Aug 31, 2008

Ride Time!

A short ride plan was made on BN - and within no time we had around 5-6 people signed on for the ride. A few calls from Nalin and we got a couple of guys more. The plan was made to meet at 7am at Joshi Vade Wala in Wakad.

"7am !" My wife said. "Why do you guys want to go there that early. "
"umm.. we always do rides early. By lunch places get really crowded with people getting up late and suddenly thinking of going places"

This time my wife was also joining with us. This was to be her 3rd Ride out of the city.

Work in the office was crazy. People were working through the night to achieve the ship deadline. We were working through the nights and also plan was to work through the weekend. I knew I was not going to get enough sleep - but thats fine. Something I am getting used to now.

Slept around 1am - and got up at 6am. It takes me almost an hour to get ready. Rushed off to JVW, but was the last person to reach there at 7:20.

"You are late" said Chinmay.
"Sorry man" said me guiltily.

Sayan, Jayaram (recently returned from Leh), Anupam (recently shifted from delhi - and who was going to Mumbai and joined for the ride) and Somnath were already there.

Before pushing of from there - I asked - had the ride rules been said. No - said Sayan. And he took over starting with :
"Welcome to BikeNomads. Rule number 1 - ride with headlights on" , and went on with the formation to follow. Other things like clothing were already adhered to as it is quite frequent in the discussion on the yahoo group.

After a short stop for fuel for a few bikes, we headed out to Talegon where we were to pick up Nalin. He hadn't been well, and was not upto riding his bike - but was coming as pillion with Chinmay.

The ride to Lonavala was easy going at around 80kmph max speed for me (with a pillion, I am still unsure how the bike feels). Breakfast time - the usual stuf - loads of tea with dosas and sandwiches.

Various discussions were going on - the most heated one about the merits of the iPhone ! :D . Of the 8 of us, 4 were looking forward to the meet later this year .



Anupam, Sayan, Jay, Somnath, Chinmay, Nalin, Me, Anupama

We then decided that to come to lonavala and not sample the twisties around it would be a blasphemy - so decided to head up towards amby valley.

At bhushi dam they have started collecting toll ! That was totally uncalled for - but we had to pay up anyways. 20 bucks per vehicle and 5 per person ! Legalized Highway Robbery !

Sayan, Chinmay and Somnath zoomed away on the twisties. Me and Jayaram tackled them gingerly... I am getting slow :)

The view from above was just amazing - and we spent a leisurely hour taking pics and general timepass - very relaxing! I will let the pics do the talking...


View of the valley from Tiger point


We really did not offroad that much :P


We the Nomads

I wish I could just fly! - Pic by Anupama

Chilling out on the Rocks - pic by Anupama
On the way back we stopped at Lonavala to get some Chocolate Fudge and then split up towards home. Back home, dropped my wife, refreshed myself from the dust of the roads ( its dusty in the city, but never out on the highway), and headed towards office...

Riding brings back sanity to my life.

8 comments:

  1. Nice time we had man....nice ride :) need to upgrade my bike though !

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  2. one day, one day i want to ride there :-D have heard a lot about the twisties from all the BN mails.. :)

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  3. @jayaram : what are you planning on getting ? :)

    @xh : come over man :D

    better twisties though is dehradun - mussoorie or even Chandigarh - Shimla, but the mention of amby valley is more on BN

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  4. Getting slow?! Is it "Age" or "Marriage" ??! Lol.. As long as you're still riding, that's good I guess!

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  5. Thats a "WoW" place, with some real cool pictures.
    Someday I'll join XH on those twisties :D!!

    Cheers!

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  6. @abhi : both :)

    @kam, need to get pics of the curves... then you guys will surely turn up here ;)

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  7. I can see a changed blog format..
    Quite pleasing, both the format and the post' pics!

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  8. @pooja : Thanks for the comments on the theme. I still need to work on the header part though.

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