Ride Dates : 21st may and 22nd may

Total kilometers : 265 while going 240 while returning back.

Total fuel : 1 full fuel tank.

My Beast : My Blue R15


It is said, that when you make too much planning things go for toss and that happened with me too. I had planned saibaba visit after my R15 purchase in Nov 2010, though planning was going on from last 7 months but the action was never taken, as usual I am a typical software engineer who is lazy bum on weekend. Spoke to Partho DAS (Pads), Anant bhatia (antz.bin) about the ride plan, but they were busy so i dropped the idea to ride on 14-15th may, and went to my home town goa to visit my parents. But yes somewhere inside the touring monster was bashing me that i am missing this ride. The bashing carried on for a week and than came 20th may, i spoke to my friend Clayton (non xbhpian) and he agreed to ride with me, and we decided to ride early morning, but as they say fate had wrote that i will ride alone and none could change it :p. I sat watching a movie till night 3am and then went to sleep so early wake up plans and all was gone for toss.

DAy 1:

Woke up next day (Saturday 21st may) at 11ish am and thought of going out somewhere solo, so filled my tank bag filled with clothes and all required items. Took a bath at got ready with all gears and started my bike around 2 pm. Halted for tank full and checking air pressure and in no time reached the nashik junction on old Mumbai - pune highway. Took the road which goes to sangamner with a plan of riding as much i can in an hour and have lunch in some dhaba. so after an hour riding i realised i was good 59 kms away from the junction. Halted at a dhaba for lunch and called up my friend antz.bin and he told i had taken the longer route instead of going via viman nagar. But i was not in a mood to go back as i am a lazy bum in cancelling my ride. so asked directions from anant and he helped me a lot. So started my journey and starting riding at 90- 100 speeds and suddenly i get a bad hit of a cross wind which almost threw me off the balance, and i was like how this happened as this road was completely new for me and my bike. Started cruising at 70-80 at times hitting 100 and in cross winds down shifted to 5th gear and revved so the bike continues. Got a beautiful ghat enroute and i ripped my bike as much i could. Reached sangamner at 4.30 pm and than asked people about the route, went ahead and got a bad surprise of a huge jam at Delhi phata where on left side road goes to nashik and right goes to shirdi. Took the road to shirdi and got some beautiful roads and started ripping hard as i had decided that i will reach shirdi before sunset, so this went on for couple of kilometers. Than came the last leg of journey Loni to shirdi and this was a not so friendly road with loads of pot holes and upswing roads and vehicles overtaking from all sides, so this all took almost an hour to reach shirdi. After reaching shirdi rode till the temple and took a U turn and halted in front of temple as it was like i was saying Sai baba that here i am with my beast rocking like a hurricane and was thanking lord for making my journey safe, then started checking hotels but to my surprise i realized they have rule that they dont give hotel to lone tourers. So after hunting for 45 minutes i got one hotel which gave me a very good three bed room to stay so parked my bike in front of the hotel, called the security chap gave him some money and instructed him to give special attention to my beast. Went in the room freshened up and went for Baba's darshan which was hardly 1 km meters from the hotel where i stayed. Took a nice darshan and my soul was pleased and calm. I felt the entire journey was fruitful. Reached back to the hotel, ordered a maharashtrian thali with lot of green chilli and garlic paste with bhakris filled with ghee and went off to my room and retired to sleep.

Day 2 Coming soon