Re: Golden Quadrilateral ride on Dominar 400

Thread approved.

Re: Golden Quadrilateral ride on Dominar 400

Looking forward to rest of the story...Fantastic

Re: Golden Quadrilateral ride on Dominar 400

Nice start.
Waiting for the entire story . And some clicks!

Re: Golden Quadrilateral ride on Dominar 400

Re: Golden Quadrilateral ride on Dominar 400

23 Dec 2018:
After a tiring ride on earlier day, we decided to wake up late. As our next destination was Chennai, we had around 7 hrs of ride that day. After an awesome breakfast/lunch by 12pm at a roadside hotel we headed towards Chennai. Roads through Karnataka are just delight to ride. Somewhere around late afternoon we entered Tamilnadu. And reached Chennai by 7:30pm. Had a good sleep in our comfortable Airbnb stay, with our awesome host Amma who cooked Sambar Rice for us on a short notice.

24 Dec 2018:
It was a long ride day. Amma made delicious Idly for breakfast. We started a bit late by 8 am. After navigating through morning Chennai traffic, we started our journey towards Vishakhapatnam (Vizag). There is plenty of greenery on both sides. Somewhere at Mid-day we entered Andhra. This part of road is filled with greenery. I also noticed Andhra has lot of water bodies than any other state in India. We saw a lot of waders in fields. The roads are not that fast after Guntur. Some bad patches restricted our speed. We crossed Vijayawada by 4:30 pm. At a petrol pump I noticed that our saddle bag was touching the silencer. I pulled the bag up and ... There it was, the hot silencer had put a big hole at bottom. Removed my bungee cord and tied the bag for time being. Later as we didn't find any solution and time to repair bag, bungee kept compay till the end of trip. In the eastern side sun sets very early. Blue hour starts by 5:00 pm and within few minutes, complete dark. Sunsets in eastern part of India are beautiful. The size of Sun gets bigger and with less pollution it looks pure and round.
Next towns Eluru and Rajahmundry had slightly bad roads. It got difficult to judge road conditions after dark. Though our LED headlight was enough to light up the night but it's the incoming light. By now we were ok with night riding. In South India, though it was dark but we never felt scary. We had a nice Uttapa for dinner by 8:30 pm at a road side eatery. After dinner the road was lonely and much darker. By 11 pm we reached Vishakhapatnam. We passed through huge industries as we entered. Second shift might have been over so the buses were dropping people to there home. At11:30 pm we reached to our Airbnb stay. It was a Christmas Eve. The town was still awake. We were seriously tired and sleepy. Today we covered 907 kms in 16 hrs.

Re: Golden Quadrilateral ride on Dominar 400

Some pics along the way

Re: Golden Quadrilateral ride on Dominar 400

Great going!

Re: Golden Quadrilateral ride on Dominar 400

25 Dec 2018:
It's Christmas and rest day. We woke up a bit late in morning. Got fresh and ready to explore Vishakhapatnam. But first we had to do some fixing of burnt saddle bag and increasing cold. My double layer gloves couldn't stand up against the cold winds of early morning and late evening. We searched for bag repair vendor but it was Christmas holiday for everyone. We decided to tie a bungee cord on the burnt side and courier rain gear to Mumbai. After lunch we headed towards Bajaj service centre for hand guards. Got a KTM hand guard fitted on the bike. They helped a lot in North cold. Quickly rushed to RK beach for the sunset.
I always wanted to see the sunset on east coast. This was my first time on a east coast beach. I liked it but I'll always prefer a sun setting in ocean. Vizag waters were deep turquoise with contrasting khaki sand. A clean beach and lots of people as it was Christmas holiday. We spent a good time on the beach and enjoyed local delicacies.


26 Dec 2018:
We left Vizag at dawn. Got a perfect field and fog sunrise picture. New hand guards were a blessing in this cold morning. We stopped for breakfast at a dhaba place for a delicious Chole Puri. The road was great in morning. We crossed some dense green areas before Chilka lake. As the road is nearer to the Andhra and Odisha's coastal line we saw numerous waders. By midday we passed Chilka. And by evening 4-5 pm Bhubaneshwar and Cuttack. After Cuttack the road is not so good. At Balasore we were in pitch dark. Cold started increasing. Overall road conditions in Odisha were disappointing. After dinner, roads were better and the cold too. At Kharagpur we took a fuel stop. The petrol pump guy told us it was raining here in last week so the mercury dropped a bit more. Wrooming through truck traffic we reached Kolkata by midnight. Kolkata was asleep. City roads are really bad. Mumbai folks made songs for bad roads, if they see roads in Kolkata they might just get an attack. In a no man's lane of New Alipore, we found the place. Some 850 plus kilometres covered in 17 hours.

