Re: One Machine One Man And The Mission Impossible - Winter Mustang!!!!!

Approved!

Unleash the ponies now.

Re: One Machine One Man And The Mission Impossible - Winter Mustang!!!!!

Thank You bhai, Will try my best to keep up your expectations..

Re: One Machine One Man And The Mission Impossible - Winter Mustang!!!!!

Great pics...eagerly waiting for the remaining

Thanks for sharing...


ATGATT !!!

Cheers,
WindPacer

Re: One Machine One Man And The Mission Impossible - Winter Mustang!!!!!

Now, this is something I was waiting for!
Bring it on!

Re: One Machine One Man And The Mission Impossible - Winter Mustang!!!!!

Reaction on seeing the first picture - Wow! These are some great pictures. Thanks for sharing.

Re: One Machine One Man And The Mission Impossible - Winter Mustang!!!!!

Love the clicks, keep coming more

Re: One Machine One Man And The Mission Impossible - Winter Mustang!!!!!

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in you sail. Explore. Dream. Discover.

- Mark Twain



This is one quote I use everywhere as this has definitely changed the way I approch life.. Now all I want is to Sail and not look back.

Coming back to Mustang!!!
This Mustang Madness started back at Nov 2017 at my Chennai-Bhutan-Sikkim-Chennai ride of 7500kms. And all thanks to my elder brother and a Legendary rider Santanu Banerjee.. Sitting at CCD and listening to him Mustang Stories made me so addicted towards this destination that I had switched off my phone due to lot of official calls were disturbing the wonderful conversation!!!! He is the 1st inspiration for this dream coming true!!! And meanwhile another very good friend of mine Arunabh Majumdar who was on his Tri nation Trans Himalayan Scooter Run 2017 where he did Mustang with a Honda Navi scooter.. So this was one huge fact which worked out at a later stage before the ride...

I have been riding a lot recently.. Had already completed 4 big rides on the last 3 months. Little did I knew back then that the biggest one of my life is on reach.. My Initial plan was to cover RJ, GJ, MH and back to Chennai.. All set for the ride.. Got #optimus Serviced and got everything ready.. But then again its me, how can a planned ride come true!!! As usual wasn't satisfied with an easy one.

30th Jan 2018 - An entire messed up day. Had to get the bike sorted and this was the 1st time I had to leave Optimus to the service center as the KTM Adyar service manager was very much adamant that he won't do it in one day and wanted me to leave the bike for 1 day and get it back tomorrow and this made me upset and the plan was to Start the very next day... An upset me came back home leaving Optimus back for one day.. Went off to bed, middle of the sleep I woke up getting a call from a brother from another Mother (in comes my fav Shaan Nazeem)... He wanted to ride somewhere before he joined his work back at Kuwait and had a plan for Pokhara, Nepal.. 10pm at clock and I posted a facebook status asking about Mustang with an RC... Next one hour I got atleast 7 to 8 calls from different riders across the country asking me not to do it with an RC. People even said this, "Either you will not be back or your bike will not be back or Both of you will not be able to make it back!!" Now this made me more adamant and I was now Stuck with Mustang wala plan. I have a big problem in me, whatever people around me will ask me not to do, my brain will shift me towards that!!!

Now the plan was Shaan will start 1 day before and i will join him somewhere near Lucknow as he was riding a Pulsar 180 and was planning to cover lesser distance in a day... But fate made another twist and my bike was not ready till 1st afternoon.. So got my bike fixed and some new shoes for my Optimus. And this is how the Mustang dream Started.


Final check up done






#Optimus getting new pair of shoes!!!


Introduction -


A lot of you might know me and for the few others, Sagar Banerjee have been into core riding from the past 8 years now!! I Normally don't write much travelogues but this one I had to write so please if you find any mistakes please do let me know so that I can rectify them.



That's My Love of Life #Optimus..

This enitre Travelouge and ride is dedicated to Optimus.. I am not sure if any other RC could have done this that too on Peak winters. By the end of the ride #optimus became the only RC to do Mustang on peak winter that too all the way from Chennai!!!


