Reclamation – Day 1 of 10..

Woke up super early today, rushed downstairs with my luggage and started mounting it on the bike with all the bungees et al.. There was no scope for any Delays today, the target was a huge 670 kms – before dark.

Left by 630am, was almost freezing out. And it still took me a long 45 minutes to get to the highway because of traffic towards the highway.

It wasn’t gong to be an exciting day, a long boring ride on one of the best highways in India – NH4. No turns, no greenery, no nothing, just miles of motorway. The thought that the sooner I reach Bombay, the sooner I can begin the fun part of my trip, kept me motivated..

I haven’t made any hotel bookings do this trip, except the one in Mumbai. There seems to be a strange type of uncertainty about this trip – If, where and when do I reach.. Not a good feeling, definitely not the same feeling as my other trips where it’s more like uncertainly equals adventure.

Stopped by a nice restaurant for fresh hot idlis and had the loaded bike surrounded by kids, admiring it… the ego becomes bigger, the chest swells in pride and the day gets better instantly!

There has to be a way to kill highway time.. Not like I can flip on music like in the car, and I’m definitely not going to put on headphones while riding, plus boring highway ahead all day.

So it had to be target based today.

670 kms, 11-12 hours to complete it in, so average had to be 60kph, regardless of stretching or eating or coffee breaks.. Knowing from my last trip, it’s very evident that you can’t chase a single target for all day riding, your average distance covered will keep reducing as the day goes by.. and as tiredness starts to kick in.

My strategy today was to just open the throttle as much as possible while it was super cold, cos the engine would run cooler, And I would cover more distance before starting to get tired … But life’s not that easy eh..

No matter how much I tried, I kept chasing the 60kph target because I had to also cover up time lost while in the city early morning.

Finally by 400 kms I finally managed to average out 60 for the whole trip completed so far. And it was already Lunch time by then.. If I stop now, I lose 30 mins at a minimum and my target goes for a toss.. either way I stopped for lunch.. there was a third of the distance remaining and I thought I could afford to lose a little bit of time.

On the other end, riding rough could also mean chances of heating, vibration, and any other mechanical chikabooms that could happen, that too on Day 1. To top it up, I had new saddle bags, an imbalance would mean bungees snapping, and a whole lot of imbalance at high speeds.

Nevertheless, I monitored the luggage and continued to push 3 figures on the odo, trying hard to retain the 60 target ..

Long story short, I managed to reach Kolhapur ahead of time – 10.5 hours for 670 kms.. Not shabby at all..

Reached McDonald’s , had some grub, and for referred to a “nice” place to stay..

Not so bad, although it’s one of those “hot water will come in the morning for an hour” type of places.. Negotiated down to a reasonable price , Parked my luggage and headed out to refuel for tomorrow..

Loaded around this small town and now ready to crash after a heavy room served dinner !

Tomorrow is 400 or so kms, let’s see how that goes.. But I do have a luxurious hotel room waiting for me in Mumbai, so I’m not overly bothered as to how tired I get reaching there..