60kph Anniversary Ride, Kutch

Vijaynagar - Gujarat

while looking up for a route / destinations for a road trip this diwali vacations, chanced upon this wonderful place in gujarat - vijaynagar.
Vijaynagar is a erstwhile princely state is the heavily forested foothills of the aravali mountains. The palace there converted to a heritage hotel, tariffs not over the top. Go to http://www.vijayvilasvijaynagar.com/ for further details.
It promises nature and history rolled into one, jungle safari, bird watching, ruins of ancient temples in the forests, ruins of the ancient city of Polo, which was the gateway between gujarat and rajasthan, the wooden toy-making cottage industry of idar, and walking the banni grasslands. Sounds all too delicious, and itching to be there soon.
For now (oct 21st to 25th), its mandu and the banks of narmada that has been planned and managed to get bookings as well. :-)

sidenote - mom's a devout jain and was telling me about the travels of the sadhvi (mokshanandji) she venerated. Jain sadhus and sadhvis travel from place to place throughout the year, year after year, except the monsoons. She has trekked almost all over india and upto kathmandu. Can we ever beat that? Am humbled, for travel if not religion.

My Birthday

whoa!!!! what a lovely application i found, thanks to meeta's post regarding ONE CRAZY RIDE's entry to CMS VATAVARAN 2009. Screening in Delhi on 30th oct 2009.

agardanda trip

what was supposed to be just another site visit turned out to be a wonderful ride and a head-on collision thrown in to add a dash of thrill.

avoiding the usual alibag revdanda route to murud, looked up the maps and opted for the slightly longer mumbai-indapur(NH17) and then right on the state highway for another 40 to agardanda, which is 10kms south of murud. of course it isnt the picturesque winding road through the coconut and betelnut farms of revdanda. but holds its own for the rural feel and very sparse traffic. the road meanders along the river here and there and then crosses the murud creek at bhalegaon and leads to agardanda parallel to the backwaters.

work at site done, started the journey back the same route. but 5 kms on took a u-turn and decided to try another. the murud-roha road. and what a discovery that was.. the monsoons adding to the romance.

its a narrow well paved road passing thru lush green forests going up and down a couple of hills and with a heady smell and sounds of the jungle. it was hard to keep the helmet on, which smelt of soot and died out the sound. stopped for a while to soak it all in, half expecting to see some wild-life grace me with an appearance. passed a few dirt tracks shooting into the woods and then decided to try the next one out to the right. two stips of terracotta seperated by a strip of flouroscent green snaking its way into a lush green canvas. the recent bike breakdowns weighed heavily on the mind as i ventured deeper inside but didnt have the heart to turn my back on this pristine beauty. it led to a small clearing and a trekking path ahead. a woman with a few kids was washing clothes by the pond. lazed for a while and then headed back, shooting a video of the ride, handling the bike with one hand.

back on the road, feeling heady with the off-roading experience, uphill at the first tight turn, i screamed, "oh shit!!!" ... then BANG!!!... an indica had sneaked right infront of me coming out of the turn, downhill. i am not sure if i was in his lane or he in mine, but its a situation every biker dreads.

its a tiny fraction of time. u see the car, u realise you are going to hit it, u hit it and u wait for the result. all depends on a combination of your talent at causing minimum damage to yourself and your bike, your luck and his determination to kill you. was talented enough to get the front end of the bike out of his way and bang the sidecar to his bumper, stupid enough to bang my head to the helmet on the tank (yeah, wasnt wearing it) and lucky to escape with a cut lip and nothing else. it bled like a river but i was busy checking if the forks were alright.

thankfully all was well. no damage at all to the bike except the bent crashbar telling the tale. in time the lip stopped bleeding too and the mind off the accident.

what i missed at the time was that to my left was the phansad bird sanctuary and i cud ve taken a track to the left into it. its now on my "next to do list" and wish to explore this region a lil more.

this beautiful road ended as it went down to roha and hit the NH17 at nagothane.

route and pics uploaded.

the ironbutt ride - mum - bang - honavar - goa - mum

this wasnt really the first of the hard rides, but was the first coz that was ALL there was to it, componded further by the bike breakdown. the previous ironbutt rides have all been just a small part of reaching the starting point or riding back home after some good leisurely ride.

