The Official Mumbai Offline Meet(G2G) Thread

[Pratik91]

i am in for Lavasa ..
when are you planning it..

Im in for the Lavasa ride.
Make an official post..

[Drifty]

Ride to Lavasa

Destination:Lavasa,Pune:5th Jan '11


List of Riders:

1)Pranit Crystal Myth:Passion plus(silver)
2)Pratik 91 :Pulsar135 (black)
3)Drifty :RTR180 (white)
4)PavanChirmade :Pulsar180(red)

Plan:
Meet at Panvel MCD by 7 AM-leave from there by 7:30AM-reach Lavasa by 10AM-have a chit-chat session-do some cornering stuff-leave from there by 1PM and reach back to Mumbai by 3:30PM.

Documents:

1)DL
2)RC
3)PUC
4)Valid Insurance


Must have riding gear:

1)Helmet
2)Riding jacket/Any thick jacket with elbow guards
3)Knee guards
4)Shoes


Guys,please put in your confirmations...!!!!

[trustvishwas]

New Year Ride

Had an amazing ride yesterday. Perfect start for a new year.

Pune – Ranjangaon Ganesh Temple – Smile Stone – Suzlon wind Farms & Back. 4 riders from Mumbai joined us at Ranjangaon temple so we can now call this an EPIC ride.

Riders from Pune -
Inder.cool
Beourist
Roadzilla
Vrathor
RishabhShukla
Trustvishwas
Devil_Jin + 1
SirhudKalra + 1

Riders from Mumbai –
DarkKnight
Ninad amre
Tanmay Patil
Mayur Prajapati

Photograph from Beourist –



Ride started off with slight delay because of certain members attending urgent calls, sirhud deciding at the last meeting point to bring his friend along etc.

Also one experienced rider (not wanting to go back to his family on time) misled Rishabh and other team about where Ranjangaon Temple is located and took them 20 km further ahead. At that time, we voted to help this rider return later to his home and so returned back to the temple. Here Mumbai team was waiting for us.

It was great riding on Mumbai team’s part. Those guys had already done nearly 200 km riding since early morning to meet up with us. This group was the most disciplined I have ever seen.

Roads were fantastic and nearly all the Pune guys were ripping. Rishabh was far ahead; nowhere to be seen. Roadzilla was ripping around 110. Vrathor was telling me how a ninja is no fun in cornering below 120. Devil_Jin was doing 120 and that too with a pillion. Sirhud was suffering from lack of sleep because he had last slept on 30^th and was still in high spirits of new year.

Had a lazy late breakfast at Smile Stone. Had the terrace to ourselves. Here DK showed us his Videocon Ducati phone (which incidentally he has got complimentary) and tried to complete his sales target J But Pune team being smart, stayed away from his sales pitch.

Then we decided on going to the Suzlon wind farm located around 10 km from the hotel. Antz had suggested that location. Sirhud was trying to blow air to make the wind mill move. DK and Rishabh tried climbing the windmills. They wanted to take them home for upcoming summer season.

After half an hour at the wind farm and obligatory photo session, we all returned.

Ride was uneventful and no falls, skids, crashes etc.


Great fun.

[satyenpoojary]

^Nice! ChoteJin! 120 and all, too much!

Nice to see pune people now being comfortable in getting female pillions\riders... I guess has to be the BBA effect..... Cheers Happy new year!


(Bye Bye Ankit)

[alankarmisra]

Angry rants; lessons in safety

The title is misleading. This is a conversation I'm having with two that rode with us and finally decided to ride without us (aka Anup and Antz.bin). The only reason I'm having it in the open is because I think there's a lesson in this for all of us (you can chose not to learn though, I'm just a middle-aged idiot who no one listens to anyway).

Background

We (me, Satyen, antz.bin, rockerz, sachin nair, anup) were to ride back from Goa to Mumbai yesterday after the new years ride to Goa and decided to take NH-17. Antz.bin and Rockerz would part ways with us somewhere down NH-17 and head to Pune and the rest of us would head to Mumbai. At least that was the plan.