Re: Golden Quadrilateral ride on Dominar 400

Great stuff ! Which product have you installed on the throttle(The red one) ?

Re: Golden Quadrilateral ride on Dominar 400

Ohh It's a basic cruise control. I bought it for INR 90, on bandidos website. It helped on highway. I didn't got any muscle strain on right hand.

Re: Golden Quadrilateral ride on Dominar 400

27 Dec 2018:
Today's route was a bit different and challenging. We started a bit late by 8 am. Roads of West Bengal were fantastic. Just after midday we stepped into the most hostile land of India, Jharkhand. We met with worst road conditions of our entire GQ circuit. There are no clean and good restaurants/dhabas for a good 200 km stretch. We had to settle down on fruits for lunch. We stopped couple of times in market to purchase bananas and other fruits. Eyes looked at us felt scary. I didn't wanted to take risk of stopping at these crowded places so we ate the fruits at a lonely stretch, in between villages. By evening 4 or 5 we crossed Jharkhand border and felt an instant relief as Bihar was far less hostile. Roads in Bihar are good but we had to be extra cautious of cattles, stray dogs and other drivers. By 7:30 pm, in the dark, we entered in Uttar Pradesh. I expected somewhat better road. The roads are good but they're building hell number of flyovers. After every 2 kilometres a diversion slowed us down. A diversion means keep left on broken road with invisible speed breakers. At this stretch I wished if I had extra lights. With hungry stomach we reached Varanasi by 9 pm. At our guest house near Assi Ghat, we had Maggi noodles for dinner and called it a day. It took us 13 hrs to cover 687 kilometres.





28 Dec 2018:
This was the second rest day in our trip. Varanasi was on the top of my street photography wishlist. Though we had very little time to spend here, this was more of get to know Baneras day. It's a very vibrant city. Not just colours but peoples, ghats and the Ganga river amused us. I still managed to click a few shots on the ghats. So next time when we visit Varanasi, I should keep at least 2-3 days in my camera bag.

Re: Golden Quadrilateral ride on Dominar 400

Awesome --- Keep them coming.

Re: Golden Quadrilateral ride on Dominar 400

29 Dec 2018:
Left Varanasi by 7 am. According to my research from here till Mumbai, roads will be much better and I was right. This part was also coldest in GQ circuit. We had an awesome breakfast of Dal Fry and Roti at a roadside dhaba. Till 12 pm I was freezing in my 2 gloves and 5 top layers. Hand guards fitted in Vizag were huge saviour. Somewhere at midday we crossed Kanpur. This was the longest flyover we got. It runs throughout the length of city. We crossed Kanpur by 100-120 kmph on odometer. Later we stopped for lunch at dhaba. Had a wonderful Dal Roti and subji. It was our lucky day I guess. By evening 5 pm we touched Lucknow-Agra Expressway. This road is a heaven for riders. Rs 80 for toll was spent on the best road of our life. It was dark and we were fast. If I have to compare this expressway than it is much better than Mumbai-Pune Expressway. We reached Agra by 8 pm. Got some dinner before finding our Airbnb host for the night. Our lucky day continued as we reached at our stay, Col. Sharma's palatial house. Colonel welcomed us graciously. The carpet area of his living room was equal to my Mumbai's house (figure of speech). After some chatting, we landed on a spacious bed. It was a good riding day with 615 kilometers in 11 hrs.










30 Dec 2018:
With warm wishes from Colonel, we left for The Taj Mahal. The plan was to take glimpse of Taj from Mehtab baug, across the Yamuna river. It didn't worked. Due to the famous North Indian thick fog forget Taj, we couldn't see the river only. Plan for today was a bit stretched so we decided to fog it... there's always a next time. We were on the Yamuna expressway till Noida. Again one of the best highway patch. Reached Delhi in no time. We took a circle to India gate and headed to Jaipur. For lunch I thought we'll get a good dhaba after the city. We were crossing Gurugram but no sign of a dhaba. There were few fast food joints and lot of liquor stores which we were not interested in. We usually stop at a place where our bike is parked nearer or visible to us coz it was loaded with stuff. Finally after deserted Gurugram we touched Jaipur highway and stopped at first dhaba. As always the paneer of North India was just too good. Rotis just melted in our mouth. Later a good patch of tarmac carried us to Jaipur by 6 pm. We changed quickly and rushed to the Johri Bazaar for shopping.
After a lot of days we drove on superb roads throughout the day. In our lovely Airbnb stay we decided to wake up late tomorrow and reach Udaipur. We spent 8 hours on the best highways covering appx 500 kilometres.

Re: Golden Quadrilateral ride on Dominar 400

Awesome ride bro, inspiring to do one like you.