jaldi post karo naa bhai.!!

dear xeno....

jaldi log post karo..!!

do you mind telling me howz ur b**t.?.. jus kiddin..

but seriously .. going by the iternary..

one hell of a trip man..!

congrats..!

deltaforce..

one hell of a ride.... waiting for the deatails to come....

Triplog day 1

Ride Preparation

the riding gear

- Daijya Helmet
- DSG Primal Gloves
- DSG Nero Jacket
- Acerbis Riding Pants
- Fox Kneeguards
- AXO Primato boots

the toolkit. ( I may not remember the correct spanner sizes)

1 Open end 22-23 size spanner
1 (16-17) ring spanner
1 (13-14) ring spanner
1 (10-11) tube type fastener
1 ( ) tube type ""
1 Spark plug wrench
1 cutting plier
1 wrench plier

misc stuff
Camera Tripod
Cleaning liquid
Cloth (for cleaning headlight etc etc)
Engine Oil 1 ltr pack
Spark Plug
60/55w Bulb (in case the HID kit goes phutt and I have to replace the entire thing)
55w Halogen bulb (which fits into the low beam of the HID kit I have, in case the bumb goes phutt)
3 x 15 amp , 2 x 20 amp fuses.

stuff for myself
Water bottle 2 ltrs
Glucose water 500ml
Chocolates (7 pcs of star)
2 Extra visors (one tinted one clear type)
First aid kit (bandages, antiseptic liquid, burnol, iodex etc)


Day 1 (Tumkur - Pune)


The evening of 28th Jan passed away in packing up clothes and other accessories I'd be needing for this trip. Got cramster's saddlebags in order to carry all the tools needed. Checked cash and all the bike paper(s) etc.

Man o man i can't sleep getting all the goosebumps that I am doing to do something this big when I've never done. I lay on the bed trying to sleep, but can't. Log on to xbhp, orkut etc etc. nervously clicking links that I didn't even intend to.

It's past midnight. No sleep yet. finally lay down and im resting with my eyes closed. Everything outside is damn silent. Can hear a dog barking at some distance. Can see its 1:30 am already....

Then at 2:30 am the phone rings. Its Jasir (xbhp : Jasirman) , I had told him to call me up in order to wake me for sure. Well I just managed an hour's sleep I guess. Get up , take a bath, forcibily relieve myself. Sit and have a smoke. I am thinking hard, did I miss out on something ? perform a last check on the toolkit and all the essential stuff. Charge my Camera's batteries, and my cellphone as well.

its 3:30 am now, I finally lock the house up (since I was alone at that time) put the saddlebags, dump the backpack on the seat, and tie it up with 3 bungee cords. excellent stuff these cords are. the green bungee cord given by Kiran (xbhp : Kirosh 03) its still in an excellent condition.

Turn the fuel tap to on. see the fuel meter showing beyond the full mark (as usual) Start the bike. Ignites on the first crank. let it idle for a while, 3-4 mins.

Get the bike off the stand. Phew its heavy . Get on the bike and I am off. Slowly cruise through the city and watch out for any drunkards who may come into the way. Reach the highway junction to pune. Cops stop me for a check since its like 4am. Well they know me, and I tell em I am going to pune on bike , they go but tell me to watch out for trailer trucks without any indicators running.

ride through the bad patch of 3-4 kms outside tumkur. then the good stretch comes. FLip the HID on and im now at 80-90kmph. A mad volvo bus overtakes me at 110+ swerves at the diversion and keeps going... darn I have to watch out for these speedsters.

The HID is awesome. period. IT IS FABULOUS, I can see all the lane markings, road signs and other trucks without indicators with ease. even dogs which are on the road side I can see by the reflection off their eyes. Good thing.

Rip rip rip till I reach chitradurga. its nearly daybreak, so I stop at a roadside tea stall. I meet some truckers heading to gujarat. Have a few words with them while sipping on a glass of nice kadak chai . Then I clean up the visor and the headlight of bug splatter (or bug chutney as termed by Navnish)

The Daybreak while having tea at Chitradurga



Ride off and the bad roads start, Praful, Praveen Shirali (Hydroxide) had already told me beforehand about these roads being bad till hubli. Speed is down to 60-70kmph

The roads look good, but they aren't. Too much of shoddy patchwork.



