Re: From scorching heat to freezing cold! A ride of a lifetime! (Nagpur - Leh - Delhi

Congratulations !!
Nice photos. Glad to know fellow Nagpurakar's doin the feat! kudos and Cheers

Re: From scorching heat to freezing cold! A ride of a lifetime! (Nagpur - Leh - Delhi

Thanks mate!
Haha! yeah i agree, not too many fellows from Nagpur into proper xbhp ishtyle riding!

Guys, please feel free to give inputs.
I will really appreciate if you would point out if I am missing out on something. Also, if you have any questions, I'll be more than happy to answer them.

Cheers!

Re: From scorching heat to freezing cold! A ride of a lifetime! (Nagpur - Leh - Delhi

[MENTION=29371]veyron999[/MENTION] - Now, that you're famous through news, try updatin' the log

Re: From scorching heat to freezing cold! A ride of a lifetime! (Nagpur - Leh - Delhi


DAY 1:

With all plans going haywire, having slept only 2 hours the previous night and the temperatures soaring high, day 1 was not exactly off to a good start.
Although somewhat tired, we couldn't resist getting started with the ride.

At around 7:00 AM we started our ride and the plan was to cover 640kms to reach Jhansi by night.

Initially the weather and roads were excellent.











The first event that occurred while starting was Amogh broke one of the hooks of his knee guard. So, we obviously weren't very happy with the quality of the knee guards we had purchased. Here is a photo:




Just around 100kms from Nagpur, as we entered the Pench area, the roads became full of massive craters. Being on highly nimble machines we were maintaining pretty good speed, avoiding most of the potholes with ease.

Then, going around 75kmph, all of a sudden there was a huge crater which Amogh could not avoid and rammed straight into it! I was behind him at that time, so I braked hard and slowed down just in the nick of time.








Luckily all was fine and we carried on.





Rest of the day was full of horrible roads, extreme heat and lots of sweat!
The condition of the North South corridor was not at all what I was expecting it to be.

Tired as hell, sleepy as hell, body aching we reached Jhansi around 10:00PM where we directly went to our pre-booked hotel. Thanks to the GPS, we didn't face much trouble finding the hotel.

Next days plan was to reach Delhi.

Re: From scorching heat to freezing cold! A ride of a lifetime! (Nagpur - Leh - Delhi

DAY 2:

It was around 2:30PM, we had stopped for drinking some water at the side of the highway.

"What the hell?!!?, That doesn't look good!"

I and Amogh suddenly spotted something dripping from the right side of my bike.

The first thought that came across my mind was that I was leaking coolant somehow.
It took more than a few seconds to realize that it was actually my sweat that was dripping from the sleeve of my riding jacket, which was kept on my bike seat.


After a tiring previous day, we planned to take it easy in the morning, and left around 1:30PM after having woken up around 9:00AM, filled fuel, eaten some breakfast at the hotel itself.

The distance for the day was around 440kms.

We were not sure of the road conditions that lay ahead. But one thing that kept us in high spirits was the fact that from Agra we were to take the Taj Expressway and that ride would be a breeze. As my family is based in Delhi itself, I knew the roads from there to home.

The first thing that hit us hard when we started the ride was the heat, and the rush hour traffic just as we left the hotel. It took us a good 30 minutes to reach the open highway.
Once we hit the highway, the scene was no better.

The roads continued to be bad well ahead of Gwalior. Full of highways under construction, no tarmac whatsoever at most patches.
That cost us a lot of time.

Generally, as a good practice while riding I keep a watch on my RVMs.
As it happens to be, Amogh was riding a few meters behind me when I had checked last.
Riding nicely around 85-90kmph I thought to myself, it has been a while since I've looked back. There wasn't much traffic on the road that time. I looked back expecting to see Amogh riding along.

But when took a peek into my mirror, instead of seeing just Amogh, I saw around 6 guys on 3 bikes between me and Amogh. One brand new pulsar 150, a stunner and some other bike I can't recollect.

For a few moments I thought that they would be up to something sinister. So I tried closing the gap between me and Amogh.

Then I remembered what I had read in [MENTION=23857]trustvishwas[/MENTION] Leh travelogue. A local rider got excited looking at him and was trying to intimidate him.

This was a similar situation, and then I took it lightly.
It was kind of amusing! We were easily maintaining 90-100kmph and those poor riders were trying to keep up with us, let alone overtake us. But my amusement got converted into concern because, suddenly there was an intersection ahead with some vehicle crossing the road.

We over the past years have honed our fast riding, fast braking skills. But for them it was completely new. One of them barely escaped hitting the vehicle that was crossing the road, and another swerved into my lane.

Putting my amusement on one side, I decided to increase our cruising speed a bit above 105kmph to leave them behind, and it worked!


From what I remember, apart from the heat, the worst part was entering Agra to find the road to the expressway. The traffic there was just plane horrible.
No driving sense whatsoever. By the time we got onto the expressway, it was already past 10:00PM.

But as expected, riding on the expressway was a breeze. Luckily, at that hour there weren't many fast BMWs and Audis overtaking us at supersonic speeds.

We reached home around 12:15AM, family was glad to see us there and they took a sigh of relief.

