Riding together Because its Ride For a Cause!

“Some ride for Passion, Some ride for Fun.” We had a different reason when we started our ride on Sunday, 18^th September. This time, a humanitarian effort from Konkan Moto Tours was motivating everyone to ride. Ride For Cause – as it is called, was planned with a mission to generate support and donation for poor children. Konkan Moto Tours had partnered with Grant Foundation to generate support and spread awareness about this noble cause.

Earlier, on previous day me and Abhishek had been busy calling out all riders and busy preparing ride map. It was evening when we finished up creating final list of riders and charted out final route map for this ride. On other side, Pratish was assigned task of getting rider’s t-shirts and other printing material ready. He was to decide on mechanic who would join us for ride. Finally, as it happens with all such rides, everything seemed in order at 2:30 am. Now it was time to catch much needed sleep before we wake up for ride at 5:30.

It was 7 am in morning when we assembled at Kalanagar Bus Stop, Bandra. There was pinch of enthusiasm in air as we met all fellow riders for first time. We saw some old faces and some new. In next few minutes, we started our briefing session for today’s ride. Finally, at 8 am, everyone was geared up and ready to rock the tarmac. We started in single rider formation and everyone followed lead rider to reach our first destination – Vitthal Kamath’s restaurant on NH17. After crossing Vashi bridge, we took Palm Beach road to reach Panvel. And I can’t say what a pleasure it was to ride on one of bestest road of city. We were cruising at 90 – 100 kmph on this bright sunny morning and I promise, anyone who saw us that morning on palm beach road, couldn’t have moved his eyes away from this troupe.

In no time, we were at Vitthal Kamath’s restaurant. Everyone had breakfast, which followed by a short introductory session. Such introduction talks are really helpful in such rides because this is only time when you get to speak to everyone on common platform. We met people with diverse experience and diverse background. However, only thing common between each of us was passion for riding. Soon, we started towards our first re group point, Pali. Pali is situated on NH 17, and it has one of most beautiful Ganesha temple in Maharshtra. It’s one of most sacred ashtavinayak temple in Maharashtra.

Roads have been badly affected due to heavy rains this season. Elephant sized pot holes and broken tar made our journey little bit difficult. We took left turn from junction near Nagothane to go towards Pali where beautiful curves and dense trees made our journey bit easy. However, when we reached Pali, potholes had shown its effect on my bike. I realized my rear wheel was making weary noise and there was something wrong with it. Quickly, I asked mechanic to fix it and we had to open whole drum to check reason of noise. It came out that spring connecting break shoe within drum had been broken which we replaced quickly and got my bike running again. Thanks to sincere efforts of Parvezbhai.

Road to Khopoli was worst of whole journey. We would have taken more than 1:30 hours to complete those 40 kms. Broken roads, gravels and potholes made our journey miserable and our back aching. However, good and bad roads are part of any ride and true rider will take it as challenge. With same spirit, we completed this weary patch and reached Khopoli. Khopoli is an industrial town and we saw lots of industrial units in this area. It shows economical and industrial progress of this part of Maharashtra.

By the time we reached Khopoli, everyone was tired and bit irritated because of bad roads. Ride with KMT is not complete without experiencing Konkani food. We decided to stop over at Mauli Dhaba on NH4 to have complete malwani food experience. It was rejuvenating and refreshing experience to sit together and have truly Maharashtrian food with bunch of riders. Amazing food and gentleness of waiters made food more delicious. Finally, at 3:30, we started towards Panvel, our final destination for this ride.

Roads were now smooth and pretty vacant. Everyone enjoyed this patch of route the most and reached Panvel Naka with smiling face and joyful experience. We announced end of ride at 5:00 and everyone dispersed with memory of lifetime!

Photo Courtesy: Karan Diwakar Dalvi

Ecstasy of Raigad – A complete bike riding experience.

