The Journey

We set out from Pune on 2nd June. Normally rains in Pune are supposed to begin @ 10th of June, but what's normal anymore? Global warming and el polluto de la enviro are screwing up the climate anyway. Rains could start a week before or a month after. Our first stop was Paud, @ 30 kms from my house from where we began. We would make our way to Lonavala by the back-roads, avoiding the Pune-Bombay highway altogether. This is a very little known road with very little traffic, and has lots of curves and hills and ups and downs and some very good scenery. As opposed to this back-road, the Pune-Bombay highway (NH4) is the absolute pits : heavvy traffique, huge trucks and buses and speeding cars, lots of exhaust polluto and the ever present possibility of being run over, seeing as our puny scooterettes could hardly keep up with competing traffic, much less overtake it. Also El-coppos exist on NH4, but no coppos on the back-roads. In any case, scooterettes are designed purely for slow, clogged, city traffic and are not supposed to run on highways such as NH4. We had our fill of Pau-Shampull and hot tea at Paud. For those who don't know, Pau-Shampll (also known as Paw-Sample, or paav-shample) is a cheap, typically Western Maharashtra, downmarket dish, in which Pau is desi bread (not the branded, upmarket, sliced-wrapped-in-plastic type, but the kind popular in down-market areas, and is extensively used in "Wada-Pau" or wada-paav, again a typical cheap, Bombay-Pune snack). The Shampull is a red-hot watery gruel of saboot moong or a mix of some such lentils. The key component here is the blood-red color of the Shampull, the red of course coming from high temperature chilli, as in CHILL-aa-O : EEEEE, which is what you will scream if you are not used to withstanding that kind of chilli !! I love it. The riders had to eat only that, or go hungry. "Nakhra kiya to fail kar doonga". After all they were my students. Besides, budget was tight. We couldn't really afford Champagne and Caviar, or even Chicken Biryani and Veg. Jal Frezi. Besides, Dal-Roti is not available in the back-woods interiors of Maharashtara. I've said it before and am saying it again, on my shootouts the terms are : "Eat in the dhaba - sleep on the ground -shit in the jungle and wash in the river". It works everytime.

From Paud, we rode upto Mulshi gate. This gate is the entrance to the environs of Mulshi Dam, behind which is Mulshi lake, which is the largest body of water in Pune district. Mulshi dam is part of Tata Electric, the legacy laft behind for us by the legendary Jamshedji (Dadhiwala) Tata, the founder of the Tata empire, who trekked 100 years ago in these very hills where I trek now. We turned right towards Valnay, @ a hundred metres before Mulshi gate. We crossed the river and climbed up the Mulshi Hairpin bends, which stretch is my favourite stamping ground for Roat Tests, especially for measuring Low-End-Torque (LET), not least because not only the slope is steep, but even the road surface is EXTREMELY BAD. So you can't really do "cornering-funda-baazi", even with a Bullet or Shogun, what to talk of scooterettes and Streets and K4s. Which means that at each hairpin, you've got to come to near zero and then pull, which is when LET capacity shows up.

While the two four-strokers Street and K4 made it fairly well as expected, the Pride and Scooty also made it without stalling, with the Pride doing slightly better than the Scooty in this section. The LML Trendy being ridden by 'lambu' Sam Godbole started groaning, but a few leg-pushes a few times by the rider managed to take it to the top. Bajaj's Spirit however gave up and its engine died on four of the six hairpin bends. The rider, Dr.Sethna (whom everyone called Doc) had to dismount and push. He was quite angry. "Hey Dilip" he screamed, "I am a effing doctor. I am not supposed to push kaput bikes up slopes on a hot June afternoon!"

"I never said this is going to be a joy ride Doc", I yelled back. "you volunteered".
"OK ya bastard", he said, "you come to my clinic next time, I'll give you the most painful injection you've ever had!" I kept quiet. What could I say? He wasn't my student and couldn't fail him.

From slope-top onwards the ride was dandy. The road surface quality improved greatly. The curves on the road were a pleasure to negotiate since there was no traffic. Not even humans on foot. Then it started raining. Not heavy, but enough to slow us down. We all stopped and everyone took their respective anti-rain material from the Sumo and wore it. We moved on.

More slopes were encountered after Valnay. These slopes were not only steep, they were also very long, so that whatever momentum Bajaj Spirit and LML Trendy had garnered on the level road before the incline began, got dissipated (used up) before they could reach the top. Consequently push came to shove and these two had to be given triple treatment to get to the top. First was leg-push assistance while riding the bikes (see photo). This PUSH however wasn't enough. So it came to SHOVE. Both got shoved from behind by Amol riding the K4 (see photo). Even this wasn't enough. So finally both had to dismount and walk the bikes to the top (see photo). The Scooty and the Pride made it without any assistance. The K4 and the Street, being geared, glided up effortlessly.