We were to stay at Delhi for two days, to get our bikes checked up once before hitting the road again. I also wanted to change my rear tire to CEAT Vertigo to suit the terrain which lay ahead.

The next time we sat on the saddle totally geared up, we hoped to reach Jammu.

Some pics from the day...

The R15 showed the distance traveled on day 1 as 640kms, which was more accurate than the apache's 673kms.






Had to cool the seat, 'twas so hot it would have burnt our a** otherwise



I wish we had that alternative!



HOT HOT HOT!



About to leave from our hotel.



This was the spot where I got the coolant leak shock thing!






Notice the water on the road next to the R15.



Me, asking some guy about the road condition ahead. There wasn't any good news then..



Posers



Riders grab attention wherever they go!






Night time on the expressway!

Re: From scorching heat to freezing cold! A ride of a lifetime! (Nagpur - Leh - Delhi

Hey buddy,nice to see your Ladakh travelogue here...
It was a great meeting you guys at Ktop..
Cheers...

Re: From scorching heat to freezing cold! A ride of a lifetime! (Nagpur - Leh - Delhi

We realized that we would be needing navigation as we can't always count on the sign boards to be there! That was sorted as I had Sygic (MapMyIndia) on my android smart phone.
But Android+smart phone+GPS = horrible battery life.
Also, we weren't very sure how long our digicam batteries would last taking into account long riding hours and lots worth clicking !

So, after discussing with Amogh, we found out a solution! I ended up ordering:

150 Watt DC/AC Inverter

It is an APC 150W Inverter. It converts our motorcycle battery's 12V to 230V AC, so we could charge anything ranging from a mobile to a laptop on the go!

The size allowed me to fit the inverter under the seat of my bike, although it was a very tight squeeze. No structural mods though.
I will post some pictures of this later.


More on this later.
Stay tuned

Bro need info about these inverter cost and is there need to change wiring is it easy to fix

its not about riding bikes its about loving bikes...sandy loving avy220

Re: From scorching heat to freezing cold! A ride of a lifetime! (Nagpur - Leh - Delhi

Helmet's off mate... another LEH awesome.....

Re: From scorching heat to freezing cold! A ride of a lifetime! (Nagpur - Leh - Delhi

Waiting for inverter update

its not about riding bikes its about loving bikes...sandy loving avy220

Re: From scorching heat to freezing cold! A ride of a lifetime! (Nagpur - Leh - Delhi

The inverted, I had it ordered from shopclues. Here is the link

http://www.shopclues.com/apc-150-watts-dc-to-ac-power-inverter-with-airline-adapter.html.

All you have to do to fit an inverter is install a cigarette lighter receptacle onto your bike battery via a fuse, just in case anything should go wrong. Like this one here
Google Image Result for http://www.powerwerx.com/_images/products/atcsocketbare_xlrg.jpg

In case for you space is not a constraint, I'd suggest you go in for this one, or any other one. Just search shopclues for car inverter:

Ducasso In Car Inverter

Because, for the APC model, you need to do some minor modifications. But APC products are highly reliable.
The inverter was under my seat for the whole ladakh trip and with the amount of jerks it might have sustained and that is still working is just commendable.

In case you are interested in the APC only, then you can contact me again. I will help you out with the mod. It's quite simple actually.

Re: From scorching heat to freezing cold! A ride of a lifetime! (Nagpur - Leh - Delhi

THE DELHI STAY:

First, some pics from the previous night when we arrived at Delhi.






After our midnight arrival, we woke up soon enough and the plan was to drop off our bikes at the respective service centers in Noida for a pre-ride inspection cum service.

But as it happened, it was a Tuesday that day (4th June) and it was a weekly off for all Noida service centers. So, against the initial plan of a one day halt at Delhi, we stayed here for two days.

The first day then, in the afternoon we headed towards karol bagh with purchasing a can of Motul 300v for me and a CEAT Vertigo on our minds.
Amogh was satisfied with his current tire setup (MRFs). Also got the PUC done from here.




After having highly recommended the 300V to Amogh, he too decided to buy a can from there instead of the 5100ss.

I also purchased riding goggles from Chopra Automobiles for night riding as i was using a tinted visor for my LS2 and carrying a transparent one was out of question. Not that it was available either.

A few other things caught my eyes too



The next day, we got the bikes serviced, oil changed and for me tire changed as planned and tired after dinner, we head directly to bed with a plan to pack our bags in the morning and leave for Jammu.

The two days we off at Delhi helped us get refreshed and energized for what was yet to come. It was a well deserved rest too!

Re: From scorching heat to freezing cold! A ride of a lifetime! (Nagpur - Leh - Delhi

Dafaaq is that,, - JOE ROCKET,,, no wait, it's fellini (known for quality)

Re: From scorching heat to freezing cold! A ride of a lifetime! (Nagpur - Leh - Delhi

thanks a lot man!

rofl!

Re: From scorching heat to freezing cold! A ride of a lifetime! (Nagpur - Leh - Delhi

U truly deserve it....

Re: From scorching heat to freezing cold! A ride of a lifetime! (Nagpur - Leh - Delhi

Thx bro will sure update as soon as I am ready

its not about riding bikes its about loving bikes...sandy loving avy220