Bring on the pics ketan.....

Rachit...It was the main town...infact the commercial & ruling capital of Hindavi Swaraj...

I intend to write a monologue on this incredible structure as a part of this ride whenever I get time this week....

Hey guys... Plan mein thoda change mangta..
Will write the trip log with pix tomorrow as I get time.. Just got free and was supposed to write it now.. buy going for Kaminey tonight.. Will do it tomorrow...

Meanwhile, here are a couple of pics to keep you busy..
C & C are highly appreciated...





Regards,
Ketan_r15

^^ ROTFLMO....it wud have been more interesting if the angle was different

Here's 1 taken by Rishab

arre mere dost.. woh pic tere priya mitra Chavladka ne liya tha..

The majestic sahyadri range by blue ryder .....

And hereby I declare DarkHole err Knight as the No. 1 Poser of Mumbai xBhp. Pose what may.

weird stuff man, DK ... btw, nice pics there Ketan again

good going guys...great pics.waiting for more !

WTF...man...I am nowhere close to you & spidy especially after seeing dahanu pics...& awaiting the goa ones....

Yeh to bas TP tha....some entertaiment on the go

weird stuff.....hmmmm...I do agree... bats are supposed to be queer ain't they

one more bat location here

please post some pic's of the bike. they are all missing. very IMP factor since you'll had 4 R15's,1 P220, 1 P200......Bike is god, please dont miss them.....

Man this is beautiful. Please post a higer resolution and also more pics on this location please

you poser'S always steal's d show

Where is the pic of aam janta...and d babes !!

Am working on the trip log and pix guys.. will b up very shortly.. Lotsa green pix and lotsa bike pics... Coming soon..

Sorry for the delay though.. Last night was busy watching Kaminey.. :P Not worth 4.5 stars as given in Mid Day.. I'll give it 3/3.5 stars.. :P

...and i'll take away 0.5 stars for the Marathi i didnt understood.

Four R15s..one P220 and P200 Ride to Raigadh-Rip Fest

As I mentioned, everyone was waiting eagerly for the big weekend, 14-15-16 August 2009, to ride somewhere and enjoy a nice 1000+ km ride. But due to several reasons(Swine flu/financial problems/accommodation problems at tourist spots/etc etc), the plan for the 1000+ km ride failed..atleast for some xBhpians. Although the hard kaur riders stuck to their plan of riding to Amboli and probably are in Goa right now..

Since I was running short on money, I didn't want to ride to a place where I would have had to pay for stay and food. So I had also decided to ride to my native place, Rajapur - 400kms one way from Mumbai - but due to some reason even that plan failed... I was left with only one choice..to ride to Gadheshwar with SB and DK.. A 50km ride..

Then on friday, Mr. Darkknight posts in the afternoon to ride somewhere asking destination.. I posted a list of 7-8 destinations, all of which were on NH17 - far from the swine flu hub Pune.. Raigadh was one of them.

I had left the choice on SB, DK and rest of the guys as I am always happy riding anywhere on NH17. It's my favourite road. DK bhau decided to ride to Raigadh and so did the rest of the guys. I was fine too. I wanted to ride a bit further than that but Raigadh was fine too.

We decided to ride on Sunday, 16th August. Time decided was 6.30am and meeting place, Panvel McD. Usual riders comfirmed their presence and it was a good 7-8 riders list.

finally on the day of the ride, I went to Ajinkya's place at 6am sharp and we started riding to Panvel. Reached panvel at sharp 6.30am. No one was there except a Black R15. We didnt recognize who's bike it was and then Mr. Aman paji walks out of the McD. He had ridden all the way from Powai to Panvel just to have snacks.. Hats off to u paji..

While we were chatting for a few minutes, SB arrived on his R15 with his brother Anup. Shortly after that, Rohit rides in on his P200. Now 2 members were left.. DK and Rishabh.

Few minutes pass by and still now sign of anyone.. We decide to move in and have some snack while they come. I called up DK to know his status and he was at his home waiting for our call He said he'll be there in couple of minutes. SB called up Rishabh to know that he had just got up and it'll take him another 40 minutes to be there at Panvel.. Once DK arrived, we took the decision to move ahead and Rishabh said he'll catch up with us on the way. Now that's the spirit my boy.. Had an argument some time back on this topic.. Never mind..

