No Spiti this time. Spiti next season

Malwan la kay kami maja kelis ka? Thanks anyways See you soon!

Thank you Amit.
Well, Mandar used Mobil 1 synthetic oil that's all I know. Unfortunately I don't know other specifications of the oil. May be he'll shed some light on it. When the mechanic at Leh checked the oil level in Mandar's bike, it was dangerously low. Hence he decided to drain and refill the engine oil. Otherwise it performed well.
Sorry to know that you'll have to wait for another year to fulfill your dream. It all depends on when the highways open i.e Srinagar - Leh and Manali - Leh highway. You can get updates on OFFICIAL WEBSITE OF DISTRICT LEH (LADAKH) Wish you good luck!

Thanks Sachin.

I love the song you have selected as bg music for that rohtang ride video. Its my favourite for such recordings... I too intend to use it pretty soon...

Waiting for more.

/Om
www.223cc.com

Nice to see this log up....... finally

No need to be so formal in thanking.

Thanks Om. Am not that good in editing videos. Just selected those songs as they matched with the tempo of the video Waiting to see some good videos from you soon

you had time -- could have done it

Nice build up Ketan. The first time is always special, and would be even more special for you since you've come all the way from Mumbai.

The video that you have made is the stretch from Koksar to Sissu. Excellent two laned tarmac. I have found it pleasurable as well, especially after descending the plight called Rohtang.

I vividly remember, some years ago, when the road was all narrow and 'kuccha', I found a small patch of tarmac after Sissu, to Keylong, and I ripped like crazy, into 3 digits. And you would be surprised to know that I was stopped and almost booked for over-speeding! At a place like that

Lovely start-up ketan..!!
Finally I think my incomplete log inspired someone

keep going man..!! i met mandar on sunday & got to know most of your journey..

Day 0

While doing all the preparation, we didn't realize how quickly the days passed away and soon it was 1st of June. Once again the atmosphere at home was a bit tensed. I had never been away from home and family for this long, before this ride. And after seeing television programs on NGC, TLC and Discovery etc. they were aware of the terrain and possible risks in this ride. That's why my parents, especially my mom was a bit too worried.

I was trying all sorts of combinations in packing the saddle bags since morning because ideally both the saddle bags should weigh approximately the same otherwise it may affect the handling of the bike to some extent. I preferred packing important electronics in left hand side saddle bag so that they'll stay away from the hot exhaust. I used thick blue color plastic bags inside the saddle bags to keep everything safe from rain.

Friends visited my place in the afternoon to greet me safe and happy journey. Mom specially took me to near by Kashivishweshwar temple in the evening. I had decided to sleep early that night but I remember I was chatting with mom till very late night. She knew she won't see me for next 20-25 days. The meet up time(5.30am) and place(Hotel Fountain) was already decided with Mandar. Abhilabh Wamorkar had agreed to accompany Mandar till Hotel Fountain on June 2nd.

Day 1 : Mumbai - Himmatnagar(Gujarat)

So finally the day had arrived. The day that we were waiting for so long. Despite sleeping late on the previous night, I managed to wake up at the first ring of alarm - the anxiousness, may be. The bags, riding gears..everything was ready. I quickly went out and cleaned the bike a bit. No matter how small or big the ride is, I always clean the bike in the morning. Once done with that, the regular stuff followed like getting fresh, going through the final check on bags, praying etc.

I would like to share a couple of things about the saddle bags or should I say about luggage in general. Guys, please make sure that you take a test ride before the actual ride with the luggage you plan to carry. It's very very important. Gives you the correct idea if things are perfect or if any fine adjustments are needed. May be it was my laziness or something else, but I could not do so and I almost landed in a deep trouble because of that. I used custom made saddle bags for this trip. These bags are already larger than the cramster saddle bags and to add to it the guy who designed these bags has given an option to expand them even further with the help of a zip. I could fit all my stuff in the bag without expanding them but still to use the maximum available space, I had expanded both the saddle bags and packed my stuff in it. Everything inside was comfortable and easy to take in and out of the bags but then both the bags had become extremely bulky and had lost their shape.