Anup decided to lead, while I was assigned the task of sweeping. We lost Anup pretty soon into the ride only to be informed later by him that he was ahead of us and riding at 70kmph so that we could catch up with him. We never did (more on this later).

Satyen then took lead. Hours into the ride, Satyen needed to take a break from piloting us and antz.bin was asked to take lead. Not long after, we lost antz.bin too as he rode ahead. Satyen resumed leading.

We exchanged messages with antz and he said he would wait for us at a specific location. It took us 45 minutes odd to catch up with him. Yes we took that long to catch up, no its not because we are f***tards on the throttle, its because we had to accomodate everybody's needs and ensure that the new riders were not forced to ride at speeds they were not comfortable with.

We took a short break, decided the optimal exit for Antz.bin and Rockerz from NH-17 to Pune and continued riding, once again with Antz.bin in the lead. He decided to lose us once again and ride solo (by this time he had pretty much ridden solo for the most part of the ride) and we couldn't get in touch with him for several hours after that since his phone was out of reach. We left him an SMS about our whereabouts. He replied some time later saying he had already taken an exit to Pune. Which meant, Rockerz would have to take the Pune exit alone.

Satyen, Sachin and me left Rockerz at one of the exits to Pune at around 12:30 (or the whereabouts).

En route, 2 guys tried to loot Rockerz (details on the Pune thread) - Rockerz punched one of them bringing him down, rode off and stopped at the police station following which the police arranged for an escort for him to Pune. Satyen received this information via SMS by which time we had reached Mumbai.

@Antz.bin:

I don't understand the purpose of having 2 hour long conversations about safety and security with us when you are going to ignore all of it when you are on the road.

Satyen asked you to lead, not to ride ahead. There's a big difference between the two. As a lead, you are supposed to keep us in your RVM. If we disappear for more than a few seconds, you slow down. If we disappear for more than that, you stop. If we still don't appear, you assume there's a problem and you ride back to help us. You help us navigate the traffic, you spot intersections, you draw our attention to potential threats and accident zones. You do not ride ahead and send us SMSes about your whereabouts and wait for 45 minutes. It serves no purpose whatsoever.

But don't believe me. I'm nobody to tell you right from wrong. Trust your own experience. Being a witness to your experience, let me recap some of it. You rode ahead leaving Rockerz behind. Perhaps you were not more than a 100kms away from him or perhaps you were even 10kms away from him. Did it matter how many kms away from Rockerz you were when he was attacked? Would it have made more sense for you to be WITH HIM at the time or do you still believe that this "I will ride ahead - you catch up" theory of yours makes sense? And its not just guarding against attacks. What if Rockerz had a spill? But of course that's too theoretical - we never have spills right? So lets just stick to the facts. The fact that Rockerz was attacked you weren't there for him.

Fortunately Rockerz escaped unharmed, but what if he hadn't? Would you take the blame? Or would you blame it on Rockerz stating he was riding slow (compared to your standards, Rockerz kept up with us pretty good all the way) and that he probably deserved it?

And if "each man for himself" is the philosophy you ride with, why ride with a group at all? Why not just do the whole trip solo instead of giving us the impression that we have one additional rider in the group we can depend on? For you certainly seemed undependable yesterday.

Here's what your 'I'll ride ahead you catch up' philosophy achieved yesterday:

1) Satyen had to lead despite his exhaustion and did not get a break (while I continued sweeping!).
2) Rockerz was exhausted at one point of time and began lagging. As a sweeper I stayed behind him but his weary eyes could not decipher the road under the constant abuse of the high beams from the oncoming traffic - at which point he asked me to lead him out. I landed up doing YOUR JOB. We didnt have to ride long in that formation though, Satyen had noticed us missing in his RVM and was heading back for us following which he took lead.
3) We wasted precious time messaging you and trying to figure out where you were all through the trip because we did not want Rockerz to ride alone. You ditched us in the last hour of the ride. Had we known you wouldn't be riding with us, I'm sure Satyen would have taken us via NH-4 so Rockerz would have company all the way.
4) Rockerz was attacked and you weren't there for him.
5) You did not impress me or anyone else with your speed - Satyen and I can certainly keep up with you (and then some) but we chose not to in the interests of the safety of those that ride with us.