We started our journey after refueling our bikes. Climate was amazing. In no time, we crossed the JNPT road and reached the NH17 junction. I was leading and just as we reached Pen check post, it started raining heavily. I saw in my RVM that all the bikes are stopping. I stopped too and rode back to them. They had decided to wait till the rain stops. We parked our bikes and took shelter in a hut, next to the check post. Rain was there for some 15-20 minutes. Then DK bhau delivered a dialog.. "Dekh dekh blue boy kaise aa raha hai.. wheeee..wheeee..." lol.. everyone laughed and looked in that direction to see the dancing boy coming. He too stopped and took a smoke break.

Once the rain stopped we continued our journey. Road non stop till Wadkhal and stopped for breakfast. The tourists in the hotel were shocked to see 6 riders fully kitted and geared up. We were celebs there.. :P Finished the breakfast soon and continued on the Goa highway..

After riding for sometime, we stopped for a butt break.. Time for some pics..







Biru's morning Glory.. :P



That's my babe..





The butter smooth NH17.. So inviting..



A Ride Paddy..



A common sight through out the Konkan stretch during this season of the Year..



The break was good enough to refresh us and we continued towards our destination. But the rain god had some different plan for us. Just as we started, rain again started pouring in.. DK immediately pulled over under a huge tree and we all took shelter under it. No one was in a mood to get wet I guess. DK was furious on rain..

Once it stopped we resumed our ride and kept on riding for a good long time till we reached Mahad. There's a beautiful river.. very photogenic. I stop at this place everytime I use this road. You can check my Goa trip thread too. We decided to stop there for some pics.. Time for next set of pictures... I climbed a small hill to take these snaps.. Soon Rishabh and SB followed me..

Zandulalzz and their machines..



All the gorgeous machines..



While we were busy clicking the machines.. Bat had managed to fly to a boat on the river bank..





"Ohh Fu*k.. Yeh toh kuch zyadahi uncha hai... Ab niche kaise utroo..??"



Then DK did something like this.. no clue what it was... and.....



...and.. he got charged up and heeeeee haaaaaaa..




Time pass was enough for us to get resfreshed once again.. and just as we thought of starting our journey, Rain started pouring once again.. We ran under a tree to wait till the rain stops. It was there for some 10-15 minutes and all this while DK bhau was furious.. lol...

Once the rain stopped we fired the bikes and set off towards Raigadh. Next 40-42 kms were passed in a whisker as everyone was ripping hard. We reached the junction from where we were supposed to take the left turn for Raigadh. Now it was 25kms of SH in between us and the fort. Road was surprisingly good and what curves.. Aah.. shere paradise for corner carvers..

We were riding in formation enjoying the twisty roads. On the way, we saw a small but beautiful waterfall and decided that we'll stop here while returning for some snacks which SB had packed in and some medicine which everyone needed... :P

Moved ahead and reached the base of Raigadh fort. Parking was already full with tourist 4 wheelers. We found an empty space behind a house and as we were parking the bikes, an old lady came there with a receipt book for pay and park. It wasn't a pay and park actually but she was charging money for letting us use her backyard. As long as our bikes are gonna be safe, we were ok with it and she charged 10 bucks per bike. DK asked me to convince her for keeping our jackets, helmets and gloves.. I did some maska polish and she agreed to let us keep it in her house but asked 20 bucks for that as well... We agreed and kept our stuff inside. Paying 20 bucks was easier than carrying all those 5 kg jackets around..

We moved towards the ticket window of Rope way and there we were shocked to know that there's a waiting of approx 2.5 hours for our turn to come..

We had no option.. so bought the tickets - Rs.150 return. - and decided to have our lunch during the waiting period. There was a Hotel called as Hotel Deshmukh just a few meters away. We walked in and settled down. Nice hotel it was.. Open air.. clean and not much crowded.. Ordered some food and meanwhile took this pic from the place where I was sitting.



Food was nice and affordable too. Finished it soon and then went towards the rope way to check what number is boarding in. There was still some time left. So we were wandering around to do TP. That's where we saw a huge water reservoir - filled till it brim. DK, Rohit and I wanked acorss to it while rest of the guys waited on the top to take pictures. (SB - Plz post those pics soon.. ) There DK transformed into a real bat and started searching the place in the hidden darkness under the stairs where he used to hang upside down.. Check for urself.





After that we spent around half n hour around the Ropeway.. Some random pics..