The roads are there, 4 lane at many points.. but **** there are too many up's , down's , shoddy patchwork etc etc. Then there's a roadblock ahead with a huge crowd. wonder what it is.

an accident involving three trucks. two are overturned on their sides and the third has a severly dented . bashed in front. seemingly the 4 lane suddenly ends without a warning and into a 1.5 lane wide road. Apparantly the trucks were overtaking each other and they all got screwed. All this happened in the night. Easy mistake to make but a big price to pay.

next stop is at 120kms before hubli. Have enough water, take a pee break. Eat a 5 star. have some glucose water. Refreshing truly. Ride through the utter nonsense of the supposedly GOLDEN QUADRILATERAL corridor.

Then I reach hubli, immediately the roads are again well marked and have a uniform surface. Have a break and eat some light food. Start off , have a glance at the fuel meter, its low, But I have enough fuel to make it till Belgaum.

A small lake in between Hubli and Belgaum


Belgaum, where the dreaded V.T.U university is located is not too far away now


But the roads , nonetheless bring back the "" on the face.


Now the roads are awesome, traffic is moderate so no issues. Some motorists in skodas and innovas bother me by going past at 130+ without any honking or flashing. Grr. (nothing against skoda and innova owners here) Reach Belgaum and tank up at a IOC bunk. HEY ! the fuel price is down by 5 bucks ??!?! I am happy .

Ride off and stop at a dhaba 15 kms after belgaum... order Aloo Mutter, Kadi, Anda Bhurji, 5 Roties , and a Coke. the bill is 52 bucks only. AWESOME !, I give the cook some 10 extra bucks for the really really tasty food. Rest for an hour there. check the bike tyres and other things in the checklist.

The Dhaba where I had lunch and had a break for an hour




So I am off now, the roads are concrete + tarmac at times. Traffic is even lesser now. The bike stays at >90 <100 all the way. Encounter some light twisties (Praful calls em ghat ke naam par dhabba ) In one of the curves a buffoon in a tavera is unable to negotiate these curves and brakes in the middle of the road I saw the opposite lane is empty so take a tighter curve and avoid the fellow, and ride on.

Reach the Maharastra border, and after a while I reach Kohlapur... And off to Pune now. the roads are straight and boring, pass by lush fields. Slow down since the traffic has increased.

Amazing roads with beautiful surroundings. I simply loved the ride on these roads


These roads are better than most of the runways of airports in this country



The last pic in which m tripod is intact




Now why riding gear is important. Ill Elaborate.
There are tractors carrying hay which is like 10x the size of the trailer itself. the tractorwallah can't see who's behind. I honked and as I was overtaking the fellow takes a right turn without any indication. To avoid colliding with the tractor I had to brake hard from 50kmph and I was brushed agaisnt a concrete barrier. I fall down on the right side, and the right arm of the jacket has taken abuse. Just above the Elbow guard and below the Shoulder guard. this area is not padded. But the Abrasion resistant jacket has worked well. The crashguard also has chuna on it. My arm hurts a lil bit so I stop. The tractorwallah rides on without a care. Screw you, you miserable...

I check my arm but no signs of any injury. its back to normal in a few mins. So I then check the bike. DAMN IT ! my tripod had melted on the silencer ! the bike had fallen on the side where the tripod had been loaded. I swear a lot , really a lot. my tripod is ruined . remove it from the silencer and bungee it, have plenty of water, and some chocolates and ride on.

Flat out roads all the way to pune



I am now 100 kms from pune. I tank up. Call up Praveen Shirali (Hydroxide) and he gives me the direction to enter pune. There are some nice curves on the way, and two tunnels and one is a 1 kilometer long one.


The Curve after the first short tunnel



AWESOME. the cold wind refreshes me. Its dark already. Switch the HID on and ride on. Crossed the 1km long tunnel and stop. Call up Praveen again and he tells me the place to meet up.

So I stop at the place praveen mentioned. He arrives on this Black ZMA-R, with riding gear. Been a long time since I saw any biker in riding gear. Feels good. We rode to his home. He helped greatly in tightening the drivechain which had gone slack. the Odo reads 847kms now. ,his mother made excellent food, and we have a hell lot of talk talk and talk and I am off to sleep.

Perfect end to Day1.

^^^^

Waste fellow...........wasting time and money..........u could have taken the bus or train instead!