@Anup:

Dawg you disappointed me big time. Firstly its not possible that you were riding at 70kmph. Satyen and I rode ahead in a bid to catch up with you and we've hit 110kmph in the process (consistently and for very long) and you were still nowhere in sight. At which point we gave up and decided to maintain 80 to 90kmph. Even if you were riding at those speeds (which you were clearly not), you could have just waited for us at some restaurant and allowed us to catch up. Since you didn't, it would appear that you preferred that we didnt. I understand your yearning for a solo, careless ride. But in doing so (and combined with antz.bin riding into oblivion), you managed to put a lot of strain on Satyen to lead. I haven't done much piloting and I wasn't about to experiment with the group's safety in pitch darkness on NH-17. Your experience would have helped greatly but apparently you chose not to share it. Satyen finally took a cat nap with his head on the tank back at a petrol pump for several minutes to gain some sanity following which he lead us through the last stretch of the NH-17.

For someone who has seen the advantages of being there for each other in times of crisis not so long ago (remember the accident?) and sang praises of the xbhp and biking brotherhood, you certainly showed very little of that brotherhood yesterday in your quest to absolve yourself of your responsibility (you did share other things in the name of brotherhood and for that I am thankful ;-).

Dawg, that's some serious disappointment right there.

@Everyone:

I think it's high time xbhp had some protocols for what 'leading' and 'tailing' constitute and the responsibilities of both the pilot and the sweeper (is this already in place? am I missing something?). People have VERY DISPARATE thoughts on what these responsibilities constitute and it would be nice if someone experienced laid down some ground rules for those who lead to follow. If they fail to follow, they should be held accountable for it and the consequences to follow. I've seen too many of the 'I'll ride ahead, you catch up' variety of pilots and to be honest I'd rather not have anything to do with them. They endanger themselves and they endanger the group they lead. Can we formulate protocols? Can we assign specific responsibilities? Can we hold the leads accountable for mishaps that could have been avoided to begin with? Can we make people think twice, thrice, a LOT before they accept the responsibility to lead?

I rarely lead; but I'm told its a lot of fun if you ignore all your responsibilities, make it a solo trip and ***** about how slow these people are in after parties. Mebbe we should all try it sometime. I mean, who gives a shit about safety anyway. That's for the old people. We prove our worth by advocating safety gear but team work? Naaah! Too much of a bother. Lets just ignore team work. Lets just wear shiny new safety gear, burn some rubber and ride like its each man for himself. Its so much more fun that way. Who gives a shit about the brotherhood. Its overrated anyway. No?

[darkknight]

^^ sadly -- I do agree on each & every point alankar.

have seen something similar too just recently.

better take this offline at a actual face to face meet & not ***** about on forum.it will be more constructive & things can be resolved real fast that way.

[alankarmisra]

^^ sadly -- I do agree on each & every point alankar.

have seen something similar too just recently.

better take this offline at a actual face to face meet & not ***** about on forum.it will be more constructive & things can be resolved real fast that way.

DK, why do you construe this as *****ing. Like I said, its not a ***** effort, its a discussion. I'm not mad at Anup (I quite loved meeting him and we had an awesome time together and I'm sure we will have many more fun rides together). I'm not mad at Antz.bin either. I had a great time with him too and he is a fabulous rider. The reason I'm bringing this online is because even I know this is a common problem and if we don't discuss it in the open, people won't know about it and the same mistake will continue to recurr and who knows how many will get hurt in the process. The only reason I brought specific names and people into the picture is because a legit actual incident is a better wake up call then theoretical rants about safety and optimal group dynamics.

[darkknight]

DK, why do you construe this as *****ing. Like I said, its not a ***** effort, its a discussion. I'm not mad at Anup (I quite loved meeting him and we had an awesome time together and I'm sure we will have many more fun rides together). I'm not mad at Antz.bin either. I had a great time with him too and he is a fabulous rider. The reason I'm bringing this online is because even I know this is a common problem and if we don't discuss it in the open, people won't know about it and the same mistake will continue to recurr and who knows how many will get hurt in the process. The only reason I brought specific names and people into the picture is because a legit actual incident is a better wake up call then theoretical rants about safety and optimal group dynamics.

what I meant were the ones which would follow your sensible post & nothing else my friend.
& also what best gets decided in actual meetings supercedes forum talks

[alankarmisra]

what I meant were the ones which would follow your sensible post & nothing else my friend.
& also what best gets decided in actual meetings supercedes forum talks

Ahh ok that makes sense. Sorry, I misunderstood your post. Have sent you my email address as requested. Hope to ride with you soon.

