Bike Ride to Lonavala

After spending weeks and weeks of our lives in office, we were all too exhausted and in dire need of a recess. Having a 6-days week in office is, if not more, certainly not lesser than having jailed at Guantanamo Bay. But, hearts only can’t decide the route to nirvana, the domain of decision making is governed by a rather sophisticated organ, Brain. And, what Brain was seeing was burning road ahead, waiting to char our skin and ride-deprived soul too!

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Last Saturday, Heart won the dispute and on suggestion of one of our colleagues, it was decided that we are riding up to Lonavala and further to Aamby Valley on Sunday early morning. We were four riders, me-the Bulleteer, Rudra-the Fast Biker, Satyaki-the Cool Mind and Abhimanyu-the Photographer;

on 3 bikes - RE Thunderbird TS, Bajaj Pulsar 220, HH Hunk and with a single aim beat the heat!

Our Gang: Rudra, Satyaki, Abhimanyu and Me (R to L)

Later, we came to know that xBHP guys are also coming to the Lonavala-Aamby Valley ride. So, we were all hoping a valuable meet with hell lot of superbikes. And yes, it was jusnt not a dream…it happened….and how I’ll tell later. First, it would be better if I talk about the Lonavala and Aamby Valley then about our ride.

Lonavala is ~100 km southeast of Mumbai at 625 m above MSL. It’s a small hill-station, near Khandala, and both the towns share the Twin Hill stations status. There are number of beautiful spots and the place is best to visit during August-September after Monsoon arrives the West coast. We left Navi Mumbai at 6:30, and by quarter past seven, we were at Kamath Restaurant, Lonavala. The ride through JNPT and NH 4 was fabulous, we were riding over 80 kmph and shy fully have been overtaken by Kawasaki Ninja and Honda CBR, holy God, before we can notice even. Riding over the NH-4 to reach the Pune-Express Highway was too adventurous with some real steep curves. Past the Pune-Express Highway Canal, privilege was to see the Super Bikers as pretty (pity!) as we were behind a Hero Honda Splendor! ;-)

The Super Bikers' Gang's Bounty (R1, Hayabusha, Ninja) (by Abhimanyu)

At Kamath, we met the complete Super Bikers’ Gang owning Ninza, Honda CBR, Hayabusha, R1, R15 and BMW too! There we left that gang, and met the xBHP guys at RamaKrishna Restaurant, Lonavala. They were a group of 40+ guys from Mumbai and Pune. The Gang owned a number of Pulsar 220 and Karizma, beside Comet, CBR, RR, R1, R15 and a brand new white Hayabusha. From this point we rode with the xBHP gang up to the Aamby Valley township. The road to Aamby Valley is awesome with so many snake shaped curves and valleys! We reached the Gates of township, had some time counting heads and wheels, taking pictures of the bikes and returned back. While returning we posed with our bikes, trying cornering and flashing chromes.

xBHP Gang Bikes at Aamby Valley (by Abhimanyu)

Mighty Hayabusha (by Abhimanyu)

Nomads: At far-Rudra, Nearer-Satyaki, In Rear View: Me (by Abhimanyu)

The Buletteer! (by Abhimanyu)

Cornering by Rudra (by Abhimanyu)

Shivlinga Peak, as shot by Abhimanyu

Our trip was not intended to explore the Lonavala, it was a bike-ride, exploring the road, meeting the wheel-enthusiasts and was, as expected, fabulous. Next time, when we’ll visit the place we’ll explore the spots and caves of Lonavala and get more for your guys! This time, just the road and the wheels…

Road and wheels! (by Abhimanyu)

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It’s been there for geological ages, we have been looking at it for last about 4years and I have been planning to trek it since a long time. Finally, few weeks back, we trekked the Ghansoli Hill. Ghansoli Hill is located at the eastern boundary of Ghansoli town, behind our office complex at RCP. The hill or better hillock is a part of small range that separates Kalyan and Navi Mumbai towns. A search on Google Map returns with a name Parsik Hill for it, though there is one more rather famous Parsik Hill in Navi Mumbai. We also found a NewsArticle , that talks about NMMC plans to develop Nature Awareness Centre at this hills and calls it Gawli Dev Hill. Here, we would be calling it Ghansoli Hill . I asked my colleague about it and he readily agreed. The very next Sunday we did it with another friend. We weren't aware of the route. All we knew is that a Central Road runs along the western edge of the hill and can be reached through the Vashi-Mhape road. We later found that there’

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