the route map

june 30th - started from home at 5-30 am, all geared up for the big one. the bike sounded healthy and was glad there was no rain to start off. in fact it was dry all the way to bangalore except some misty showers enroute between kolhapur and hubli. scheduled stop at lonavla to meet parents and breakfast.

rode on the smooth NH4, stopping only for petrol, tea, smoke and lunch and reached hubli (640km on the odo) by 6pm. nothing intresting, except the fact that the bike was guzzling too much fuel and the carb seemed to be the probable culprit. lunch led to a 90 minute nap, having had little sleep the previous night. beyond this point, have no memory of the ride, the light was fading, the body tiring.

another 100 kms is haveri, and when the test started. the construction of four-laning of NH4 in this sector is still in progress and continuing the ride in the dark thru the dust, potholes and the multitude of diversions felt like a senseless thing to do. so i rode on senselessly. :-)

my average speed went down, the urgency to reach bangalore lacking, the mind flirting with abandoning the 1k and crashing out at a dhaba. then came a saviour. another biker on the road decided to chase me up and we raced along for abt 35-40 kms till he suddenly vanished. probably he had reached home or knew of a better paved diversion.. lol. but that set the pace for me and i zipped and skidded as much as my bike can manage. then the under-construction stretch ended and opened to a smooth expressway but i was too tired to note the kms and time, and rode on.

vishu called to say they will rcv me at a toll booth after tumkur, and he with sanjuz, biju and srini drove 40 kms to that point in the middle of the night!! what a family i got in 60kph... if my wealth were to be measured in the number of friends i got, i wud be a tycoon (to borrow from gaurav's comment in Riding Solo) :-)

reached bangalore at 3am and completed the 1k i set to do. didnt feel anything special except that it had to be done and was done. lol.

next wud be to attempt the 1400 of mum-delhi in 24 hours someday, however senseless that wud get, it does feel like a milestone till you cross one.

july 1st and 2nd - stayed at sanjuz's place, spent in leisure, attended the wedding (that was the pretext of the ride). 2nd was satrao's bday and the bang gang was in full attendence for the meet at sanjuz's place and it was great to meet up with all. it was novel to see them clean and dressed in formals, having always met them on rides and in riding gear.

july 3rd - srini and masood saw me off till the same toll booth as i rode towards honavar enroute to goa. after the partying of the previous night i had started off pretty late at 11 but had till next day's noon to reach goa, so i was cool. farida was to land at 2 pm and i was supposed to be at the airport b4 that. 5th was our wedding anniversary (15th) and we had planned to be in goa for the weekend sans the kids who were under her sis's care. and then to ride back to mumbai together on the 6th.

but.... the bike seized. hundred and forty kms from bangalore and still another 500 to go, the bike broke down 8kms out of tiptur. on a ride, its always a coordinated effort of the man and the machine to go the distance and its heart breaking when a breakdown happens. but if one were to get dejected by this, he/she will never get on a ride again.

i tried what i could, to no avail. there was shame in it, coz it was caused by the oil which had thickened to a slurry and i hadnt checked it before starting from bangalore. there was no reason for the oil to go bad in 1200kms, but worse, there was every reason i should have checked it. darn!!

a mechanic helped push the bike to tiptur, and he opened it up, but tiptur is a small place and he cudnt find the piston and pin (which was the culprit, it was fused to the piston) needed there, and i had no time to wait there till the next day. boarded a train for vasco at midnight from there, which reached late by 3 hours at 2pm. farida reached cidade de goa by herself and i reached by 3.

the next two days was a relaxed weekend celebrating the anniv. and the bike problem out of the mind. without the bike there wasnt any venturing out of the resort, and we soaked in the luxury we paid for. got lucky in getting upgraded to a suite too.

july 6th - monday morning, it was time to head back. farida took a flight back to bombay and i took 4 bus rides to reach tiptur at 2 am and checked into a hotel.

july 7th - started from tiptur at 9 with fingers crossed. the bike sounded fine but one never knows if the mechanic had bolted everything well. it had a new piston in a rebored block and the engine had to be run in. i managed to ride the first 100 kms under 60 but progressively felt confident that i wont harm her if i kept it till 80.

