Mum(biker) - A fool's paradise?

"What a stupid question!" That is what the general reaction I get whenever I question any of my mumbaikar friends/batchmates if they own any bike. "Who would be idiotic enough to ride a bike in, leave alone own one!"
But why indeed I ask. And what better way than by checking it out myself. :-)

And thanks to an old friend (who is either smart enough or stupid enough to keep his pune-registered bike in Mumbai) I assign myself a beautiful 2004 150cc black model, a beauty covered in a thick layer of dust, with a broken side-indicator and a battery that's completely charged out.
First stop - The mechanic. After a few hours of tinkering around, finally the bike's all washed up and in running mode. A few kicks, and it purrs (ahem... make that roars... after all, we are talkin about a pulsar, the men's bike! ;-)) to life.

I really can't figure out what's the fuss all about. My bike travel for the weekend was something of this sort
Thursday night I pick up the bike from my friend's house in Worli --> Andheri (E)
Friday : Powai --> Bandra --> Chowpatty --> CST --> Eastern Express Highway --> Thane, Ghorbandar Road --> Andheri (E)
Saturday : Andheri (E) --> Haji Ali --> Mumbai Central --> Eastern Express --> Powai --> Andheri (E)
Sunday : Andheri (E) --> NITIE --> Kandivili --> Santa Cruz --> Worli

And seriously, leaving apart the daily jam at Santa Cruz junction on the Western Express Highway, traffic is no big thing at Mumbai. Although, for a 4 wheeler it's hell :-)

And I got this bike for the entire month ahead!
Yay!

BLAX Trip to Ghatshila

And that's in a nutshell (visual one :-D) how our biking trip to Ghatshila, a place around 40 odd km away from Jamshedpur...


Day starts at 3 a.m. in the night, that is when I go to sleep, well knowing that it'll be mighty impossible on my own to wake up in an hour to leave for the trip.

4.00 a.m.
Now comes Srini da Puttar to the rescue, who bangs on the door, shouts aloud and does all kind of noisy antics(in the process attaining a few wonderful expletives to his credit from other people on the floor who also get the benefit of his waking-up antics)

So we assemble at JLT, and finally the team trickles in slowly forming a final group of 8 members and 4 bikes.

4.30 a.m.
Two pulsars, one CBZ and one Fiero, all 4 bikes roar to glory. There is something beautiful to the sound of a bike, 10 seconds back, we were all a bunch of sleepy head s half walking half asleep. But one roar of the bike, and voila! Everybody's wide awake and ready to go! It just can't be explained! :)
Streets all empty, temperature around 10-15 degrees, and 4 bikes whizzing thru the city at speeds of 80+! Nothing beats it :o)

4.45 a.m.
We reach the Jamshedpur - Kharagpur highway. Surprisingly it's jampacked with trucks. But THAT is the least of our worries. Its the huge potholes and gaps in the road that like all over the highway till the eye can see (actually that's an erroneous stmt, it was more like the bits of tar road was present among the potholes and gaps!). We slowly move on at a avg speed of 20+ :-/

5.30 a.m.
We experience "Cause and Effect" Theory practically. Its been less than a hour since we started, and (CAUSE) the first Dhaba passes by. (EFFECT) The next 25 mins are spent at the dhaba gobbling up hot paranthas with a strangely watery yet spicy chana masala. Meanwhile the sun goes up un-noticed...




To be Continued in next post...

An Abstract View of Goa

An short video depicting how we, a bunch of idiots somehow managed to have a heavenly holiday for 4 long days of pure bliss (and daru :-D)


The entire set of pics can be viewed below