of you Shrinath bhai.. for showing the presence of mind and stopping the fellow from burning his eyebrows / facial hair / other hair (at the very least). The light does not need to enter the petrol tank for an explosion, the petrol fumes, which are 100 times more inflammable than liquid petrol(due to increased surface area and oxygen in contact with fuel.) can do that for you. If at all the any of the petrol vapor had reached the cigarette light, the results could have been catastrophic.

Source: http://www.burnsurgery.com/Documents...ine_safety.doc

Forgot to mention one more thing here. . .Actually pads had planned his return the same day . Despite all the request he had geared up in the evening saying he will ride back by night to pune . This is where destiny comes into picture. By the time we had come to beach , he remembered that he had left his mobile in the room itself. And secondly, no one was ready to give him the room key After lots of maska he finally agreed to stay back . Now after this particular incident , we had 2 inferences.
1. Destiny plays a role in decision making
2.Pads is a bhulakkad :P

Day 2 : Roam --> Drive -->Eat -->Drive-->Eat

This was the day we had to drive back home. Dont know why the feeling of leaving such a wonderful place was not very good. After all the morning chaos , we headed to a beach where in we can do some poses for our logs and our FB profiles. We rode towards murd for a km or two and on the right hand side , there is a beach which is pretty silent. Just before the beach, with me and shri fully geared we enter into a shop to ask for cigs we got the first weird question "Aap log shooting karne aye ho kya" . . . I was startled . . .Just gave a small explanation , and left . Also to mention at which ever places we had stopped, whenever people asked us about the gears we tried to tell them about what are these gears actually meant to be . After a lot of poser pics, we started our return journey back to pune. Here in we rode directly till alibaug , where in we stopped for a royal lunch of crabs, fishes and veggies :P A ride to pune was fun . . We rode till khopoli non stop and then took a break at the ghats where in dazzler was delayed a bit . . Then took a break in RK for some coffe and sutta . . .And rode back on the NH4 towards pune . . Here the last incident takes place . . .
Pads was speeding along the road , where in a crappy idiot makes his way to the wrong side of the road and just approaches a P220 which was already in high speed. . . Pads , breaked hard and hit that guyz bike a little slow may be at 10kmph or so . . No scratches both to the man and machine again . . By 8.30 or so we all made back to our homes with our mind just set fresh . .

Though this was my first ride with xbhp people, it was really a biking brotherhood experience. Safety gears, group riding and more than that a learning experience which has no enough letters in any language to scribe in .

Thanks to all the XBHPians who helped me and also my roomate nitin for this ride. A special thanks from my side to ZMATIC for coming forward to lend his gears. An example , a guy who comes home from his office at 2 am in the morning is ready to come upto chandini chowk at 5:15 to give his gears from vishranthwadi . . I am mentioning this particularly here because, there are very few people around who can pereserve such patience. And zmatic you are one among them bro ! Kudos !

See ya on another ride soon,

Kartik G Pai

Amazing writeup there sir. Glad to hear everyone's back and safe.
Really nice..

Now shrinath please do the honour of posting all the pics

A Few Pictures from my phone...