[gsferrari]

@Alankar - good post and I agree with you completely. Leading and Sweeping are crucial to the safety of the group and clearly, these two riders had anything but the group's safety in mind.

All I can say is - pick your group more carefully the next time.

Leading is a lesson in patience and awareness. I've learnt from some of the best riders and I try very hard to follow their actions when I lead. Unfortunately in India we have cars and other vehicles trying to cut into the convoy so it makes it even more difficult to ride as a group but the least we can do is keep an eye out for each other and make sure that, for a small group, the gap between lead and sweep is never more than 500m (ideally less than that).

Ask me how difficult it was to maintain a safe speed when leading a group of riders. I had to maintain 70-80 on the MT-01 and I did all the way to the destination. Very easy for me to lose patience and zoom off at triple digit speeds and let everyone "catch up".

You cannot blame individuals for their actions. As a group you picked the wrong members to ride with...and lead. Hopefully you will sort this out on future rides.

Good you avoided NH4 and stuck to NH17 because the traffic on NH4 was worse than Western Express Highway at rush-hour.

[antz.bin]

@Antz.bin:
I don't understand the purpose of having 2 hour long conversations about safety and security with us when you are going to ignore all of it when you are on the road.

Satyen asked you to lead, not to ride ahead. There's a big difference between the two. As a lead, you are supposed to keep us in your RVM. If we disappear for more than a few seconds, you slow down. If we disappear for more than that, you stop. If we still don't appear, you assume there's a problem and you ride back to help us. You help us navigate the traffic, you spot intersections, you draw our attention to potential threats and accident zones. You do not ride ahead and send us SMSes about your whereabouts and wait for 45 minutes. It serves no purpose whatsoever.

But don't believe me. I'm nobody to tell you right from wrong. Trust your own experience. Being a witness to your experience, let me recap some of it. You rode ahead leaving Rockerz behind. Perhaps you were not more than a 100kms away from him or perhaps you were even 10kms away from him. Did it matter how many kms away from Rockerz you were when he was attacked? Would it have made more sense for you to be WITH HIM at the time or do you still believe that this "I will ride ahead - you catch up" theory of yours makes sense? And its not just guarding against attacks. What if Rockerz had a spill? But of course that's too theoretical - we never have spills right? So lets just stick to the facts. The fact that Rockerz was attacked you weren't there for him.

Fortunately Rockerz escaped unharmed, but what if he hadn't? Would you take the blame? Or would you blame it on Rockerz stating he was riding slow (compared to your standards, Rockerz kept up with us pretty good all the way) and that he probably deserved it?

And if "each man for himself" is the philosophy you ride with, why ride with a group at all? Why not just do the whole trip solo instead of giving us the impression that we have one additional rider in the group we can depend on? For you certainly seemed undependable yesterday.

Here's what your 'I'll ride ahead you catch up' philosophy achieved yesterday:

1) Satyen had to lead despite his exhaustion and did not get a break (while I continued sweeping!).
2) Rockerz was exhausted at one point of time and began lagging. As a sweeper I stayed behind him but his weary eyes could not decipher the road under the constant abuse of the high beams from the oncoming traffic - at which point he asked me to lead him out. I landed up doing YOUR JOB. We didnt have to ride long in that formation though, Satyen had noticed us missing in his RVM and was heading back for us following which he took lead.
3) We wasted precious time messaging you and trying to figure out where you were all through the trip because we did not want Rockerz to ride alone. You ditched us in the last hour of the ride. Had we known you wouldn't be riding with us, I'm sure Satyen would have taken us via NH-4 so Rockerz would have company all the way.
4) Rockerz was attacked and you weren't there for him.
5) You did not impress me or anyone else with your speed - Satyen and I can certainly keep up with you (and then some) but we chose not to in the interests of the safety of those that ride with us.