When in the morning, I put the bags in place on the saddle they looked odd and the right side bag was almost touching the exhaust. But I didn't have enough time to unpack everything and shorten the bags. I fitted the tail bag on top of it, mounted the camera mount on fuel tank, geared up and got ready to start the journey of a lifetime. The meet up point is around 40 Kms from my place and I didn't want to get late. So hastily, took my mom's blessings and hit the road. Since I was using an IRC 110/17' tire at rear, the gap between the tire and under-seat section had shortened a bit. Heavy saddle bags, tail bag and rider weight further compressed the rear suspension and the gap was shortened even more.

Just as I reached western express highway at Bandra and started riding on bumpy roads, bike's rear tire started hitting one of the clips of the tail bag. There used to be loud sound every time the tire hit the clip and after a few hits the clip was almost on the verge of breaking. I had not covered even 10 Kms out of the total 40 Kms and already this problem. That scared the hell out of me as it could have ended in two problems, 1) the clip could have broken resulting in unstable luggage and 2) tire damage due to continuous friction with the sharp metal clip. I started riding very slow and tackled every pothole with extreme care. There are a lot of flyovers on western express highway and almost all of them are very bumpy, especially at the metal plates that join two concrete slabs. It took me a hell lot of time than expected to reach Hotel Fountain where Abhilabh and Mandar were already waiting for me. The brand new Silver CBR was waiting there to welcome me. Before giving anyone a chance to ask me what took me so long I explained the everything and how pissed off I was due to riding so slow on open highways early in the morning.

Next 20-25 minutes were spent in solving the problem and trying all possible ways to make the tail bag stable without the tire hitting the front clip. Finally, a solution to the problem was found and we clipped both the belts on either sides of the bike instead of under-seat. To make the luggage even more stable we used bungee cords that held saddle bags and tail bag together. Phew, it was then I could let out a sigh of relief and pay attention on things around me. I checked out the CBR, had some water and relaxed a bit. Mandar clicked a few photos while I relaxed and checked out the new CBR. I had carried a coconut in the bag. It is considered auspicious to pray to god and break coconut before starting something good. So we parked our bikes next to one another, prayed to god for a safe and happy journey and broke the coconut before starting the mega ride.
Some pics clicked by Mandar in the mean while...









So with a delayed start, we were soon on NH8 heading towards our destination - Ahmadabad. Mandar and I had never used saddle bags on our respective bikes before this ride. So it took us some time to get used to the added weight and size of the bike, especially while overtaking trucks on NH8. It wasn't even half an hour since we started our ride and we encountered the first traffic jam on our way, a long queue of multi-axle vehicles. We had to be careful while finding gaps through the trucks with the saddle bags. Slowly I got used to the weight and size of the bags and squeezing through the gaps in trucks was a breeze. Mandar though was still not used to it and struggled a bit. There was constant heavy vehicles traffic and I used to move ahead by squeezing through gaps in between. But had to slow down for Mandar to catch up. After sometime the traffic became less and we could cruise at comfortable speeds. Around 80-100 Kms later, we stopped for breakfast and refueling. It was somewhere around Dahanu on NH8.







Half an hour was spent for breakfast and then we tanked up our bikes at a petrol right next to the hotel. It was there at this petrol pump where we were asked this question for the first time, "Aap log army se ho kya?". And then almost every where... EVERY WHERE people asked us the same question.

Soon we were back on road cruising towards Ahmadabad. Heat started building up as the time passed by and so were the cross winds. As we inched closer to Gujarat, cross winds started getting stronger and stronger. Mandar, probably didn't have much experience of riding in cross winds and hence he started struggling a lot. His speed decreased and he started falling back. When we stopped after couple of hours of riding at another restaurant to buy mineral water I asked him if there was any problem. He told me it was the cross wind that troubled him and that's the reason he was riding slow. I didn't want to take any chance and hence I didn't ask him to speed up. Instead I asked him to ride in his comfort zone and that gradually he'll automatically learn how to tackle cross winds.