mumbai was 1000 kms of highway via hubli or 1200 kms of state roads via honavar and goa. the lure of coastal roads, and the new route compelled me to do the later and it was beautiful to ride after shimoga to the most beautiful ghat section from sagar to honavar. it passes thru a thick forest and goes on for abt 40kms up and down the hills, the rains adding to the charm. reached honavar at 4pm without any stops except to take a glimpse at the majestic jog falls and a promise to visit the road soon, with family.

in a hurry to reach bombay, stuck to the NH17 for the rest of the journey from honavar to karwar to goa to mumbai, enroute missing the lovely places i had heard of from friends.. gokarn, om beach. could have also tried to seek out a route more closely hugging the coast than the NH17 but guess that was not the day. should have planned for a couple of days more and put some purpose in the ride but work beckoned and i had to get back.

took a break at panaji for an hour and started at 11pm on a dark and dreary commute back home. somewhere along the way the body gave up, but had to ride for an hour to find the first dhaba to crash in. the rains were heavy and the rainwear protecting me was doing a lousy job of it. i was wet all over but slept without a care for 3 hours and started again at 6 am. the dhaba owner loved music and was swaying and singing to some punjabi music channel on tv all along. theres something about taking a break at a dhaba (instead of a hotel) that feels so integral to the riding / travel experience. like an oasis of a travelling commune. was glad there was another biker using the dhaba for the night, enroute to goa.

july 8th - finally reached mumbai at 4 pm. thank you bike, for bringing me home, without another breakdown.

july 18th - am riding to dadar to attend a meeting and in hurry to be back for the screening of "one crazy ride" and "riding solo" at st. andrew's auditorium, bandra. the bike stalls at wadala. refusing to start. i ask a local mechanic to see it. after he touches it, there is no compression. wow! another breakdown... but glad it didnt happen that night between goa and mumbai. :-))

looking back at those 3 days of 2300kms, i can remember only hazy details, flashes of places and moments, continuity lost in numbness.. eerily resembling the life we live.

1k in a day ride

.. when was the last time, you did something for the first time......

attempting my first 1k in a day ride. to bangalore on 29th june. approx 1040kms. return on 2nd july. its modest benchmark compared to some of the friends who have done over 1350 but with the combined age of the bike and the rider at half a century, its presenting as a task nevetheless.

route - mumbai - pune - kolhapur - belgaum - hubli - davangere - tumkur - bangalore

return - bangalore - tumkur - chitradurga - hospete - ilkal - bijapur - sholapur - pune - mumbai

hopefully the man, machine, road and weather will cooperate.

its a test, once passed, ceases to be of any importance and pretty boring to repeat. so the return cud as well be the immensely scenic route (esp in the monsoons) - bangalore - tumkur - shivmoga - honawar - karwar - goa - NH17 - panvel - mumbai. approx 1200 kms. and too scenic to be timebound.

update - farida joining me at goa on 4th. so we celebrate our anniv. there on the 5th and ride back together. funnnn!!!

leaning trike

been a long time since i wrote the last post. have had a lot of moments that cud be penned but been lazy and lost the spark.

one of the things i have been totally immersed in, the last few months, is the design of a trike. it started off as a normal wide track with a chain driven differential using the final drive from the ubiqutous bajaj auto rickshaw. vinod commented on it, why not try designing a trike that leans. looking up on net, found a few that lean, but are reverse trikes. i.e. 2 front wheels and a single driven wheel at the back. notable is the brudelli leanster. ( http://www.gizmag.com/the-brudelli-leanster-remarkable-car-bike-fusion/10089/ )

trodding along, have finally got to a point where i can build my own version.

1. designed for the pulsar 180 i own. would have loved to use the FZ16 from yamaha, but spending money on a new bike for a prototype doesnt sound too prudent.

2. keep the entire bike stock, except remove the swing arm, rear wheel and shocks.

3. fabricate a new subframe bolted to the swing arm pivot. on that goes my 2 single sided swingarms, differential, mono shock and hydraulic cylinders that control the lean.