Ahhh the thread is here!!!....Nice detailed log so far .....some pics within the log would be fabulous dude

@Satish: Machi dont forget..... this bugger rode down to Chennai just to give flight tickets to his friend which he could have e-mailed !!!

please post pics also..!!

dear xeno,

first of all.. i am sorry for your tripod.., tripod just melted on the silencer sounds really bizzare...

pls post pics bhai.!

deltaforce.

Ill post the pics soon yaar !

yes the silencer can be that hot to melt the plastic base holder for the cam ! the aluminium obv didnt even have a mark but the plastic was screwd !.

Praveen Shirali can post the pics of the screwd tripod , err bipod actually one of the legs came off cause the plastic hinge melted

its R.I.P #2 at his place now

just read the log


nice bro! but how did the tripod come in contact with the silencer? did the tractorwala know tht he had hit u?

@manoj

yes da.......ivan oru waste fellow

Nice 1st day's write up Xeno. One doubt that creeps in my mind - you say "Cops know me"..Care to elucidate on the "how" part?

@Xenologik

Hi bro

Nice write up . I am also fond of doing solo trips , But have never passed more than 200 Km in a Bike . In my esteem have done about 6 to 7 solo trips from Bangalore to Coimbatore , Bangalore to Chennai . It was fun . When you where talking about the Dhaba food that you had , that brought down lot of my old memories .

Drive safe

Abey Sudeep. What the F***! Amazing yar. Really. Waiting eagerly for your pics. Expect one goooood welcome when you do come back .

How did i miss this.. Xeno, nice trip buddy post up the rest soon

sudeep is on his own GIR .. send a mail to HH .. they'll put you on their next ad for sure or otherwise sponsor your next ride .. and don't forget my commission .. you may be doing some wire-fu with your bike ala the new extreme ad.

.:. Archi

Bloody hell!!!! awesome ride man, u r some tourer.

Day2
Pune-Ahmedabad

After the night halt at Hydroxide's place, I am feeling good. No aching back, b**t or limbs. Perfect.

So Praveen and me leave till the main highway to Mumbai. Praveen tells all the useful info about the directions and I depart. Traffic is dense till the Pune-Mumbai expressway where I head further on the NH. No bikes allowed on the expressway.

The point at which we (Hydroxide and Me) stopped before bading goodbye


Praveen Shirali (Hydroxide) himself in his A* jacket. I have to thank him for the guidance till Pune and having me over at his place.

All saddled up again !


The route is awesome. Traffic is far less and very managable. At one point it is united with the expressway as well. Head down the khoppoli exit and continue.

The route from Pre-Thane till some 20 odd kms is hell. Traffic is dense , maybe riding over the car tops would be a better idea. But nah didn't feel like it. Stop at a chai thela and have a round of sutta and tea. Refreshing. Finally take the highway from thane and im off. the Highway now is a 2 lane one with moderate traffic. Head down this highway till i come across the 4 lane GQ about 210 kms from Surat.

The first proper signboard which reads "Ahmedabad", my home. Immense boost to the riding spirit.


Last pic of the day, because after this I got terribly late because of the dense traffic encountered later on, so I didnt take any breaks


And then I gun the throttle down, 100+ all the way till surat, people in cars are looking at me kaaarnering with the heavy luggage . At a point I get stopped by a car who's apparantly interested where I am coming from. So it turns out he's from Belgaum , driving his MH reg Zen. I tell him I am coming from Tumkur he is stunned and delighted.

And so I ride all the way to Surat, encountering some bad patches at bridges especially. Take a big slam at one of these bridges, but no damage to the alloys or anything else. Phew.

But upon reaching Surat I was disappointed. Huge jams courtesy to the lane widening work going on at the GQ corridor. At least 20 diversions all the way from Surat till Bharuch. Its 7:00 pm by the time I cross

Till Vadodara there's some or the other diversion which is plain irritating. Its already 9:30pm. reach the Ahmedabad-Vadodara expressway but bikes ain't allowed here too ! so well off to the detour to the NH8..

the HID works well. So well that some fellas actually follow me to show them the way through the utter darkness of the unlit highways. Finally I reach Ahmedabad on the sardar patel outer ring road and head to home.

Dad comes out with not-so-impressed look. He simply asks "how was it?" I said fine. he said "ok come in and have dinner and go to sleep." Maybe that's the reaction an ex-biker would give to such a tour done, esp his own son.