Just when Mandar was fighting with cross winds, a deadly incident happened. I almost had my heart in my mouth seeing it in the RVM as it happened. There are a lot of diversions due to NHAI road construction in the first 100-200 Km on NH8. Where ever there's a diversion, road becomes bumpy, potholed and narrow. We were riding on one such narrow road and Mandar was following me, close enough so that I could see him in the RVM. There was a cow crossing the road. Mandar was riding alongside a Hyundai i20 and therefore could not see what's going on on the right hand side of the road. Due to continuous honking of the i20 driver the cow got panicked and ran from one end of the road to the other in moving traffic. Co-incidentally, she appeared right in front of Mandar's bike when he was totally unaware of it. He must have been at around 50-60 Kmph when he had to panic brake to a halt. I saw all this action in my RVM and saw Mandar's bike fishtailing due to panic braking. It was only luck and Mandar's handling that saved him or else it was a definite crash. I pulled over immediately and let Mandar pass by. Asked him if he's ok as he overtook me and then carried on. Even the people in cars around were shocked with the incident and were staring at us with surprise.

Our bikes outside the restaurant where we stopped for buying mineral water.


That's me, mixing Glucon-D in water


As we moved ahead in Gujarat, road condition improved and there were no more diversions and narrow roads. Just the arrow straight butter smooth 4(at times 6) lane highway. It was a bad news as much as it was a good news. Good because it's safer and bad because it becomes extremely.. extremely boring after some time. I mean you can't just pin the throttle and ride at the top speed of your bike all day long. One has to think about factors like engine heat up, fuel economy etc. And that's when cruising at 90-100Kmph becomes boring. Afternoon heat was just unbearable in Gujarat. We used to stop every 20/30 mins for water/cold drink break. Unimaginable dehydration. Just as the riding part became more and more boring, a local FZ16 rider came to the rescue. May be he got excited upon seeing both of us in full riding gears, army pants and lot of luggage and started cutting our lanes - inviting us to race with him. Though the conditions were ideal to just pin the throttle and fly away I ignored him for quite some time. But then it just wasn't ending. I was already frustrated. Without thinking twice I just opened the throttle. He tried catching up but it was useless. He followed me for a good 10-15 Kms and it was fun seeing him in the RVM But that's when I realized Mandar was left way too behind. So I simply pulled over to the side of the road at a safe spot and waited for Mandar. You can see the spot in the picture below where I stopped. The FZ rider then took the service road and stopped next to me on the other side of the fence. Showed me a thumbs up and moved ahead. I took out the camera and clicked few pictures as I waited for Mandar to catch up.



Here comes Mandar after some time


We then had another small water break at that place and decided to stop for lunch in sometime at any decent looking restaurant. A few Km ahead we stopped at this restaurant for lunch break. It was a much needed break to beat the heat.

Our lunch


Much needed rest for the bikes.


That's what the Ducati showed us when we were relaxing on the stairs outside Hotel


Beat the Heat


We spent almost an hour, relaxing at the restaurant after the lunch. Wearing the riding jackets and gloves once again in that heat seemed just impossible. Soon we were back on the smooth but boring NH8. After some time saw this building on our left hand side and stopped for a water break in front of it. One boy saw us clicking pictures and walked towards us asking, "are you soldiers? "





Clicked couple of pictures, drank some water and again we were cruising towards Ahmadabad. The heat was so unbearable that as I said before, we had to take water breaks every half an hour. Stopped alongside this broken down truck to have some water. Clicked a picture with the truck cleaner


When we reached Vadodara, we asked a local auto rickshaw driver for diversion for motorcycles as two wheelers aren't allowed on the Vadodara - Ahmadabad express way. Soon the 4 lane wide highway disappeared and we were riding on a comparatively narrow 2 lane highway with no divider. I had forgotten to change my bike's handle bar grips and therefore the worn out grips were causing some serious pain in my palms. We had small break at an accessory shop where I changed the grips with new ones and continued with our journey. We were on the two lane highway for quite some time and took a couple of water breaks before Ahmadabad.