OK I read only the part that concerns me and regarding yesterday's ride..

In my defense, I was always riding somewhere close to everyone else all the way to Rajapur when we stopped for lunch. This was because whenever I stopped for a leak or a drink of water, or tea or to buy water or food, it is not that everyone stopped for me to finish. I stopped for tea 14km after lunch and you people see me. Still you guys conveniently decide to move on forward only to stop 100 meters down the road and not inform me about your stop. It takes 2 hands to clap, I cannot be put to blame for all the times I was not with you guys. After that point.. I can easily say that I knew that I was riding last (Because none of you told me I was not) from that point on and all the way to Chiplun and I was in fact looking for you guys And riding fast in a bid to catch . On the way to Chiplun, I sent you guys a total of 3 messages each and tried to call all of you when your phones were not reachable. After I reached Chiplun, I did the logically correct thing and waited at a place where all of you could get something to eat and tea without wasting any more time trying to look for each other AND INFORMED YOU GUYS ABOUT my whereabouts so we can in fact ride together for the rest of the ride in the dark. I offered to lead the pack and also asked everyone what speeds you guys were comfortable at.

I was told that I can go upto 70 on straight roads and 50 odd on the ghat. So I was doing that.. to the best of my ability.. when after a few minutes satyen decides to cut across and f'in ride at 90-100. I was only riding in the 70s because I was told to.. I could have done that road at a f'in 120 if I had been alone. So assuming the rest of the group thinks I am too slow and satyen wished to lead from here on, I fall back to my SIE location to the back of the field.. so I reach Alankar and he signals me to back to the lead of the group as earlier decided. So I go back and see that rockerz was struggling with the new pace that Satyen had adopted. So I get in front of him and slowed him down back to below 80 (from 85+). We go ahead decently at that pace untill we hit Kashedi Ghat. We crossed kashedi together (in the middle with a period when Sachin, bored of my 'slow' pace went ahead and then struggled to maintain his 'faster' pace fell behind again [Or wait! that would be me helping him out]) and then because it was cold up there. we stopped for a leak post Poladpur.

At this point.. I must clarify that I had no idea where I was going from this point onwards so I was asking for directions from Satyen and also I wanted to avoid Poladpur - Mahabaleshwar as there were too many scattered potholes on that road that would slow our progress down even further. I can do any f'in ghat at any f'in time because I can plainly see whats ahead at any time of the day(/night) but I was worried about my co-rider (once again).

Back to the story.. I realised I had to do a further 250odd km and I did not have enough fuel to even make it half way.. I told the guys I am going ahead to fill up and moved ahead at the speed @which my bike is at its most fuel efficient (81 kmph on speedo / 75odd on GPS). Assuming the guys would be still able to follow me plainly because they easily did it when following Satyen who was going along at a speed of 85(on GPS) just before Kashedi. Still After I realised that they weren't keeping up.. I did not in fact stop immediately and decided to fill fuel first. So I again waited at the fuel station for everyone to fillup. After the restart, I went ahead again to lead the pack properly but Satyen presumably wanted to do it so I fell behind him. The current order was Satyen, me, Sachin, Rockrz and Alankar. After a while of riding together, satyen does something which confused me about his intensions on this ride.. (took 2 u-turns in the middle of nowhere.. maybe he was lost too.. the great Satyen Poojary the super commutourer was lost!!! It couldn't have been..) After this I was not confident about the route so kept trying to follow Satyen but I lost him somewhere (As his bike did not have tail lamps). Clueless about the route, I decided to fall behind Sachin's ZMR assuming him being a mimbai'ite would have better knowledge about the NH17 than I did. When I went behind Sachin... I found that the other 2 guys (Rockrz and Alankar) were not there too. I decided to pull over and flashed at Sachin to do the same. But I guess he did not realise what was happening behind him so I stopped anyways.. Waiting on the side of the road for 15 minutes. Nobody came. At this time.. feeling hungry, lost and abandoned in a place I didnt know... with locals thinning and shops closing and with no way to tell which town that was, I decided to take matters in my own hands and ask a petrol pump attendant for directions to Pune. Again after waiting outside the Petrol Pump for another 15 minutes, I didn't get any calls, nobody answered my calls(maybe there was no network on their end). I decided at 10PM now that I should probably move ahead and try to save myself from the cold. Somewhere down the road.. I have no idea where... I found a sign board saying that Pune was 117 km to the right. Ignoring all instructions I got from the petrol station attendant. Unknowingly... I entered the road towards Tamhini Ghat and wanting to check out how the road was.... I entered the road and within 3-4 km.. I decided I will be taking the road.. I pulled out my phone to inform you people but there was no network.

