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It had been almost two months since the Ripperz had unleashed their beasts on the roads and all the guys were itching to go for a long one. After pondering over different locations, we finalised on Dapoli as our destination for Meet 9 and the 4th of October as the D-day for the ride. After much deliberation on which route would best suite our riding requirement, we decided to take the one which goes through Mahabaleshwar via Poladpur, then onto NH-17 and finally to Dapoli via Khed phata. The distance came up to around 235kms one way. So after planning this ride for over a month, we were finally set to go.
not to be spotted by other road users. We took the NH-4 all the way to Surur, where we regrouped and headed to Wai and Panchgani. Dawn was about to break and a sliver of light had lit up the horizon. The Pasarni ghat was covered in a jiffy and before the sun came up, we were at Mahabaleshwar.
It was 6:30am and the lazy town was yet to open its eyes. After searching for about 15mins, we finally found a restaurant open for business. The orders for breakfast started flying even before we were seated and like a hungry pack of wolves we devoured the Idli Sambhar and chai in a matter of minutes. After an hour or so we decided to get moving again and everyone put on their rain gear as the dreary weather promised to greet us with rain.
The fantastic ghat section from Mahabaleshwar to Poladpur lacks just one thing- a good road surface. The serpentine road of Rudtondi definitely has the potential to give Lavasa, our holy biking ground, a run for its money, if it were to be resurfaced with the same grainy tarmac. The combination of the winding corners and the broken road made it essential that we kept our speeds down. After 40kms of slow riding we finally hit NH17, the Mumbai-Goa highway and the next 35 odd kilometres from Poladpur to Chiplun were pure biking nirvana.
The superbly banked, wide ghat section boasts of everything from hairpins to fast sweeping corners. Considering the visibility that every corner offers and the wide runoff area, you can take some of these corners at speeds exceeding 100kmph! Needless to say, the ride up this ghat made up for all that we had missed out on in the last ghat
We asked around for directions for going to the beach and finally we had arrived. We got out of our gear and took our bikes straight onto the sand. An hour long power sliding session followed before we decided to hunt for food again. We had sea food on our minds and the prawns curry, Surmai fry, Tandoori Pomfret seemed to fit the bill just fine. As we feasted on these delicacies at a local restaurant, the heavens opened to hit the coastal beach with a torrential downpour. We paid the bill and waited for the rain to stop. It was already 3pm and I wanted to get to Mahabaleshwar before dark. But the Rain gods had something else in store for us, because as soon as we left the place, we got rained on so hard that we were soaking wet in a matter of minutes. Stopping now did not make any sense and so we continued our journey back home. Thankfully the rain eased a bit after a while and we were able to ride at a fair clip.
Riding up on the broken ghat section turned out to be one hell of a task and it took us a good hour to reach Mahabaleshwar. We stopped at the hill station to quickly freshen up and left for Pune by 8pm. The journey back home was a slow affair partially because of the rain and partly because of the restricted visibility of the night. I finally reached home at 11:45pm after seeing off all my mates at Chandni Chowk and reflected on this memorable journey as I lay in my bed. This was arguably one of the best rides of my life and I hope I get to do more of these in the years to come.
Here are some pics from the ride.
not to be spotted by other road users. We took the NH-4 all the way to Surur, where we regrouped and headed to Wai and Panchgani. Dawn was about to break and a sliver of light had lit up the horizon. The Pasarni ghat was covered in a jiffy and before the sun came up, we were at Mahabaleshwar.
It was 6:30am and the lazy town was yet to open its eyes. After searching for about 15mins, we finally found a restaurant open for business. The orders for breakfast started flying even before we were seated and like a hungry pack of wolves we devoured the Idli Sambhar and chai in a matter of minutes. After an hour or so we decided to get moving again and everyone put on their rain gear as the dreary weather promised to greet us with rain.
The fantastic ghat section from Mahabaleshwar to Poladpur lacks just one thing- a good road surface. The serpentine road of Rudtondi definitely has the potential to give Lavasa, our holy biking ground, a run for its money, if it were to be resurfaced with the same grainy tarmac. The combination of the winding corners and the broken road made it essential that we kept our speeds down. After 40kms of slow riding we finally hit NH17, the Mumbai-Goa highway and the next 35 odd kilometres from Poladpur to Chiplun were pure biking nirvana.
The superbly banked, wide ghat section boasts of everything from hairpins to fast sweeping corners. Considering the visibility that every corner offers and the wide runoff area, you can take some of these corners at speeds exceeding 100kmph! Needless to say, the ride up this ghat made up for all that we had missed out on in the last ghat
We asked around for directions for going to the beach and finally we had arrived. We got out of our gear and took our bikes straight onto the sand. An hour long power sliding session followed before we decided to hunt for food again. We had sea food on our minds and the prawns curry, Surmai fry, Tandoori Pomfret seemed to fit the bill just fine. As we feasted on these delicacies at a local restaurant, the heavens opened to hit the coastal beach with a torrential downpour. We paid the bill and waited for the rain to stop. It was already 3pm and I wanted to get to Mahabaleshwar before dark. But the Rain gods had something else in store for us, because as soon as we left the place, we got rained on so hard that we were soaking wet in a matter of minutes. Stopping now did not make any sense and so we continued our journey back home. Thankfully the rain eased a bit after a while and we were able to ride at a fair clip.
Riding up on the broken ghat section turned out to be one hell of a task and it took us a good hour to reach Mahabaleshwar. We stopped at the hill station to quickly freshen up and left for Pune by 8pm. The journey back home was a slow affair partially because of the rain and partly because of the restricted visibility of the night. I finally reached home at 11:45pm after seeing off all my mates at Chandni Chowk and reflected on this memorable journey as I lay in my bed. This was arguably one of the best rides of my life and I hope I get to do more of these in the years to come.
Here are some pics from the ride.
Amazing line-up man!!
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