Darkknight in a Darkhole..



The network of small waterfalls was spread acorss the entire mountain range..



The carts going up to the Fort.. Really Amazing..



Point where carts going up cross carts bringing people down..



The mechanism.. The carts.. and the top..



Now it was our turn to get into those carts and enjoy the joy ride to the top.. Amazing feeling I must say. The view you get while you climb is breath taking.. the wind flowing.. everything was just so nice..

Some pix while the carts were taking us to the top..



The road.. The village and the rice fields...



A small zarna..



ek bandar pinjre ke andar..





A small waterfall.. atleast 100 feet deep..



Now the pix from the fort.. The only unfortunate thing was that we couldn't enjoy the entire fort due to shortage of time. We were 2000 feet above the sea level and some riders already had started feeling dead tired... :P :P :P Anywez.. enjoy the pics...

The front view...





Sahyadri mountain ranges..







Dilapidated fort...



One of the courtyards..







Mahadarwaja or the Grand Entrance..



Shiv Samadhi.. That was a bit too far and we were running short of time... so had to skip that part for next time..



The Great Maratha Warrior - Raja Shiv Chatrapati..



Raja aur unka Bhakt...



Market place of Shivaji Maharaj's time..



Aise hi photos khichte khichte we reached this small hill top which was covered with lush greenery.. check out the clean air in this pic.. just after a few minutes this same place was covered with thick fog.. You'll see it in later pics.. We could actually see the fog building up... Amazing it was..





Now the fog starts to build up.. It's the same Grand Entrance which was clearly visible a few minutes ago is now behind the thick fog wall..





We had some of the sandwiches there and saved a few to have at the waterfall. Clock was ticking and so we decided to return to the base. It had also started raining. So we took shelter under the Grand Entrance for a few minutes and walked our way to the Rope way. Fortunately there wasn't a queue this time and we got our cart soon. I shot a couple of vids during our journey down. will post them later.

Once at the base, we had a nice cuppa tea at a stall and without wasting anymore time we got our gear back from the old lady's house. Started the return journey after packing everything and started searching the waterfall.

DK and Rishabh took a wrong turn but fortunately came back without travelling much. Finally we reached the waterfall and boy what a place it was.. Nice clean cold water gushing down. Had awesome lot fun there. Finished the left over sandwiches and had some royal tasty creamy medicine which SB had brought with him from his home.. Thanx a lot SB for that.. Very tasty and addictive too... :P



SB ne banaye hue sandwich mein kya tha pata nahi ke Rohit Upadhyay ekdum se Sylvester Upadhyay ban gaye.. :P



We spent a good hour or so at the waterfall and finally decided to roll because we didnt want to ride after dark..specially in this rainy season.. Aur koi na sahi.. lekin DK ko toh raat mein ride karni hi nahi thi.. :P He started ripping like anything and one by one everyone was in the same tune.. Surprisingly Biru bhai, who's usually a very calm and cool rider was ripping like.. Even SB found it tough sometimes to catch up with him...

We were eating the kilometers like anything.. Not much breaks.. just rip rip and rip.. It was literally like a fast chase scene of a Hollywood movie.. Maza aa gaya. People in cars were going crazy seeing 6 bikes ripping back to back.. No one dared to come in our way..

After riding, rather ripping for some good amount of time, we took a butt break near Wadkhal..





A quick smoke break and we resumed our journey. Rode all the way to Wadkhal. Faced a kilometer or two long traffic jam. Did some off roading to get out of it and finally stopped at a fuel station for butt break and refueling the bikes. Once tanked up, we rolled out once again and kept riding till we reached JNPT. There the group was seperated. wishiing good bye to each other SB, Ajinkya and I took the road to Mumbai City. SB was with us till CBD and then Ajinkya and I took the Palm Beach road. Faced some fu*king bad traffic in the city but managed to reach home comfortably without any mishap.

Yet another crash free ride accomplished.. It's always so good to ride in a group with people you know and like. Thanx for the wonderful ride guys. Wish you and myself many such rides in future.

Regards,
Ketan_R15

vow.. very wonderfully written log Ketan..! just lovely.. a single day ride couldnt have been better than this.. As usual guyz had terrible fun..!!!
The pix are just awesome man..!! remembered my trip back to Raigad.. the rope-way is certainly amazing.. very thrilling..!!!