Camera's used:- Nikon D5200, Go Pro Hero 4 Silver and I phone 7Plus (I am not much of a photographer rather a real bad one).




Saddles packed... waiting for 4am now...




Day 1 - Chennai to Siddipet - 773 kms


My Journey starts a night before day 1 always as I can never sleep the night before the ride.. Its been so many years now riding but still that excitement level never goes down... So as usual not even 1hr of sleep on the night before this ride as well..
4:30am and still we didn't start. As usual late for an hour.




Finally 5amn Me and #Optimus roll for the dream!!!


Just as I started feeling good a huge bump infornt of my house and the laptop back fell down as i had tied it along with the tent and there as a grip issue.. Then came to my mind about Christopher another very good friend of mine who was with me on my Bhutan ride, the Via Terra claw and 2 staps on the top and he used to lock his back up with those straps.. I used the same idea and guess what? It worked for the entire ride!!!! The 1st 2 days it was not that entertaining as it was plain highways. So I took Chennai - Hyderabad - Nagpur - Lucknow - Gorakhpur route to enter Nepal.. I was a bit confused which route I should take for Hyderabad and in comes Jafar bhaiya.. Another wonderful soul.. I have know Jafar bhaiya from years now and he was the one to guide me till Siddipet abut the road conditions, which roads to take and where to stay.. Stopped at a few places for some clicks and breather!! Finally reached Siddhipet by 6pm. Now came a big time screw up, I had booked Hotel Akshaya Siddipet but due to some errors the app booked Hotel Akshaya Karimnagar which was aorund 100 kms more from where I was. Called up make make my trip and as usual no help provided from them. So Rs1600 wasted. Got a room at Hotel Akshaya Siddipet. The manager was kind enough to give me some discounts as everything happend infront of him and he knew I wasted that money... Freshened up and went outside in search of food found a good hotel ordered biriyani (I love biriyani) little did I knew back then that it would be so spicy that my tounge would burn due to spice.. I was so irritated.. I was almost crying.. Had 3 bottles of coke and finally the waiter had the courtesy to bring some sugar.. I was so in a bad mood and wanted to abuse the Chief.. Hungry me with a burnt tounge went back to hotel with ending the day with no so good memories.. I am a very instinctive rider.. If things doesn't go by my way it makes me very upset.. Some pictures follow from day 1 as not much to post from day one...

Some photos from the day:-








Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind. - Nathaniel Hawthorne


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Thank You :-)

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Thank You

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Thank you Barun da, Day 1 Served!!

Re: One Machine One Man And The Mission Impossible - Winter Mustang!!!!!

Cool one!
Keep them coming!

Re: One Machine One Man And The Mission Impossible - Winter Mustang!!!!!

Amazing..
Lovely pics till now..

looking forward to pics from Mustang.

Re: One Machine One Man And The Mission Impossible - Winter Mustang!!!!!

My bike is my gym, my wheelchair and my church all in one. I'd like to ride my bike all day long but I've got this thing called a job that keeps getting in the way.

- Bill Walton

Day 2 Siddipet to chhindwara - 613kms

The Second day started with a delayed start. Initial plan was to start by 6am but I had over slept and started only by 8am.. Now I should mention an important point here. Not all the routes Gmaps suggests is worth taking.. You should sometimes get a detour as well.. Google maps was showing me a straight route to Nagpur through plain highways but me being a mad wanderer took a detour through a single lane road. I was finally passing through some scenic route with villages and forest on both side. I started taking a lot of breaks as the photographer inside me started kicking in.


