Monday, June 12, 2006
Biking to Bidar
It finally happened... the much awaited first long drive for my Medusa (For those who don't know who Medusa is, it is the name of my red Avenger. As for the name, the origins are here).
Club Tarmac is a bikers group started by wipro employees. Fortunately I happened to know a couple of signicant people in that group and shared their enthusiasm on long distance riding. I had made a mention to Sharad that i was keen on being a part of their next ride. He told me a couple of weeks back that they were planning to do Bidar, Karnataka. Well, the place is about 136 Km from Hyderabad but the very fact that it was not in AP made it look quite a long distance :) Unsure of whether i would be able to ride that much, I asked KoPoS to join me in the adventure ...and he gladly volunteered his ass.
Now the plan was on... and there was no looking back. The D-Day was near - 10th June '06 and I found it hard to resist my excitement. On 9th i did all the basic checks - Engine Oil, Air pressure in tyres, tightening of all lose screws - and got the tank filled with "Speed" petrol (Yeah, my Medusa needs to be fed quality stuff... and damn the govt, Speed now costs 55 Rs/litre)
I could barely sleep through the night because of the excitement... it was almost as if i were to leave for my honeymoon. The clock struck 5 and I jumped out of bed... fully charged!! Mom, being the nicest mom of all, decided to cook "poori and aaloo kii sabzii" for the riders. By the time KoPoS came to my place, the "khaanaa" was ready and packed. We quickly put everything in one bag and at 6:30 AM set off for Wipro Campus, Madhapur, which was the starting point for the tour. When we reched there were only 2 bikes and 4 riders there, but as the "Hyderabad Standard Time" of 7:30 approached, the bikes and riders were pouring in. Finally the counts were something like - 1 car, 14 bikes, 27 bikers and 29 people in all mostly people from Wipro, others from different companies... 2 guys from ISB were also there.
Sharad and Vinay, the organizers gave a quick roundup of the basic rules (for our safety). We decided to take a longer route while going because the traffic was less. The route was -
Madhapur -> Mehdipatnam Food World -> Langar House -> Shankarpally -> Vikarabad Flyover -> Sadaseopet -> Zaheerabad -> Bidar - approximating 185Km.
While going I took the rider's seat and KoPoS was my poor pillion rider. We started off with ease syncing up every now and then, but once we hit the highway past langar house, all engines revved up!! The bikers split up into smaller groups with one group doing high speed cruising (80+ Kmph) and the other taking it easy. KoPoS & I, of course, were among the speedsters which also included Umesh & Vijay (on a Pulsar 150), Abhay & Neeraja (on a Pulsar 180) and Sharad & Ramapriya (on a TBird). We went consistently above 90 for a faily long time and Medusa performed much better than what i expected from her.
Suresh & Vipin were there on a new Apache (still on a temporary number, done 750Km) ...and they too did brave 80's :) I also took a small test ride of the Apache... and man, the bike rocks. Looks great and feels great.
We took reasonably long breaks at reasonable distances and the fun factor just kept on building. The only uncool thing that happened was an accident when a fellow biker's bike went off road and skidded causing some injuries to him as well as his pillion (I hope you guys are doing fine).... but it could have been much worse and these guys had a narrow escape. Thank devil, we had a car in the group ...and thank you guys for keeping the spirit up and inspite of being hurt, deciding to go on with the tour. We stopped at a dhaba where the "poori and aalu" mom had given, disappeared within minutes. Finally, after all the awesome episodes we reached the Bidar Fort at around 2 in the afternoon. Upon reaching there, we did the customary lineup of the vehicles and then some posing and modelling :) Locals there looked pretty amazed seeing us.
The good part about the fort is that you can take the bikes right in, as far as possible. The place is quite unkempt... but that too has a beauty of its own. Its a huge fort pretty similar in architecture to the legendary Golconda Fort. For a while put our bikes to rest and climbed into the ruins get a personal feel of the place ...and it was quite an experience as we wandered around discussing the "love life" of the kings who would have once lived there.
At 4 we decided to leave back for Hyderabad. For those who're thinking that we went riding for 200Km just to see some ruins for 2 hours, I have just one thing to say - for people like us, who believe in biking as their religion, the destination is just an excuse for the ride.
Because it was going to be dark soon, we decided to take the shortest route back which was -
Bidar -> Zaheerabad -> NH9 till BHEL, Lingampally and then disperse from there.
This time we had KoPoS riding my Medusa with me on the pillion seat ...and he roared her up to a 110!! We stopped at this punjaabi dhaba near Zaheerabad called "Raaz Punjabi Dhaba". I never used to believe that the movie "Raaz" had a cult following till i saw this dhaba... even the paan shop there was named "Raaz". Anyway, we started off with repeated rounds of tea, lassi and butter milk. Then came the pakoras which tested our limits for being able to tolerate spicy food. Finally after spending almost an hour and a half there, we left at about 6:30 PM. We hurried through this streach so that we could cover the maximum distance before it gets dark. This road had heavy traffic and we couldn't really speed up. However, KoPoS still managed to do 80. Then it was a continuous drive for about 60 Km till we were around 30 Km from BHEL where we stopped at an on-road mango shop. It suddenly started raining and we decided to stay there for a while... well, eating mangoes while it's raining is good fun! Once the rains went down to a minimum, we left from there on our way to BHEL. This was a fairly bad streach with a lot of heavy traffic and not-so-good roads. By about 9 we reached BHEL where we all posed for a final photograph and then left for our homes. KoPoS and I were home at about 9:20 PM. It was an amazing trip - 316.8 Km in all out of which i rode 197Km and I wish i could have done the rest too. I'm so addicted to biking now. The more I do it, the more I want to do it!Very rightly said - 4 wheels to move the body, 2 wheels to move the soul!!!
another post regarding this trip is here
Club Tarmac is a bikers group started by wipro employees. Fortunately I happened to know a couple of signicant people in that group and shared their enthusiasm on long distance riding. I had made a mention to Sharad that i was keen on being a part of their next ride. He told me a couple of weeks back that they were planning to do Bidar, Karnataka. Well, the place is about 136 Km from Hyderabad but the very fact that it was not in AP made it look quite a long distance :) Unsure of whether i would be able to ride that much, I asked KoPoS to join me in the adventure ...and he gladly volunteered his ass.
