@no1: Thats great. I think some bads road should not stop us. ALthough I agree we have to take precautions of reviewing how bad the status is on Friday. I believe that the clouds are almost gone.

See the satellite imagery below:



Also Weather in Nanital: Nainital, India Forecast : Weather Underground

Looks sunny days all the way!

@Aryan Da: Thanks

The road must have been cleared by now, btw I am heading to the KMVN office(Delhi) tomorrow for some work. Will ask them about the current conditions and post it here.

Well! It'll be great if you can let us know about that it will definetly help us finalisinf the plan

That's great, so you are confirmed....

Please remember to get what I have asked you to get for me..

@Sunny: Well! have we decided which day are we leaving....???? is it Friday or Monday...I had a word with my boss and as of now 100% I am in for both the cases.

@Sunny.. The sat image looks good and hopefully we will get some clear days this weekend.. I am not afraid of the bad roads, but of landslides.. There have been reports of landslides over past 1-2 weeks from both uttaranchal and himachal.. Landslides can be nasty and while the almora highway is pretty well maintained, some of the other highways like the kaladunghi-nainital and ranikhet->ramnagar highways can be a pain..

BTW.. what is the final plan? When and where do we meet up, etc?

-- no1lives4ever

@Manan: Well, as we spoke Saturday is 100%. Ashish(Vroom) is also in. So that makes four of us now, 2 Comets and 2 Karizmas, what a symmetry.

@no1: Yeah i know. I reckon landslides should be taken care of if they happened in the rains that have gone by. Loking forward I dont see any landslides happening again as the rains have stopped and the water would have seeped out of the cracks making the rocks less prone to slide down.

I think we will make our own way once we start depending on what we face

So the final plan is :

We start off on Saturday at 5AM for Binsar. Meet up at a place which is convenient to all of us.

unday can be a day to explore and do some photography and relax. Monday we head out back to Delhi starting off 7ish.

BTW.. sunny, are you going to be carrying your laptop on this trip?

-- no1lives4ever

I have yet to decide on that. It will make sense to carry the laptop only if reliance network is there so that i can keep an eye on xBhp server in its newfound infancy.

Other than that I want to just go there and relax withs some photography. Need that dose once again.

Talked to KMVN office, Delhi. They say the roads are clear, but if rains persist, landslides may occur.

Following this post of mine, I am looking at taking a few pictures during the trip using the phone camera with geotagging and updating the same whenever we get a gprs connection. Keep an eye on my flickr photostream for any new/updated photos as we make the trip.

-- no1lives4ever

My current plan is to post geotagged grab shots on my flickr photostream everytime we stop during the trip. Idea would be to take a shot which gives an idea of a location and also an idea of why the stop was taken, so that anyone following the photostream can get an idea of our progress and activities

If i do not get cell signal at a point, then I will upload the pics once we are at a spot with cell signal. Do let us know if any of you can see the uploaded shots on the flickr page. The page is pretty big, so I would most probably not be opening it till I get back to Delhi.

-- no1lives4ever

You guys are riding to my all time favourite riding destination: Kumaon Himalayas and Binsar is a fantastic place to laze around and soak in the charm and tranquility that only a Himalayan hamlet can offer. Have a nice ride guys!

Cheers,
Shamik

Any updates?

Brief updates:
On saturday we reached binsar at around 6pm. I went via Nainital and Ranikhet, Sunny, Manan & Vroom went via Ramnagar->Ranikhet..

On Sunday we found out that Manan's rear tyre had a puncture. So we checked out of Binsar and went to Almora to get his tyre fixed. After getting a new tyre + tube for his RTR, we decided to head to Sheetalakhet to spend the night. On the way to sheetalakhet, my bike's rear tyre got punctured. I managed to park it at a shop and went to sheetalakhet with manan on his bike.

Today we woke up to a wonderful sunrise at sheetalakhet and after taking some pics, we headed back. I came with Manan to take out the tyre from my bike for fixing the puncture. While trying to take the tyre out, we heard some air escaping from Manan's new rear tyre + tube and soon that tyre was also flat. Now we had two out of 4 bikes with a flat tyre and the nearest puncture shop around 15 kms away with some bad roads in between. First manan and sunny got RTR's tyre fixed, then the mechanic came and took my bike's tyre to get it fixed. In the end it took us at around 5 hours to get the two tyres fixed. It was around 3pm and we decided that in place of riding in the night to head to Nainital and spend a night there. We reached Nainital at around 6pm.

Here are some of the photos I posted on flickr. These were taken with my phone camera and if you click on them you will find the flickr page, where you can check the exact location where the photos were taken. Photos taken with SLRs will follow later on..

Khurpatal on the Kaladunghi Nainital Road:



At Ranikhet


View from the terrace of GMVN Rest House's terrace at Binsar:


View from our room at sheetalakhet:



Manan's RTR with its rear tyre on its way to the puncture shop:



Took this photo on the way to the puncture shop today morning:



-- no1lives4ever

So Manan finally took his RTR. Looks like you guys had a relatively exciting ride. Soon enough we will be seeing some HDRs from Sunny I am sure. I guess we gotta keep watching this space for the trip log.

@ken: I would rate this as one of the best rides of my life. As far as photography is concerned thenI think this might be my best till date. Signing off from Nainital.