“Riding in rains is a complete riding experience. Cold breeze passing through your body and each rain drop falling on your face makes you feel so connected with nature that your soul thumps on beats of engine.” – If someone asks me about my experience of tour of ‘Ecstasy of Raigad’, I proudly flaunt above sentence. And, each rider will agree that I am not wrong. Before I share my experience of this trip, I would start with a famous biker quote: “Bikers don’t get ready. They just get up and Go!” It was similar situation when we all embarked on our epic ‘Ecstasy of Raigad’ journey. It had rained very heavily previous night and this morning was no different. I got up from my bed early at 3:30 and saw the scene outside my window. There was no way a sane person would think of going on a bike trip this morning. But, we KMT Riders are different. I called Abhishek, my partner in KMT and reconfirmed that we are meeting at 5:45 near my house.

Quickly, I get up and start gathering my riding gears. Gloves, in Cupboard drawers; Knee Guard, on corner table; Riding Jacket, on cupboard hanger! I still had to fix my pillion seat on my Bullet. I go downstairs, get my bike out of parking and start fixing pillion seat. 20 minutes of struggle, and I get completely drenched even before journey starts. Now, it was time to put on all gears and start riding. Me and Abhishek started for our first meeting point, Kalanagar Bus Stop, Bandra. Where Pratish, our partner and few other riders were waiting for us. A quick hello to each of them and Few calls to ensure everyone was reaching Shree Datta Snacks, Panvel by 7 AM. Pratish, who is known as ‘Late Latif’ in our gang, had done a fantastic job of arranging our ride t-shirts, bike spare parts and stickers etc. for this ride. Despite of working till late night, we were all thumping in full swing for our first professionally managed tour.

Komal became my pillion and Abhishek was riding with Shreya as pillion. We all reached Panvel in time, to see our organizer Vishwanath Sawant and his team waiting for us. Quickly, we decided to move towards Kamath’s – where our breakfast and first briefing session was scheduled. Heavy breakfast and some chit chat with fellow riders turned our hectic morning in to beautiful monsoon morning. Once breakfast was finished, Abhishek singalled for briefing session and everyone gathered around his table to listen how our next 2 days will be spent. Abhishek explained route, riding instructions and explained whom to contact in crisis situation. So, here we were, ready to kick start our bikes for a completely insane and one of the toughest ride for each of us.

9 bikes, one Wagon R and one Innova – service vehicle for this ride were all set for a tough day ahead. A flag off signal from Sawant and we all started towards Alibaug, our first stop – nearly 50 kms from Vitthal Kamath’s. Heavy traffic, roads full of pot holes and some water logging made riding on this patch very difficult. Also, it was first time when we all were riding together as pack. It took us some time to figure out tuning between each of us. By the time we reached Alibaug, everyone was sure that day ahead would be full of challenges and unique experiences. A chai break at corner tapri wala and we were all set for rolling our bikes again. This time, Abhishek decided to ride as lead and me, Pratish decided to follow the pack. We encountered few of most challenging water logging villages near Revdanda. Santosh, one of our riders managed to break down his bike as water logged in to silencer of his Electra 350 and it took us some efforts to turn it on again. Me, Delzad and Santosh lifted his bike holding front tyre and took all water out of silencer. Our mechanic then applied few kicks and whew! Bike started. This is one quality of Cast Iron engines, which I like the most. It never lets you down. If you know how to tackle such problems, bullets will never hold you back from riding it.

As we moved on towards Kashid, rain turned mild. Our completely drenched bodies started feeling cold air blowing from western coast of Konkan. As soon as we crossed Revdanda, rain had completely stopped. Bridge connecting Revdanda and Korlai became our first stop for photography session. We clicked a few pics, enjoyed back waters of Korlai and started riding again. Next 15 kms on coastal route, and we were near beautiful Kashid beach. It was awesome scene out there. Covered between rocky hillocks and Casuariana Groves, Peaceful Kashid beach was looking at its best in today’s rainy environment. We had cup of tea again and started sharing our ride experience with each rider. Our next stop, Murud was approx 20 kms from here and we reached Murud by lunch time. Beautiful coastal highways and lush green hills enriched our riding experience. As Shreya pointed it out, riding in rains is like – “Its dirty, but its Beautiful!”