Mild rain continued indifferently. It wasn't debilitating but the roads were wet. There was much slush and keechad in parts. Milind Raut skidded and fell from the Pride. Injury not much but the front brake lever (RH) broke. Brake still operative. So no problem. Besides the Pride can do very well on just the rear brake alone. Meanwhile the Scooty main stand got loose and started doing khad-khad. It had to be tied (see pic). We reached the rise before INS Shivaji @ 18:00 p.m. The view from here is breathtaking. From here the route would take us thru part of Lonavala and we would have to join the bluddy Pune-Bombay road for a while to make our way down (aati kya?) Khandala Ghat upto Khopoli. (The Chinese call it Koh Poh Lee).

At Khopoli we left the god forsaken Bombay road and headed for Pen where we had the only decent meal of the whole trip. Pen is in Raigarh (Raigad) district which is part of the coastal Konkan belt of Maharashtra. Everybody ate fish. We could have got cheaper fish in Alibag, our destination, but it would be quite late by the time we got there and since Alibag is not on the Bombay-Goa highway (NH 17), people sleep early and no eating joint would be open. Pen however is bang on the highway, so you can get food.

Alibag, we headed straight for the beach and slept in the open. Morning we had to get up early since we had to crap in the open - which becomes socially unacceptable if people are around. Now for all of us, Tea is an essential ingredient for inducing el-crappo. We went around looking for tea, which we found soon enough. But by the time we had the tea, the whole town was up and about. It figures. Since these people sleep early, they get up early too. We had to abandon the beach crap idea and promptly headed south towards Murud.

This part of the journey was the most picturesque. On our right were pristine beaches and the sea (see map). On our left was a lot of greenery. We had breakfast at Revadanda, crossed the creek bridge (see pic) and reached Murud before noon. We did much water frolicking on the beach between Murud-on-the-coast, and Janjira Fort, which is on an island and can be reached only by boat (see photo). We couldn't visit the fort because more because of shortage of money than time - the boatmen have a cartel and they charge too much. We had a third class lunch at Murud and headed inland towards Mahad on the Bombay-Goa highway (NH 17). On this stretch we passed some very beautiful places. The Vikram Vinayak Mandir at Sanjay Nagar was one of them (see pic). It is open 6:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. and then from 4:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. The Mandir is spotlessly clean and well maintained and the staff is very courteous (since it is not sarkari). Also there is no entry fee but photography / videography are not allowed.

Other notable places were the Yesday Bungalow society hidden behind thick foliage on a hill slope, adjacent to the Yesday Hill Club Resort (pic). Further on, we saw some ancient caves high up on a hill slope. I couldn't resist going up. So we parked the vehicles and some of us climbed up while some stayed behind to look after our bikes and Sumo (see pic). We passed Mahad in the evening and turned left, off the highway, towards Varandha.

However, we also wanted to visit Shiv-Thar-Ghal. Ghal is a marathi word for a huge cave like crevasse in a mountainside. ShivTharGhal is the Ghal where Samarth Ramdas Swami stayed and wrote the DAAS-BODH many hundred years ago. To reach ShivTharGhal, we had to take a 17 km detour off the road going to Varandha. This detour takes you thru some excellent forest. We walked around the ShivThar campus and had some second grade dal-chawal at the Dharamshala for which we were overcharged.

By the time we finished dinner it was almost 22:00 p.m. and we rode on to the top of Varandha Ghat, parked for the night next to an abandoned hut, and crashed in the open. We couldn't sleep inside the hut because it was stiniking due to too much bull-shit, cow-dung and bat-crap strewn all over the floor and we were too fagged out to do any cleaning. Besides, outside was cool and fresh and no hint of rain.

Come next morning and we just got up and rode off. No crappo, no brush-0, since there was no water. We had some third class breakfast at a tea shop called Hotel Jai Bhavani on the slope down from Varandha, after which we headed for Hirdoshi where we would crap at the same place I have been crapping with different groups every year since April 1996 !! From Hirdoshi we did a full-zip, 40 km, ride to Kapurhole on the Pune-Bangalore highway (NH 4) without stopping at Bhor. We had a sumptuous lunch at Amrita Hotel at Kapurhole and rode back full zip to Pune. End of journey. Total distance = 460 kms. WHAT A TRIP !!!

Read the full story ( Scooterette Wars ) -
Background | The Bikes | The Riders | The Journey | The Performance | The Economics