Somewhere In the middle of Nowhere

The initial plan for to reach Sagar (yes a place on my name) but these stops and a single lane road with worst conditions made sure that I didn't reach that days destination. I stopped for setting up the gps on my phone and meanwhile a man with his bike stopped by and asking me something which I term to be the question of the ride. Trust me I had gone through a lot of queries by passerby on all these years but this one was the weirdest and the funniest. Conversation follow:-

Unknown Genius - Bhaiya Kahan ja rahe ho?
Me - Nepal
Unknown Genius - Kahan se a rahe ho?
Me - Chennai
Unknown Genius - Accha, ye batao kya bech rahe ho in bags mein?
Me - I was so furious and wanted to abuse and curse him but instead kept my cool as I thought if he knew all these things he would have been in my place today :-P

So quickly ignoring him I started the journey back on road. Started for Lunch at a Local Dhaba. This was years after I was eating Dhaba food. Order Egg Curry and Roti and trust me this was the best egg curry I had in recent times. had 12 to 13 tawa roti's.. I was as hungry as a man who has not eaten in days.. After completing the lunch had a quick chat with the Owner of the Dhaba.. Asked about the road conditions and this guy was very happy to provide all kind of information. It was 4:35 on watch and I reached Nagpur.. I still had to cover 390kms for the day... And winter's early sunset was making it worst...


Best Egg Curry and Roti I ever had


It was already 6 already started becoming dark and I still had to cover 250 odd kms. Now comes the twist in the tail, people close to me know the reason. I am not at all comfortable riding after dark. I have night blindness so always prefer reaching my destination for the day before dark. (P.S - The rest of the ride everyday I rode in dark :-P)..


First Sunset covered. I kept on covering a lot of sunsets my entire ride.

Crossing some parts of Maharashtra, enters this State called Madhya Pradesh, Now I should mention this, the best roads I have ridden on my entire 8000kms.. MP has mostly 2 way roads but my my the roads where so nicely laid!!! I was covering very good speeds and that to at night time.. These were not normal 2 way roads. These were bigger in size like atleast 3 lane roads. I had crossed some wonderful stretch of ghat sections.. First time in my life I saw such big and buttery roads on Ghats.. I was in full cornering spree. The kms passed within nick of time.. Was feeling so comfortable riding at night for the first time.. Already 9pm on the clock and I thought of ending the day on the best possible nearby town as Sagar was still around 260kms left. So settled on a small town called Chhindwara.. Checked my phone only to find so many messages from my family, friends and loved ones. In comes Balba Da, a very famous rider from Lucknow. He called up and asked my plans about Lucknow, I informed him that I would reach Lucknow by tomorrow evening and would be staying at my brother's place (Sumit bhaiya). SO we planned to meet up tomorrow. Little did I knew back then that it was going to be one of the craziest and the best nights of my entire ride... Now search for food started.. Let me inform you this, if you are a non-veg lover then Chhindwara is definitely not the place for you.. Being a religious town all most all the restaurant's are pure veg.. I had to walk to around 3 kms to reach a non veg food stall.. Now again they didn't have anything other than egg. So ordered an egg curry and some roti.. Food was very tasty.. Comes the worst part with my tummy full had to walk for 3kms back to reach the Hotel. Till I reached the hotel my entire food was digested. Order some soft drinks and crashed to bed.. Ending a day full of mixed emotions.




Dinner for the Night.



Some Random Pictures from the day:-


Entering the State Of wonderful roads, Madhya Pradesh



Who said Village locations are not worth. This is as beautiful as it gets.


#Optimus. Din mein ek Pic toh banta hai



Accident on the way to Lucknow. Please drive safe and stay alert





Day 3 on the way to the City of Nawabs Lucknow.. Best city of the ride. Stay tuned for Day 3..

Re: One Machine One Man And The Mission Impossible - Winter Mustang!!!!!

Awesome!
I like the way you plan your rides. It's something which can help people who are planning long rides.

Re: One Machine One Man And The Mission Impossible - Winter Mustang!!!!!

Thank you dada

Re: One Machine One Man And The Mission Impossible - Winter Mustang!!!!!

Great going so far. Having veg food is recommended on long rides as it is easy on stomach - but that's a personal priority. I had heard MP roads around Nagpur are not that great(specially towards Delhi) - good to know they've made progress.

Re: One Machine One Man And The Mission Impossible - Winter Mustang!!!!!

Thank You. MP roads are in wonderful shape.