Post lunch, we started again, covering Mhasala, Kolmandale and went towards Srivardhan. Wet roads, slushy water and continuous rains had made our ride very difficult. Everyone was in mood of enjoying this ride to the fullest. We missed some superb photo shots because of evil rain. However, everyone was feeling lucky that they chose to ride in such circumstances and could enjoy beautiful arabian sea in such cloudy, rainy environment.

It was on our route from Aarawi beach to Diveagar beach where we stopped at corner of a cliff to enjoy seeming infinite arabian sea. Beautiful sea was merging in to misty clouds at a distant point gave us a perfect sight to forget all our tiredness. We enjoyed this beauty while we waited for Ketan, Karan and Delzad to join us again. After spending 10 minutes at this refreshing sight, we started again and reached Diveagar where we were to stay for night.

Everyone dried themselves, got in to a relaxed attire and we had superb dinner in Diveagar. One special thing about Konkan Moto Tours is that we believe in giving complete ‘Konkoni’ experience to our riders. Therefore, food that we arrange for is also konkoni. Post dinner, a drinking session and some chit chat made it a perfect evening for riders. It was early morning 7 am when everyone’s cellphone got Good Morning SMS from Team KMT. 8:00 am, breakfast time and 8:30 was briefing session.  Abhishek took the lead again and handled briefing part. It was sharp 9:00 am when we started again for next 225 kms journey, covering Tamhini Ghats, Mulshi dam and Pavna dam. Today was day of Ghats, day of curves, day of enjoying natural beauty to its fullest. Road connecting Mhasala and Morba ghats is dream ride of every biker. Each curve and each slop gives you a completely new experience of bike riding. We re grouped at Mangaon and went towards Tamhini Ghat. Yet again, riders were in full passion and enjoying their romance with rains. On top of Tamhini, everyone had this huge craving for cup of tea. While everyone was enjoying beauty of Tamhini Ghat, I revved up my bike and caught Bala who had started earlier to reach next regroup point. Bala, was riding his R15 in this trip. Being a patience rider, he always takes first start and reaches last at any regroup point. I stopped my bike at a chai stall and signalled everyone to stop over. While we were here, rain had stopped for a while. Bang! Another opportunity for photo session.

After spending 30 odd minutes at this place and refreshing ourselves, we started again. A stop for lunch and we started again. By this time, my body had started feeling cold and I was shivering because of wetness and cold breeze around Mulshi dam. I still don’t know what kept me going but, as soon as I started riding again, I felt enormous rush of energy in my veins to lead the pack. It was a bumpy, curvy ride to Paud, where we encountered some bad patches and under-construction roads. But, beauty of water-full Mulshi reservoir and water falls merging in to Mulshi lake made it awesome sight to visit on bike. From Paud, we went towards Pavna lake. Pavna dam was over flowing because of three days of continuous rain and we saw lot of visitors coming from Pune to enjoy beautiful sight. Finally, we were coming close to day’s ride and we started seeing some civilization near Lonavala. We stopped for one more re grouping and enjoyed what I would say most beautiful chit chat of two days. Some photographs, some tea and we were again rolling towards Panvel.

Roads from Lonavala to Mumbai were full of fog. We were riding in full passion, clearing mist and rains. It was one of quickest journey for me between Lonavala and Panvel this time. After reaching panvel, we officially announced end of our ‘Ecstasy of Raigad’ tour. Chandni, who successfully rode as pillion for two days with her husband Renin, was awarde Pillion of Ride award. Everyone cheered up spirit of riders and thanked each other for being good co-rider along the trip.