Derailed Dérailleur

Shimano Alivio Rear Dérailleur

As if the trouble of setting up front-dérailleur (Shimano M191) on my cycle (Schwinn Sporterra Sport) was not enough, during last few rides, I had been experiencing severe problems with my rear dérailleur (Shimano Alivio). Now Alivio is not supposed to let you down within merely 1000kms. It's supposed to be quite sturdy and reliable for long time. But here I was clinching my teeth, Clint Eastwood style, every time the chain slipped or didn't get to the right cog. The dérailleur was acting up.

It was as if it had developed a mind of it's own. Now I am not the sort of person who has problem with things developing a mind their own. After coming across so many people who have lost theirs (thanks to my corporate experience) and having been living in a country where even the prime minister doesn't have his own, things having minds of their own usually comes across as a breath of fresh air. As long as the mind is confident of what it's doing, that is. The mind of this dérailleur was a different story.

Whenever I tried to shift the chain from a smaller cog to a bigger one, it hesitated. And not only that, it kept on hesitating for quite some time. On one trigger from me, first the chain would move to a larger cog, then the dérailleur, low on confidence as it was, would move chain 2 cogs down. Again, out of sheer benevolence, it would move the chain 1 cog higher. Then back to where it came from. And this would go on. As a result the chain kept moving from one cog to the other until I had to up-shift/down-shift drastically, and I kept fretting a lot due to the slipping chain.

When it came to shifting the chain to the right desired cog, the dérailleur was as confused and clueless as Venkatesh Prasad batting against a spin attack. Here comes the ball ... should I go on front foot ... ummm no, I think I should stay put on back-foot ... my team is in trouble and i am the lone warrior standing ... so defend is all I want to do, but it has to be the right defense ... so back-foot it is ... but hey, why are they chuckling? ... oh, the bells are on the ground, it must be a dead-ball ... the bells are on the ground because I am castled? ... what? how? when? ... but how come the ball pass by me without me knowing? ... it went from under my bat you say? ... oopsie-daisy ... today is probably not my day ... but you know, what hurts me more is that that little bugger didn't even say Hi! while passing by ... moron.

When I would climb an incline, the dérailleur stayed busy with its jugglery and as a result the pressure on peddle pulled the in-transition chain off the cogs. The chain would slip and that put me in a grave danger of losing balance and taking a good gracious fall. I would keep thinking about what could have been the reason behind this Alivio going kaput on me. It might be the chain - has it elongated?. It might be that I tightened the quick release lever a bit too much on the rear wheel, which might have caused the cogs on the wheel to go out of alignment. I might have washed out the grease inside dérailleur during last wash and that might be causing it. I kept guessing.

Finally today morning, a situation came when I started giving a serious thought to kicking and ripping the dérailleur open for once and all. But good sense prevailed. I broke my ride, got down and gave it a kind attention with a little bit more patience. But even after moving the dérailleur around and taking a look at it from every possible direction, I understood zilch. And then suddenly, like a stroke of lightening, I noticed an adjustment knob where the shifter cable connects to the dérailleur. There were also the HIGH and LOW screws there. But adjusting those HIGH and LOW screws was out of question because I had learnt my lesson while adjusting the front dérailleur. You don't touch them unless you are committed to the adjustment and you have plenty of time at hand. I had none of it. So I decided to give that adjustment-knob a try. The knob would turn either ways, so I turned it in such a way that it came out, increasing the tension on the cable. And viola! Suddenly the dérailleur started behaving like it was put on a leash. The problem was gone for good. In the next 15-20km ride the chain slip problem caused by hesitant dérailleur never appeared again.

Hmm ... So the frustrating trouble for last 2-3 rides was gone with mere couple turns on the adjustment knob. Phew! Turns out, actually doing stuff and troubleshooting problems on your own (your skill level notwithstanding), is the best way of taming a cycle, irrespective of how many maintenance manuals or DIY posts/videos you read/watch.

Gives me confidence that I will be able to manage that 'holy-grail' ride of future, without a backup. Not to mention, this is the only vehicle that gives me this confidence.

Cycling: Sinhagad Ride - All Torture No Gain

The uphill and dowhill sections of the Sinhagad ride

Why did I go there!? I have ridden almost 800kms now, and never ever till date have I shuddered at the thought of, and during, a downhill. Today I did. And my fears were right, the downhill almost broke open my wrists, jammed my back, busted my hips, cracked my neck and screwed (no pun) my shoulders ... there can't be anything worse. Up Sinhagad, it's a not a road, it's merely a bunch of stones (of all forms and sizes) scattered around as per whim (the stone's) and glued together with - sometimes tar, sometimes, loose dirt! Did I not know that the road was bad? Oh yeah, I did. But last time, when I had been there on my Apache, the bike suspension had kept these intricate road stats at bay, and even though I had cursed the bad road that time as well, actual details of 'just-how-bad-is-bad' I experienced today on a suspension-less near-road-bike - my Sporterra Sport - with it's tiny 700x38c tires filled to the brim with fresh morning air.

Sinhagad ride was on the back of the mind for sometime due to the way it's placed alongside Lavasa (ha!). I wanted to check just how tough it was going to be on a cycle. So in the morning I left, just about time when the skies were lightening up. Thought the Warje road would be better than the always-under-construction-and-dug-up Sinhagad road. But boy, was I wrong! The Warje road is at least as bad, if not worse, as the Sinhagad road; and what with the tiny suffocating gullies stinking of rotten meat everywhere. Uptill Donaje, the road is pathetic to put it very mildly. And from Donaje till Sinhagad, the road is beyond my stock of a gentleman's vocabulary.