4. machine the axles, chain driven differential, hubs, sprocket flanges, and add wheels, brakes, etc.

also realised that by making a trike that leans, i am able to keep the track really tight to about 18" so it will not be wider than the width of the handlebars anywhere. sounds perfect for offroading where only a foot trail is available. and with the torque of P180, if indeed i am able to make a reliable machine, it would be a beauty.

made a 3d view of it, not too realistic but explains the concept. hydraulics to lean not added in this graphic.

now am ready to start the build, but thats the part that needs a lil more time and running around trying to find a guy willing to do something non commercial.

lately am trying to figure out the concept for a wheel chair that can climb kerbs and steps, will write about it in the next blog. hopefully, soon.

Weekend Ride To Telbaila

a couple of babies, 3 newbies, five 60kphers, 3 wives, a rising son, 2 cars, 6 bikes and a route that doubled the distance to the destination.. and oh yes, the boat.

it was a big relief to be able to leave on time, well almost. but then with a one year old baby in tow, i had my excuse. we all assembled at datta snacks at panvel and after gorging on vadapavs and misal, hit the road on NH17 (goa highway) to reach kolad, the only event being no one raced past or got left behind.

over glasses of nira, that was beginning to ferment, introductions were conducted and a bonhomie set in. the ride ahead was a state highway (SH60), less traffic, more farms, gentle pace and overall something that feels like being on a ride rather than a mindless commute. for some reason all stopped at vile village before the tamhini ghat starts. the babies got fed, biscuits were passed around, cameras clicked, anwar’s Honda 400 got some attention and it was time to move on.

up the tamhini ghat and after a brief stop at plus valley, we passed the turn to lonavla to reach a restaurant on the mulshi lake for lunch with gallons of chaas. drove back 15 kms to reach the lonavla turn and from there on it was a test for those on their first ride to the country side. the sun beating down, it was hot and the road, bumpy. broken tar all the way and long stretches of unpaved gravel. mulshi lake flashing every now at then on your right, mountains and valleys on the left, it’s a beautiful ride. did it two weeks prior as a recce but that was evening and more hospitable.



stopped enroute at valley point (for want of a better name). location on the linked map. promised to return to it and camp there sometime. more pictures clicked and rode ahead on the bumpy track. the road is dotted with very small villages and negligible traffic. the craving for tea was satisfied only after reaching telbaila village, which is abt 5 kms off the road to lonavla. the tea shop owner guided us to a lovely campsite, at the edge of a cliff with a lovely view and golden dried grass. he also took order for the dinner so the only cooking done was for yohan and kiara.




tents were pitched. and thankfully no one was compelled to play antakshari or dumb charades. submitted to sleep one by one. the only joke cracked was zen calling the twin peaks of telbaila as “ulti chaddi”.

having experienced how hot it gets, the next morning, no one spoke of the proposed trek to sudhagad fort ( a 2 hour one way trek) or climbing up to the crotch of the chaddi. (it’s a trek till there, post that it’s a rock climbing activity). instead inquired for a water body to put the zen’s boat to use, and found saltar dam. a good 3 hours were spent frolicking in the water and after 5 kms we were on the creamy surface of the amby valley road. that led us quickly to lonavla lake for lunch and a farewell. zen preferred to take the expressway and reach home quick. milind had a waiting wife. ameya and rahul joined him for a quick ride to Bombay. i tagged along with anwar, hozefa and yusuf to make sure all reached Bombay without loosing way.




the idea of this ride was to expose yusuf, hozefa and anwar to riding as i have known it, as 60kph does it. it was nice to see that they enjoyed it and hope to see more of them on the road.

oops.. not 2 C was the correct answer.

well.. that must be my shortest post ever. got done in the title itself.

