A Donkey's Tales: The 'Core Group' rides to Mahabaleshwar!

You ain't there if you've not had this! ==>

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Date : 02/12/2006
Destination : Mahabaleshwar
Total Trip : 275kms
Odo reading at Pune : 2698kms
Odo reading at M'baleshwar : 2836kms
Odo reading back at Pune : 2972kms
Start Time : 6.15pm
Time at Destination : 9.50am
Time back at Pune : 6pm
Trip Cost/Person : Rs.600 (Petrol) + Rs250 (Food)
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A lot of rioting last week! Not that we got any pretext to skip work but the anxiety stayed on the mind. So the last ride before I leave for a really-long-awaited vacation seemed pretty much doomed. First it was to be on Sunday and lotsa people. But the previous ride to Aamby Valley on Sunday ensured that we pretty much slept through the following week! So me and Satya decided it was to be Saturday and Ajaz-The Guru was pretty understanding. Me and Satya were knighted by him and were bestowed the honour of forming the 'Core Group'!
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So with guilt off our minds (not on our hearts since we are pretty heartless people you see!), we decided to leave everyone behind and ride out on Saturday. Rumours flying thick and fast of rioting didn't deter Satya though I kept watching local news channels till 11pm on Friday to make sure things were piping down. I must give it to Satya's enthu else I was in two minds about riding out. He was all out for riding even if it meant carrying hockey sticks!
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The weather in the morning was beautiful and COLD! Satya doesn't have gloves and it was freezing cold. I have proper riding gloves and I still was cold, so I can imagine how numb his hands must have gone. It finally dawned on me that I could tie hand kerchiefs on his hands and that prolly made it a lot bearable. Or for all i know, his hands were already dead numb!

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NH7 (Bombay-Bangalore) is a wide and smooth highway but its meaningless for a biker to ride in a straight line. Its the ghats that test your skills and give that rush of excitement! And nothing beats the Khambataki Ghats when it comes to the adrenaline rush. Its the only ONE-WAY ghat section I've ever known. Imagine a ghat with silky tarmac, two lanes and no on-coming traffic. Yeh you read it right, NO ONCOMING TRAFFIC! Pure bliss!
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I've been in a pretty tail-bw-the-legs frame of mind since I broke my hand in Feb this year. The screws inside constantly remind me of the fall and I had given up on scraping pegs for safety. For the first time since the nasty fall, I managed to take the corners with some confidence. It showed since Satya managed to notice while taking corners himself. I scraped a peg on a left-right set of corners and I was all beaming with pride again. Spending 2500kms on the Bullet's cushions and tackling a bit of ghats in Aamby Valley had made me a lot more sure of what the bike was capable of. And this time, I managed to rediscover a bit of what I myself could do with a bike!
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Satya loved the ghats too. Hopefully I can give him a bit of theory on taking corners before the next ride. Satya, here is Lesson 1 : When taking a corner, you go where you look! I looked at the wall on the edge once and ended up crashing right into it! :)
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And then we stopped for tea every hour, rode some more, ate some more, clicked some more snaps....If I've told you about Khambataki Ghats already, there is nothing more to say really! But the Katraj bypass and the new tunnel are definitely worth a mention!
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And yep, Satya's bull managed to crawl past the kilo....You owe me one mamu! And I'm not to blame if you see too much of Satya plastered on this post! I tried to choose the bike over him while clicking the pictures but...
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Random Snaps ==>
The Core Group!