Helmet_Stories_Mahabaleshwar

The ride to Mahabaleshwar was initially planned in the month of August 2019 with my office colleagues. We decided the itinerary, helped my colleagues to even purchase riding gear. It was all set to travel, but an unexpected barrier halted our ride all together.

Fast forward the time to January 2020. It was Jan 12^th 2020 that I asked my friend Raghunath about his interest for a ride to Mahabaleshwar. Without any hesitation he accepted and we decided to travel on 24^th Jan 2020. My friend like me, also a rider and motorcycle enthusiast and he too owns a Dominar 400.

We started planning for the ride about the places we have to visit, riding gear needed, and all the necessary items for the ride. We booked a room through OYO. To my surprise, I got information from my manager that leave is difficult to take as I had to execute some priority work. However, this didn’t stopped my zeal to ride and as they say, when you really want something in life, the power in entire universe conspire to make it happen. For my joy, it really happened and we were back on track for the date to travel we had earlier decided. To fuel his soul, one of my school friend, Shiva Kumar also agreed to join the ride on his R15 (special mention).

After all the turmoil, discussions, wished from our well-wishers, we were set to ride on 24^th Jan 2020 in the evening. Everything was set and here is our itinerary:

24^th Jan: Start at 08:00 PM in the evening
25^th Jan:Reach Mahabaleshwar by 02:00 PM, fresh up and roam
26^th Jan: Cover all the places in Mahabaleshwar
27^th Jan: Return back to our home

Our meeting point was at Miyapur at my friend home where myself and Shiva will start from Ashok Nagar and meet Raghunath. I had planned to sleep as much as possible and I succeeded in doing so with dreams and thoughts of our ride. As planned, Shiva reached my home at sharp 06:00 PM. We had our short break and started our ride for meet up.

Well, the plan took an unexpected turn of its own with the sad news from Shiva at petrol pump that his dear R15 has R&R unit issue. It was like a thunder hitting listening to it. We took the vehicle to the nearest service center with the hope that the bike will be back on track, but to our bad luck, the issue didn’t resolved and we were forced to hand over the vehicle. The same issue happened to him many a times and yet again it hit us at the most crucial time.

We had our long discussion regarding the plan and finally convinced to ride on Dominar 400 with luggage on Raghunath Dominar. Yes you read it right, 1300KM as my pillion rider. As we just digested the blow given by R15, yet another road block came when I got the news that OYO cancelled our room though we paid the entire amount beforehand and there was no confirmation about another slot.

All this turmoil didn’t stopped us to continue with our ride. To mention, the time was 08:20 PM in the evening and we were still at our home. It’s a huge time lag. However, we didn’t give up, riding spirit kept our plan alive and started to Miyapur and reached our friend home.

The ride didn’t let a single stone unturned to give hindrances to us. This time it was Raghunath phone that gave up and he went to purchase a new mobile. It was 11:00 PM in the night and we had our light dinner with fired rice and yummy Manchuria, sleep started taking over us. I forgot to mention that Raghunath works in morning shift and he was high on sleep. I and Shiva went out, bought red bull drinks one for each and an extra for spare. It really gave us wings and the energy needed to ride.

Finally, the time has come where we started our much awaited ride at 02:00 AM in the early morning. I must admit the adrenaline that we had was so high, we travelled 150KM with just one break of 10min. I feel it is because we never chose to give up.

We halted at a place after Karnataka called Muthu Dhaba where a considerate owner allowed us to sleep with which we had power nap of 2 hours just to realize that we witnessed the extreme level of shivering we never had before as we woke up. Thanks to our duo Dominar’s to help us contain heat from its massive 400CC engine.

I continued our enroute and again halted at 11:30 AM for refueling where our second shift guy Shiva slept for 30 minutes. But the enthusiasm for riding didn’t reduced even a percent. I went till a place we were just 170km away from Pune without any Google maps. I know the route till Zahirabad and after that sign boards helped us to ease our effort of route.

Our initial plan was to go via Parbandhar, but somehow I changed it at the last minute to witness the 53km stretch of hell. It was Baramati road with full of pot holes, heavy traffic with sugarcane tractors and Bullock cart and sun glaring at us. It took 2 hours to complete that stretch which was a pain in ass. It was really a test to our mettle, however, we passed the test with our riding passion. As a suggestion, please do not chose Baramati way, It is not maintained. Though Parbandhar route seems to be longer, the route is good.

Finally we reached Ghat area of Wai, stopped for some wonderful clicks and it was sunset time which was mesmerizing. As you can observe, there is no mention of lunch anywhere, yes it’s true we were riding without any food. We call it the spirit of riding that gave us enthusiasm and fuelled our souls with energy. It was around 6:30 PM the time we entered Mahabaleshwar and we can notice there was already a drop in temperature. Reached our allotted OYO room which went to a toss. The OYO room owner did not received total money due to which he was not ready to provide check in to us until he gets his money.

We had our discussions with OYO customer care, the landlord and finally came to a mutual agreement which gave us time to rest our butts. We unpacked our luggage, freshen up and quickly visited Mapro garden just beside our OYO room lane. Took different types of chocolates, has our dinner. It was a wonderful evening and slept with thoughts of roaming in Mahabaleshwar.