Saputara Bike Ride 070922

Not really driven a bike since ages, to put the fact clearly don’t know even how to ride one, really confused about the gears. How do I go for a bike ride adventure to saputara ( 600 + km round way ) ?

No choices left I decided to learn bike riding, with only three days to go, I knew that since the roads are bad the max. speed will be 60 –70 km/hr. so with the speed factor out, I only needed to concentrate on gear control and ride @ 60 km/hr and. Well three days were more than enough; I could now even participate in formula 1 race ( Joking at least not with the splendor bike, I borrowed from my relative, and yes splendor did make the whole journey, though I did miss out on speed and power ) and special thanks /appriciation for my wife vinni for putting her trust in my bike riding skill and offering her gracious presence as my pillion rider

Finally the day arrived and as decided we left early morning at @ 3:30 and reached borivali station. Here we put all our bags in the qualis that we had hired. (Taking qualis with us proved to be a wise decision after all, we had taken it initially so that those who did not have bike will be able to come on it and later swap with the pillion rider and enjoy the bike ride and also to dump our baggage’s. Quails really proved handy when one bike had a freak mishap and also when we had two bike tires flat late night on the highway while returning.)

From borivali we went to our final pick up point at teen hath naka, thane gradually picking people on our way and also joined by other bikes in between. Here the whole group was waiting and we had a 15 min briefing by ajay, he asked that every bike head light and the left indicator should be on irrespective of light condition, we commenced our bike ride by the auspicious coconut breaking ceremony . We were all together 13 bikes and 1 qualis in all.

Thus began the great moronz adventure to saputara on bike. We took the route viz. Mumbai - Thane – Igatpuri - Nasik – Vani – Saputara – Wagaai – Dharampur – Vapi – Manor – Borivali, with a night halt at Saputara.

Vinni also took opportunities in riding the bike while I become her pillion. We reached nasik with minor hiccups en route with Janki and her rider with minor injury and few getting left behind and some getting far ahead, some taking different road and few lost.

Here we decided to end the pandemonium and numbered the bikes and asked every bike to follow in sequence, that did help a lot and we were riding in formation, it was a sight to see, with our head lights and left indicator on with one bike after another altogether 13 bikes.

Finally we reached Saputara. We did have occasional rains in between but it didn’t dampen our spirits, as a matter of fact we wanted rain so desperately, it really cooled the weather.

At Saputara we had booked a bungalow managed by Gujarat state tourism department, we had all our lunch, dinner and breakfast included in the package.

The bungalows had a commanding view of the valley below. If ever visiting Saputara please do make a point to stay at one of these bungalows near the valley point.

We also had Australian and India T20 semi final Match on that very day, no points for guessing who won, and we cheered every moment of the match.

Early next morning we went to the top of the valley pt. where we did some photo shoots of the group. After having our breakfast we went to the lake where we were given complimentary pass for boating. We left for Mumbai from here without wasting much time, as we wanted to go to Gira falls on the way.

Asbsolutly amazing falls to see we did not go near the falls though we managed to find a small reservoir where we had fun. We didn’t have much time as we had to reach Mumbai early and we left Gira falls highly charged up.

The roads after this were excellent and few of us touched 110 km/hr before we reached Vapi, and had our late lunch or early dinner, you can call whatever you want.

From here the roads looked very tempting, but make no mistake, looks can be deceptive, so were the roads and there were these dangerous pot holes, few of our bikes did manage to land on these pothole at 80 + speed and had to pay with flat tires, lucky for us we averted any serious incidents.

After this we did drive slowly and reached Vasai on NH-8, from here it was an ordeal, we were so near yet so far from Mumbai, it was very late and we had to move at snails pace and zig zag our way through the serpentine queue of trailers and trucks. Finally after our 2 hr ride from Vasai we reached Mumbai, with lot of memories to cherish for eternity.. For eternity??? ( I don’t think so , I am up and rocking for a different adventure altogether )