Sunday, June 19, 2005

Hard Rain ... driving in delhi on the night of 6th june, 2005

Dont know how many of the delhi guys drove in the rains yesterday night, but it was a second time experience for me(the first being in chennai when i was stuck in the tropical rains but continued on my bike to reach home).

I had just left my office in Noida and reached Sarita Vihar when the first showers started to pour in. I reached under the flyover quickly where all the 2 wheelers had stopped as the rain suddenly became very violent well supported by a storm. I put my mobile and wallet in a polybag and then decided to move on as I was amazed by the power of the storm and somewhere in my conscience wanted to test my bike.

I got drentched the moment I came out of the flyover. The winds became stronger after I crossed Apollo hospital and the bike kept swaying between the four wheelers and it was pretty hard to control in the tight traffic. Only few 2 wheelers were visible on the rode by now. I sped up in order to control the bike keeping in mind that it can slip due to rains. After I climbed up the Modi mill flyover things got extremely worse as it was hardly visible through the helmet visor and I could not open the visor due to the piercing rains.

By now almost all 2 wheelers were parked by the road side and many 4 wheelers had joined them too, some of them in the middle of the road itself. After cutting through them and going up the next flyover my p180 classic died. I was worried that I had made a mistake coming out in the rain. I was standing there exposed to the harsh storm and rain with my bike not responding. I thought that was it but one flick at the self start and the bike revved again ...

I climbed down the flyover and then stopped at the Nehru place petrol pump to check if the water had seeped into my bag as I was carrying some important documents. Many vehicles were parked there with there owner standing there waiting for the monster rain to die down. All was well in the bag and it was time to move on. Although now the engine was groaning but it carried on without dying. I just wanted to reached my destination, Hauz Khas.

Now there was no sign of any 2 wheeler on the road except me zig zagging between parked and extremely slow moving 4 wheelers. There was a big jam at CR park road so I decided to take a detour from the inside roads and then out again before the Savitri flyover where I noticed the jam was becoz the police had stopped the traffic. I moved on at a faster pace due to empty roads only to find myself in a pool of knee high water. Now i realized why the traffic was stopped. Anyway it was too late so I just cut through the water praying and was out of it with flying colors.

No more of water pools ahead and the bike went on groaning but it went on. Had to face some of the hardest rain although the face was saved due to the helmet but the rest of the body was tortured. Added to that couldnt see a thing in front except for a few tail lights.

Finally I reached my destination an was welcomed just before that by a big four wheeler splashing a big wave of water on me.

In the morning, the horns were not working, the self start was not working but everything else looked fine. I think it was not one of the wisest decisions I made to move on in such rains but I surely had a sense of achievement in doing so although a little sad about the state of my bike's electricals.

shivpuri - bike trip


The original plan was me on my P180 and another friend of mine on his karizma + some more friends in 2 Indicas. Unfortunately my friend on the Karizma couldnt go with us. We started at 5:15 am in the morning of sat 28th may from Noida. It was tough to slow down to the pace of the Indicas .. and then on the way to Meerut I found another guy on pulsar and a blank stretch of road and both of us stretched our bikes ... then I had to slow down for some miles for the Indicas to catch up with me. We stopped at Cheetal for breakfast at 7:15 am. We started from there at 8:35 am. I found some amusing jeeps with loads of people on them in the way and finally after crossing Muzaffarnagar, Roorkee, and Haridwar I decided to give my bike a breather. I parked it in shade and just lied down on it and fell asleep on top of the bike ..


a sign board at cheetala sign board at cheetal


talk about seating capacity


the road ahead


After around half an hour when my friends reached me they woke me up and we started our ascent on the mountains at 11:15 am. We had to face a lot of traffic till Rishikesh.
Only after Rishikesh did the road opened up and it was amazing to drive on the mountain curves bending the bike on open corners.

Finally we reached our camp at 12:20 pm. A total distance of 291 kms from my house in Vasant Kunj. We straight away went for rafting after which we had a camp fire in the night.


liquid cooled

The next morning we started back at 11:00 am. I took 2 - mins stops before stopping at Cheetal for lunch at 2:00 pm. We had lunch at Cheetal and then went non stop till Delhi starting at 3:00 pm and reaching by 5:00pm. It was too hot to drive during the day and I had a tough time sitting on the bike .... but as a whole it was a nice trip and I had a warm up before venturing deeper into the Himalayas.