And the sales man said that the suit is water resistant.....

Another weekend and another trip...This time a bit longer. A short 300KM ride which end up being more than 460KM for me. Navendu bhaia planned a scenic trip for all the nomads in pune. And it was amazing ride.

The details:

When: 30th June 2007
Route: Pune - Khambatki Ghat - Wai - Parsani Ghat - Panchgani - Mahabaleshwar - Ambenali Ghat - Poladpur - Mahad - Poladpur - Ambenali Ghat - Mahabaleshwar - Panchgani - Parsani Ghat - Wai - Khambatki Ghat - Pune.

Riders ‘n’ Rides: Praveen Shirali on Black P180, Nalin on Silver P180, Me on Black Fiero and Shaymal on Gray Unicorn.

Distance: 465km

Time Taken: 15hrs (6:00am to 9:00pm)


It was an early trip. I had to reach Chandani Chowk (Pune) by 6:00AM so I had put an early alarm. The ride to Chandani Chowk was gonna some 30 odd minutes and at 5:30 i was feeling feverish. I picked up the phone to call Navendu that I won't be joining them for the ride. But ... shacks naaa...thats not what a rider would do .. would he? So I canceled the call and wore my Jacket and was off. It was 6:00 already when i left.

Officially the ride started at 06:30. We were four guys, 3 nomads and one civilian. Navendu a pro MoBiker, Pravin Sheroly- another nomad with a great balance on bike both who are planning to ride to Leh this July. Third was Shyamal, Navs colleague who owns a Honda Unicorn. We started slow doing around 60-80KMPH till we hit the Katraj bypass flyover. I hadn't been on this newly constructed road but it was wow... It wasn't long before Pravin accelerated past me and we were suddenly doing 100KMPH, not more since one of us was not a biker.

Nav was stopping here and there always to take pics. It was pouring like anything and wind this time was not that much. Taking pics from Shyamal I readlised that my butt was feeling wet, and slowly my senses told me that even my thighs were wet too. What the.... Damn! that sales man at the mall said that it was 100% water resistant. The ride was turning out more to be a pic shoot out than a ride.



And we had the slowest ride to Mahabaleshwar, starting at 6:30 we reached there by 11:00 while we should have been there by 08:30. Hungry, we stopped at Mapro's for a good breakfast. After that we headed on towards "Ambenali Ghat". The terrain was perfect. High mountains and the valley filled with clouds. Praveen was first to break out of the group and this time I was right behind him. The loops turing left and right were fun. And every now and then Nav would to stop to take more pics. Shyamal on the other hand was getting impatient. This was his longest ride and we were not even half way through. The weather was great, raining and cloudy, visibility was not more than 50 meters and at some places even less than that. As we reached the base of the mountain we saw that water was coming on to the valley from everywhere. The river on the way was all full and violent.


As we stopped again to take pics I opened my rain suit top, and my racing jacket under it and could verify with my touch sense that I was totally wet. Rain suit or no rain suit - nothing made in India seemed to stop it from getting wet. I looked at Nav's water proof water jacket at for once I wanted it. My jacket is but not made for this weather. So then I zipped it up and as Nav said - "Lets zip zap zoom" and soon we all were at our top speeds. Praveen again leading and responsible nav companying his colleague. Since we were behind the schedule we scraped the plan to visit Kashedi Ghat and headed towards Mahad. NH17 was having lesser traffic than normal as we ripped on wet NH17 towards Mahad. Just before the toll booth at Mahad we turned towards Varandha Ghat only to be warned by some people about road under water. I thought it was just another localite warning and it turned out to be just a foot of water max. I smiled and accelerated ahead only to see a State Transport Bus, a 4x4 a few bikes just stopped for some reason and the reason was what the local guy had warned us about - 30meter of stretch under water. More than a foot for sure but the scary part was the speed of water rushing over it. It was actually river water which had over flown and come on road cutting it at 90 degrees. Nav again stopped to take pics. We stopped there for 10-15 mins and the water level was rising like anything , then it struck me - shucks.. the water block we had just passed, what if it was too rising and the guess was right. The water had really risen.


The question in everyone's mind was if there was more blockage ahead. And we with water rising this piece won't be possible to cross. So we decided to head back.


After a small rip on NH17 we were back at Poladpur. We took a small break for hot tea before we started our climb up Ambenali Ghat. As we climbed up we started to see some beautiful views. Praveen's eye caught something that was amazing. Clouds were trying to cross this mountain (on the left) but the wind was too powerful for it. But as the clouds luck would have it the wind produced at the bottom of the valley was pushing it up. It was an amazing sight sadly the camera could not capture it well.




As we reached the top of Ambenali Ghat the fog started to get thicker and thicker with visiblity reduced to 15-16feets. By the time we reached Mahabaleshwar fog was at its peak. (Next day I read in news that this road, Mahabaleshwar - Poladpur, is closed for traffic).

On the way we meet with another Nomad, Praveen Sathaye, at Wai. After a small chit chat we all headed back to Pune. Just before Khambatki Ghat we stopped for some evening snacks. As we resumed our return ride, soon it got dark and started to rain little bit. It was difficult to see the road properly due to darkness and rain drops on visor. So it was a slow ride back home for me with speeds around 50-60km/hr as I was worried about not seeing some pothole on road and hitting it at high speed.

After around 15hrs of riding I was back at home totally wet. Next time no wet suit - if I am getting wet anyways then why not enjoy it.

In the end though it was a wonderful ride but I still miss the Mahad - Varandha Ghat - Bhor - Pune leg, which I hope to do sooner than later.


Rocks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!