The Grin on my face…

As it was the Independence day, I have to be in Amboli… its been 3 years, I am visiting this amazing place on the 15th August weekend. So as usual after all the planning, hype and hoopla all the people who said yes for the ride have got something or the other cropped up. Finally, it was only me and Deba, in some weird way I was happy that the ride is going to be lovely duet by two 500s, though generations apart… and that’s the exact reason of the grin on my face…

I had tried to make bookings at our usual hotel, but someone on the other side of the phone told me that he wont be able to get me one on the first night, and if I want one for second night, then I have to immediately deposit money in their account. I decided against all this and throwing caution to the wind, I decided to find residence on reaching Amboli.

Deba stayed late in the office previous night, so starting early from Pune is out of question. In the morning, I came to know that my speedo cable has came out of its socket and while fixing it, I have screwed some electrical connection below the head. While turning the handle, the bike electricity was dancing like the Diwali illumination. Somehow got that fixed and we set out of my place. Moreover, we needed to get PUC done before we set out. So finally we got out of the city at 1100hrs. We did quick check on the bikes before getting onto the Satara road flyover and soon we were cruising on the highway at our usual speed of 85-90kmph. After crossing the flyover, I saw Deba stopping at one place, and then realized that his bike has gone off. But thankfully, as suddenly she has gone off, she started also again, and we were back on the road again…

The Pune – B’lore highway (NH-4) is awesome, when one wants to rip on. But as we reckon, it was longish weekend, so lot of people are going to Mahabaleshwar or some other place. So the highway was pretty much crowded and we hardly got any good patch to rip till we got out of the new tunnel of NH-4. After getting on the open highway, we decided to keep the constant speeds of 85-95kmph till Surur and Satara. Surur is the place from where most of the traffic vanishes to Mahabaleshwar and remaining part ways at Satara. In Satara, we took small break to get the engine oil, in case its required, and carried on.

We have decided to rip between Satara and Kolhapur, because of that is simply boring straight patch. If you don’t try something new there, then you may fall asleep. As soon as we reached the concrete road after Satara, I opened the throttle, and my babe obliged. She was taking it slow for last 100 odd Kilometers and was itching to rip the road. She roared and immediately set herself in comfortable 110kmph. The ride was going on great because I was leading and Deba was sure trying to catch up. Sometimes I let him lead also… but somehow he was stuck in early 100s and couldn’t rip beyond 110 kmph even on that open highway. We had taken just couple of butt breaks so far and could reach Shippur after Nippani by 1600hrs. We were needed to take the right turn towards Uttur from the main highway. I knew that the road here onwards is going to be real pain in the a$$, so we decided to take a lunch break at hotel Kavery on the junction. I have noticed some wrong growl from my babe, but I had played it down as something minor, like dirt in carburetor. After lunch, we set out, but as usual, Deba’s hungry LB500 needed a tank-up. So we enquired about the nearby pump. I knew that there is one on the way, but was not sure about the distance and as he is already on reserve, I was not in a mood to take chances. We topped up the engine oil and went to the pump which is around 1km further on the highway.

After tanking up, I paid some more attention to changed growling sound and decided to do something about it. We called Alex, the Bullet Guru from Pune, and told him that my babe is not settling well while idling and she needs to be hold at little higher than idle. He asked me to drain the carburetor so that if any water present in there will get outta system. That didn’t change anything. So he told me to check compression of the bike, and I got the shock of the day. There was no compression, my mind had taken a whirlwind trip to nightmarish fancy-land and I thought all the evil that could have happened to my bike. Then Alex, the Genius, told me to open the tappet cover and check if anyone of the tappets is jammed. And Viola!!! He was right, the exhaust side tappet was jammed. So Alex explained me on the phone, how to loosen it up and I got my hands dirty, very dirty in the whole business. But the result, problem solved. I was able to ride my bike in better way.

We were again back on the road, which was too bad to be called road, heading to Uttur. The sun was setting, being cloudy it started getting dark already. We reached Uttur around 1900hrs and took left turn towards Ajra. The rain made its presence felt intermittently we were almost drenched. The bad roads, pot holes and loose gravel was adding insult to the injury. Due to raindrops, the lights of the incoming vehicles were wrecking havoc on my AGV’s visor, and if I keep the visor open, I was getting mouthfuls of the insects which has just started their day. The whole situation was quiet bad, when I realized that the Bolero which overtaken us is a boon in disguise. I decided to follow it, as it was giving good light and clearing the road for me, but Deba was not able to keep up with me. He was on low confidence in the night riding and potholed graveled road. After looking at him in the rear-view, I missed one turn completely and got down the road. Somehow, I got the control back on my bike and stopped to catch my breath while letting that Bolero slip away from my hands. With the manageable slow speeds, we could made it to Ajra by 2030hrs. Ajra is small town, with lot more population than Amboli.

After reaching Ajra, we decided to take call it a day. We decided to stay at Ajra, and that turned out to be good decision as anyways we didn’t had any reservations in Amboli, which is good 33kms ahead. We decided to make it to Amboli next day, as it was not a good idea to continue in the dark on the bad roads. We booked the place in Hotel Vinod on the Amboli road itself. It had a restaurant attached below so it was ideal place to stay.

Early morning, I got up as I wanted to make the final touches to my tappets settings. After the basic things done, we decided against shifting the luggage to Amboli. Amboli, being more popular tourist destination is a costly place and availability of hotels is also low. So we decided to visit the place while staying put in Ajra. As we started for Amboli, we were back on the bad roads and was enjoying as the weather was good and it was not raining. While riding ahead, I found one good patch and ripped ahead only to realize that Deba have not followed me. I returned to check on him and found him on the roadside, standing besides his bike. The chain of his bike has left the rear-sprocket and decided to go her own way. We got the tools out, opened the chain cover and set her right in the arms, sorry teeth, of rear sprocket. He was not interested to carry forward without fixing it, and we were not having the spanner of 30 to tighten the chain. So we decided to come back to Ajra and get it fixed. After investigation, we could find a guy, who said yes to touch the bullet. He fixed the chain in no time and we were on our way as usual. On the way we realized that my speedo cable and Deba’s headlamp has gone capute again, but we pushed forward as these are minor things.

Amboli was as usual fun with lot of rain, water and waterfall, except there were too many people around every waterfall. We thanked ourselves that we made right decision about not coming to Amboli with luggage as it would have been tough to find any accommodation. Even if we have managed to get one, that would surely have cost us some fortune. After going around and nice lunch, we returned back to Ajra.

After leisurely spent evening, we decided to push off for Pune as soon as possible next morning. After all the efforts and packing, we managed to set our sails at 0900hrs from Ajra. The best part of the return trip was, before even starting, we have already covered 33kms of bad patch and there were approximately 40 more to go. We started and pretty fast covered that distance even on the bad road. Before 1000hrs, we were back to the junction and having our breakfast in hotel Kauvery. Deba had decided not to cross into triple digit speeds and will let me lead through the remaining ride, the riding back was eventless. We managed good and steady speeds to reach Satara by 1330hrs. After hearty lunch in the favorite Manas hotel, we pushed for Pune and reached home by 1530hrs.

Vital Stats:
Riders:
1. Deba Bullet Machismo (LB500)
2. Doc Std500 (ESDB)

Distance covered: 725kms

Route taken:
Pune – Satara – Kolhapur – Nippani – Shippur – right turn – Uttur – Left turn – Ajra – Right turn – Amboli