Assuming that Rockerz will do the smart thing and stay back for the night at his folks at Negothane (wherever that was) and I would be of no help as I was plainly abandoned and Lost... I continued on that road only to find nothing out about where I was heading to. I was trying to recognise structures around the road for figuring out where I was (not that I could see anything as it was a moonless night). I finally figured out.. 25km down the road that was in fact on Tamhini Ghat. I was so frightened at the time that I kept on riding in the 12.5 degress cold without even stopping to put the liner in the jacket or for a water/ pee pee / smoke break. But Still there was no network. I finally got network at 12 midnight when I was just 40km away from Pune and had stopped for tea. At that time I saw messages from Rockrz from 1/2 hour back that he was waiting for me at Kolad (I dont know where that is too). The only thing I do know that not very far from Kolad.. is a place where Rockerz's relatives stay and I assumed after gettiing the message he will in fact stay the night there and not risk his life the way he did.

In all this.. I was never far far ahead and I never was looking to do the entire thing solo. I was in fact left alone and abandoned and that made me go over to Pune alone by a route I knew nothing about and didn't even know whether I would even make it that night. This time around.. I cannot be termed the sole culprit for what happened. I know parallels of this will be drawn with what happened in the end of SIE and I will be termed an irresponsible rider for the rest of my life but I don't care and I know in my heart that this was not 'just my fault'. If you guys think that I am such a bad a rider that I cannot be ridden with because I abandon fellow riders in the middle of the night. I would request you to banish me from all further group rides and I will happily do all my further touring solo even though that would not be the best possible scenario for me. I will stick to my version that whatever I did last night was in the interest of saving my own life after I was lost, alone, and far behind everybody else.

P.S.: I realise now that the Petrol Pump attendant did in fact tell me to take the route eventually Rockrz did but I was so f'in lost that I couldn't even find it.

[antz.bin]

@Alankar.. I think you might have bent the facts stated in the 'Background' part of your narrative in order to suit yourself/make your point better would you be kind enough to get the timings/chronological order corrected about everything or would you want me to point everything out? Everyone here loves accurate narratives. It is god to send your point across but not at somebody else's expense..

@All the above post is not for skimming through but it has important details that Alankar conveinently decided to skip. Also, I would urge everyone that you should wait for the other side of the story before pouring your valuable suggestions.

[alankarmisra]

@Alankar.. I think you might have bent the facts stated in the 'Background' part of your narrative in order to suit yourself/make your point better would you be kind enough to get the timings/chronological order corrected about everything or would you want me to point everything out? Everyone here loves accurate narratives.

@All the above post is not for skimming through but it has important details that Alankar conveinently decided to skip. Also, I would urge everyone that you should wait for the other side of the story before pouring your valuable suggestions.

Sure I could respond to your rant but I won't. Suffice is to say while you can come up with a thousand excuses for not sticking with the group, you couldn't / didn't. It wasn't just me and you. It was 5 people in total of which 4 stuck together and 1 didn't. Guess who's to blame? Oh wait, its the 4! Cause we totally wanted to leave you behind and make you look bad. That was the whole intent of us misleading you time and again and making sure you never managed to keep up with us - we rode slow so we could lose you. And of course I twisted the facts to make you look bad. Because its so not possible that YOU did screw up and don't even have the maturity to accept it. And btw, did you notice how two of your SIE trip members AGREED with me and said they had the SAME PROBLEM with you? But of course they are trying to make you look bad too! And yes we do like facts. Like the fact that now there are 4 + 2 = 6 people who have noticed this about you and brought it to your attention. But the 6 people are all twisting facts. We have a vendetta against you no? Grow up. You screwed up, I pointed it out, accept it like a man and rectify your issues. I have screwed up too (remember the braking discussion?!) and others have been gracious enough to point out the flaws in my argument and I have accepted it and promised to rectify my own issues rather than try to question their motives.