We reached Ahmadabad before sunset and we still had some energy to carry on. So a quick discussion and we decided to carry on to the next major city on the way. We asked a cop which is the next best city for night halt and how far is it. He suggested to take night halt at Himmatnagar which was around 70-80 Kms from Ahmadabad. By the time we reached Himmatnagar, it was almost dark and we immediately started searching for accommodation. Well, there's an interesting and funny story here which happened as we searched for accommodation but unfortunately it can't be shared here on public forum Am damn sure Mandar will never forget Hotel Sarvodaya Anyway, so finally after dragging our *** around Himmatnagar for almost an hour we managed to find a good hotel which is located diagonally opposite to the main Circle on NH8, Himmatnagar.

Hotel Navjivan.
Rs. 500/- for A/C room for two.
24 Hours hot water. TV with cable connection. Safe parking. Restaurant avialable.
BP petrol pump right next to the hotel.

We quickly got fresh and went to the restaurant for dinner.


Here's a pic of the room.


When we got back to hotel after dinner, Mandar immediately hit the bed while I preferred to rearrange stuff in both the saddle bags. I was angry on myself for expanding the bags unnecessarily because they held everything comfortably without expansion. Well there's another reason why Mandar quickly got asleep. I forgot to mention a small but risky incident. Mandar's helmet was fitted with a tinted visor when we started our ride from Mumbai. As we reached closer to Himmatnagar, it slowly started getting dark. Mandar was riding with his helmet visor open for a few minutes and that's when a small stone hit him dangerously close to his eye. Luckily it missed the eye or else it could have been a disaster. So when we came back to the room after dinner I gave him eye drops from my medical kit. A good rest was needed for his eye to get well for the next day's ride.




Almost 40 minutes later I was done with the repacking and hit the bed. Alarm was set for next day's Himmatnagar - Jaipur ride.

though I was fully loaded with eight jeans & 15 odd t shirts alongwith rest of the stuff I never once used the expanded section.

& mind you I was carrying sleeping bags etc too

Maybe you should have done a test run earlier coz I think i remember telling that the expanded part is prettty much extra & only used when you have too much extra stuff to carry

anyways hope the rest of the journey went well & atleast the rod helped

lovely write up ketan bhau,

complete the rest soon.....

ketan bhau & his logs, full of incidents

19 more days to go, stay tuned to it

Ketan Bhau its awesome!

Dont make us wait for Day 2 vala log. hehe We all know writing log is huge task as it can be very time consuming.

Take your time mitra, but dont make us wait long

I agree on the part that test ride with all the luggage is must before the actual ride. And about the expanded bags, well initially even I packed all the stuff without expanding the bags. But then since I carried my laptop(It's a 15.6" laptop) with me I had to keep it in vertical position. It was too large to be kept flat/horizontal inside the bag. That's what forced me to expand the bag and try if it can be stored horizontally. That's the reason I opted for expanded bags, only for one day. Cause rest of the journey I kept it vertical with lots of cushion on both it's sides. It worked without any damage.

Thanks! Will try to update soon.

good going ketan..
this is some gurukul, right.?
i remember seeing through on my mahindra ride..

yes, am keeping a close watch on your log

You are absolutely correct. This is some gurukul. I forgot it's name.

@ all,

Have a look at this video.
YouTube - ‪The prize after winning a battle called Zozila pass‬‏

This is the prize that we got after winning a battle called Zozila - one of the toughest high mountain passes of our journey. Some will argue that Zozila isn't the toughest pass but since it was the first ever high mountain pass of our journey, the element of surprise made it look tougher than it actually is. This place is called as Matayan. A beautiful village surrounded by mountains from all sides. When you reach this place you really feel it's the prize of all the hard work and efforts put in in crossing Zozila. Truly heaven! Enjoy!

awesome..!!!
lovely video