Now the plan was on... and there was no looking back. The D-Day was near - 10th June '06 and I found it hard to resist my excitement. On 9th i did all the basic checks - Engine Oil, Air pressure in tyres, tightening of all lose screws - and got the tank filled with "Speed" petrol (Yeah, my Medusa needs to be fed quality stuff... and damn the govt, Speed now costs 55 Rs/litre)
I could barely sleep through the night because of the excitement... it was almost as if i were to leave for my honeymoon. The clock struck 5 and I jumped out of bed... fully charged!! Mom, being the nicest mom of all, decided to cook "poori and aaloo kii sabzii" for the riders. By the time KoPoS came to my place, the "khaanaa" was ready and packed. We quickly put everything in one bag and at 6:30 AM set off for Wipro Campus, Madhapur, which was the starting point for the tour. When we reched there were only 2 bikes and 4 riders there, but as the "Hyderabad Standard Time" of 7:30 approached, the bikes and riders were pouring in. Finally the counts were something like - 1 car, 14 bikes, 27 bikers and 29 people in all mostly people from Wipro, others from different companies... 2 guys from ISB were also there.
Sharad and Vinay, the organizers gave a quick roundup of the basic rules (for our safety). We decided to take a longer route while going because the traffic was less. The route was -
Madhapur -> Mehdipatnam Food World -> Langar House -> Shankarpally -> Vikarabad Flyover -> Sadaseopet -> Zaheerabad -> Bidar - approximating 185Km.
While going I took the rider's seat and KoPoS was my poor pillion rider. We started off with ease syncing up every now and then, but once we hit the highway past langar house, all engines revved up!! The bikers split up into smaller groups with one group doing high speed cruising (80+ Kmph) and the other taking it easy. KoPoS & I, of course, were among the speedsters which also included Umesh & Vijay (on a Pulsar 150), Abhay & Neeraja (on a Pulsar 180) and Sharad & Ramapriya (on a TBird). We went consistently above 90 for a faily long time and Medusa performed much better than what i expected from her.
Suresh & Vipin were there on a new Apache (still on a temporary number, done 750Km) ...and they too did brave 80's :) I also took a small test ride of the Apache... and man, the bike rocks. Looks great and feels great.
We took reasonably long breaks at reasonable distances and the fun factor just kept on building. The only uncool thing that happened was an accident when a fellow biker's bike went off road and skidded causing some injuries to him as well as his pillion (I hope you guys are doing fine).... but it could have been much worse and these guys had a narrow escape. Thank devil, we had a car in the group ...and thank you guys for keeping the spirit up and inspite of being hurt, deciding to go on with the tour. We stopped at a dhaba where the "poori and aalu" mom had given, disappeared within minutes. Finally, after all the awesome episodes we reached the Bidar Fort at around 2 in the afternoon. Upon reaching there, we did the customary lineup of the vehicles and then some posing and modelling :) Locals there looked pretty amazed seeing us.
The good part about the fort is that you can take the bikes right in, as far as possible. The place is quite unkempt... but that too has a beauty of its own. Its a huge fort pretty similar in architecture to the legendary Golconda Fort. For a while put our bikes to rest and climbed into the ruins get a personal feel of the place ...and it was quite an experience as we wandered around discussing the "love life" of the kings who would have once lived there.
At 4 we decided to leave back for Hyderabad. For those who're thinking that we went riding for 200Km just to see some ruins for 2 hours, I have just one thing to say - for people like us, who believe in biking as their religion, the destination is just an excuse for the ride.
Because it was going to be dark soon, we decided to take the shortest route back which was -
Bidar -> Zaheerabad -> NH9 till BHEL, Lingampally and then disperse from there.
This time we had KoPoS riding my Medusa with me on the pillion seat ...and he roared her up to a 110!! We stopped at this punjaabi dhaba near Zaheerabad called "Raaz Punjabi Dhaba". I never used to believe that the movie "Raaz" had a cult following till i saw this dhaba... even the paan shop there was named "Raaz". Anyway, we started off with repeated rounds of tea, lassi and butter milk. Then came the pakoras which tested our limits for being able to tolerate spicy food. Finally after spending almost an hour and a half there, we left at about 6:30 PM. We hurried through this streach so that we could cover the maximum distance before it gets dark. This road had heavy traffic and we couldn't really speed up. However, KoPoS still managed to do 80. Then it was a continuous drive for about 60 Km till we were around 30 Km from BHEL where we stopped at an on-road mango shop. It suddenly started raining and we decided to stay there for a while... well, eating mangoes while it's raining is good fun! Once the rains went down to a minimum, we left from there on our way to BHEL. This was a fairly bad streach with a lot of heavy traffic and not-so-good roads. By about 9 we reached BHEL where we all posed for a final photograph and then left for our homes. KoPoS and I were home at about 9:20 PM. It was an amazing trip - 316.8 Km in all out of which i rode 197Km and I wish i could have done the rest too. I'm so addicted to biking now. The more I do it, the more I want to do it!Very rightly said - 4 wheels to move the body, 2 wheels to move the soul!!!
another post regarding this trip is here
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