PS: As specified in my post and one after that - I have nothing against you. I quite had a fun time with you guys and I think you are an excellent rider but I've seen your logic of leading being followed by several others (dont believe me? read my blog ;-) ) and i think its dangerous and irresponsible which is why I figured I should point it out. Won't respond to any more of your posts because quite frankly I made the point once and I stand by it and I have 5 others (so we're 6!) who agree with my point.

[rachitkohli]

Am Back In House....!!! Yeiieeeee...

It was an awesome experience what I lived in the past month riding.
Our state-route was Goa-Maharashtra-Gujarat-Madhya Pradesh-Maharashtra
Initially there was a Boot Camp in Pune for all selected riders to prepare us for the ride. Rock Climbing, Mountain trekking, venturing out in jungle, staying in tents in jungles, sports, hurdles, discipline, etc.
We completed little over 7000kms. Journey on 110cc bike was indeed an experience. Will try to write more descriptive about the ride with some pics on a different thread.
Thanks everyone for the support. It was superb meeting anant, dk, devenpd in the middle of the ride..

hey guys as you know im from xBhp pune..i was in the same team as Rachit for the Great Indian Ride..I would just like to say that he rode superbly and was an awesome pilot biker.and no hes not paying me to say all of this ..i suggest that all of you should go on a long road trip with at least once.. Thank you my dear brother for taking care of me and for cheering all of us up with your amazing sense of humor..see you in future rides

thanku thanku urvashi madam..!! hope the cheque given by me is cleared..
Shes a fabulous rider... Never seen a girl () riding like this.. But truly it was a pleasure riding with you gal.....

on a serious note... 'chal pagli.... ab rulayegi kya..!! '
sure see you soooooon...

Well done on your safe return from a long journey...

Rachit - this is a great appreciation from your fellow rider.. Keep riding the way you have..Hope to ride with you soon
Good job!!!

thanks sachin..!!!
The appreciation is certainly a great one & most importantly coming from such rider is delightful . Lets ride brother sometime sooon..

& congratulations to urvashi & rachit for their sucessfull ride on mahindra stallio.

@ urvashi, thanks for reminding us.

thank you tushar.. it was indeed an 'experience' in itself.

@urvashi...congratulations to you and rachit once again...and you surely can bet on rachit's humour and riding skills

thanks ninad...

Looking forward to meet the Mumbai Gang and hear Rachit K's TRIP.

sure sure.. twitterBoy/ankit/roadzilla

[antz.bin]

I've seen your logic of leading being followed by several others (dont believe me? read my blog ;-) )

This is the only part I felt like replying to. And I surely did not do this when I was officially 'Leading' (Between Chiplun and Poladpur). The thing I did wrong was take too much liberty while riding with a group of riders I dont know very well and as a result they also don't know how I go about doing things. And about the SIE thingie.. you do get those extra 2 votes but ask the same 2 voters if they can point a finger at any other day when I have behaved similarly(on the 9 day ride). That incident can be equated to what happened to you in Ahmedabad on your Leh ride (I have heard it from the horse's mouth.. don't need to read the blog ) and has nothing even remotely similar to this one.

P.S.: I agree with what you had to say about the incident but you should also know the other side of the story is what I felt.

P.P.S.: I could have gotten beaten up like Rockerz's attackers did because I was asking directions in the middle of the night to people on bikes and was riding a high capacity pulsar

Suddenly, a bike appeared from behind and these guys asked me directions to lonawala.. I explained them the route without stopping.. Still thy asked again, pretending that they did not get it.

The main reason for not trying to speed was that they were on a pulser 180 or 200.

The above could be statements from people I asked directions from..

What I learn from this: I need to be more careful when riding with a new set of riders. I would want to be more responsible on the ride I was selected for right before we left for the boat ride on the 1st