To see or not to see..

movie watching has become an expensive interest. sure the lobbies are glitzy and the seats less smelly, but the pop-corn reeks of blood. that's bound to happen when u pay through the nose.

so when a friend messages with an unsolicited tip, "Delhi-6 is disappointing", the heart sinks. am thrown into a dilemma. saving money and time or taking an expensive risk. how bad could it be? after making rang de basanti, can a man settle down to make a "disappointing" movie? i didn't see aks, but have heard of it to be brilliant in its own right. it cant be that bad, told the friend "tujhe samajh me nahi aaya hoga", and cut the conversation short. in a way he has done the worst thing a man can do. spread hatred. i hate him now for maligning Delhi-6. after i see it, which i will, i ll hate him more for it or hate myself i didn't heed to his well-meaning advice. i am sure he is not aware of the dark character he has come to be with one message.

this is not the first time though. ever since i became poor, i 've been really choosy about where i pay to watch. but after DCH, lakshya, don and rock on, i unsuspectingly walked into luck by chance. and came back feeling really guilty of spending hard earned (harder to get out of clients) money on it, in these times of recession. the movie wasn't too bad, only if it didn't cost me any money. and not exactly so bad that i would seethe in anger over wasted time. or mayb thats what recession is about, lots of time and little money. anyways its the kind you wait for to release on DVD, that some stupid friend will buy and loan it to you. and return it too. but then, i ll be salivating again on farhan akhter's next release. he is god.

yesterday i saw what everybody had watched already, slumdog millionaire. its been so watched in fact that PVR is playing musical chairs with it. fitting it whichever timeslot they can every week. now if the movie is old enough to be played musical chairs with, and only 10% of the seats get filled, you would expect it to be discounted right? wrong. they will still charge u 200 for a seat and 40 for samosa. this is a bloody rip off. bloody. just like the pop corn. no wonder u never see a manager in the lobby these days. when i was younger and went to see 'pictures' in 'theaters', we knew the omnipresent gentleman in the lobby wasn't there to watch a movie, he was the manager, his face glowing in pride that so many people enjoyed the movie at 25 rupees, the samosa at 7 and the popcorn was a cheerful yellow in only one flavor. the cheerful yellow.

about the movie, slumdog millionaire.. ahem.. hmm.. nice while it lasted. quite like luck by chance. not bad u know. luck by chance shud be sent for Oscars too. after all, its luck by chance....the theme for both the movies. though Danny Boyle tried to convince me in the end that, its written. probably meant Q&A. yeah that was written. i guess he knows how some films are made. they are not written. like..... sob.. sob.. chandni chowk to china. yes yes, i saw that too. but under extra ordinary circumstances, i cant reveal. to be fair, i really went with a very low expectation and a large heart, but failed miserably. it didnt work. i swallowed my sorrow but could not escape the tragedy of the guys in the next seats, they were the hera pheri and phir hera pheri types ;-).

but then midweek i was lucky, luck by chance. no.. i am talking about DevD. i was sad when the movie ended. that it had to end. a visual treat. the story of devdas adapted brilliantly to modern times. and breaking a few cliches. opening new grounds. not having read the original novel, i used Wikipedia for a brief idea. the last line read, "The novella powerfully depicts the prevailing societal customs in Bengal in the early 1900s, which are largely responsible for preventing the happy ending of a genuine love story." thats brilliant. the movie totally replaces the customs of twentieth century with those of the twenty first, where parental opposition rings hollow, the widower loves the new wife paro, paro meets dev one more time but only to show his aukat (when he makes those unsolicited calls), and dev returns to life when the ATM dries up after the BMW accident and death of his father. and there is a happy ending. we live in the times, where theres no romance in tragedy anymore.

tragedy is watching chandni chowk to china.... comprehendo?

am i a blogger?

i have no idea, having made an account, if i will be at it for long.
for someone who talks a lot, i find myself full of pauses and rather quiet. just as, for someone who has so many friends and keeps discovering new bonds, i feel great to be left to myself doing nothing.

to begin with, i ll blame this adventure on a dear friend kauk (who writes on http://kaushik578.blogspot.com ). his is the only blog i ve read so far and of it only a couple of posts. but i am quick to get spoilt and here i am.

i asked myself why would i blog and came up with a few. but the one reason that stands out is, trying to preserve my thoughts.
i suffer from really bad memory. and hence live in this notion that i have had some great thoughts and ideas which are now lost to me cause of my bad memory.

there are other reasons to blog as well but they are insulting to self or others or insulting to intellect itself. so wont spell it out. i guess thats what the comments window is for.