As for the ride, during uphill you dont mind bad roads because you are anyway at a snail's pace. So uphill: good road is good to have, not a necessity. Going by the elevation plot, it looks like a mighty inclined one, but the gradient at 4.8%, is less than the 6% gradient of Lavasa climb. All along the ride, I never felt like losing it at any point in time. On Lavasa, it does feel like that during the Lavasa-4 to Lavasa-3 stretch. Here, I was quite at ease during the first part of the climb and carried on feeling quite fresh, no huffing or puffing. To give it to the Sinhagad climb, the last 2.5kms stretch indeed sports a respectable 8% gradient. But all along, it never looked like I wouldnt make it without a stop; except for the last stretch where, after passing on an opportunity to sip some water on a platued road, and then never getting any chance later on due to continuous climb, I was on the edge of getting dehydrated. The wheels were slipping due to loads of gravel on the road, and to make the matter worse, the chain was slipping and the rear derailleur (it's Alivio for crying out loud!) had developed a mind of it's own, changing gears when it deemed fit. I, for once, thought that I would have to take a stop and attend to the issues. But carry on I did, summoning all my endurance. And good enough, reached the top of Sinhagad without a single stop after leaving home.

When I check the stats and look back on the ride, I feel Lavasa gets exhausting in the final climb probably because you need to first ride ~40kms to reach the base of the climb - 2 ghats along the route; while here for Sinhagad the distance is exactly half of that without any ghats enroute. So comparatively you are mighty fresh when you arrive at the base, and then it's not that big a deal to reach the top.

After reaching the top, by the time I noticed a non-piercing boulder to sit and settled on it, I found out the phone battery was dying. So I immediately saved the uphill ride and replaced the battery with a spare one that I had carried. The prudence of spending a thousand bucks on a spare battery finally paid off. More importantly, not forgetting to carry it and then actually having it around when needed, was even more satisfying. So even though the ride is split into two halves - uphill and downhill -, and however much I would have liked to have recorded in a single GPX, I at least could have it recorded.

The downhill from Sinhagad top, has already been given a grand treatment, so no more on that again. But I was desperately looking forward to get onto even a semi-decent road where all my bones wouldn't have to rattle like they were stuffed in a leather bag and swayed end to end; where a vibration started at a knuckle of my toe will not have to end up at the tip of the highest standing hair on my head. But the misery continued till I got on the bypass.

The moment I hit bypass, that smooth surface of tar was such a relief and so inviting, that I threw caution to winds and raced like a man with a mission, outpacing a Maruti Omni enroute. There. Even my cycle has outpaced a Maruti now. You better be not around until I will have to out-run you, you Maruti people ;) The joy of seeing utter disbelief in that Omni driver's eyes, for a moment, made me forget the dusty, trafficy, unsettled, tormenting ride on the Sinhagad road till then.

The nearly same timings for uphill and downhill are an indication of how much I would have cursed everyone and everything that came in a kilometer's distance of being even remotely responsible for the road condition.

Here is a short comparison of a Lavasa and Sinhagad cycling ride (in my eyes) --

Destination:	Lavasa (aah!)	Sinhagad
Distance till Base:	~36kms	~18kms
Climb from Base:	8kms	12kms
Overall Gradient:	6%	4.8%
Top Gradient:	8.1% for 4.6kms (mid climb - around Lavasa-4 milestone)	8% for 2.5kms (final climb till the top)
Road Condition:	Goooooooooooood!!	Horror of horrors!
Will I go Back:	Hell Yeah!	Well, not until I lose my mind ... again.

And here are uphill and downhill tracks recorded and maintained on Sports-Tracker -
Home to Sinhagad (uphill): http://www.sports-tracker.com/#/workout/shreyas/cjb0cf3e6mo4pvem
Sinhagad To back Home (downhill): http://www.sports-tracker.com/#/workout/shreyas/cjb0cf3e6mo4pvem

वासुदेव

वासुदेव आऽऽला वासुदेऽऽऽऽव आऽऽला होऽऽऽऽ
सकाळच्या पाऽऽऽऽरी हरिनाम बोला

खणखणीत आवाज.पण तितकाच सुरेल. लहानपणा पासून कित्येत वासुदेब बघितले, ऐकले; पण असा सुरांची जाण असलेला पाहिल्यांदाच. सकाळी ६-६:१५च्या दरम्यान गाढ झोपेत असलेला मी खाडकन जागा झालो. त्यानं उठा पांडुरंगा म्हणेपर्यंत झोप डोळ्यावरुन पूर्ण उतरली होती. एकदा वाटलं पटकन ध्वनीमुद्रित करावं आणि youtube वर टाकावं पण आळस आडवा आला आणि मी गादीवर लोळत त्याचं गाणं ऐकत तसाच पडून राहिलो.

आवाज इतका खणखणीत की त्याला माईकची गरज नाही. गाणं म्हणत म्हणत तो दूरवर गेला तरीही त्याचा आवाज येतच होता. जून्याकाळी, राजा-रजवाड्यांच्या काळात, ज्यावेळी माईक किंवा amplifiers नव्हते, त्या काळात असता तर ह्याच्यावर वासुदेब व्हायची पाळी आली नसती कदाचित इतका सुंदर आणि standout आवाज.

(वासु)देव करो आणि हा वासुदेव कुणा जाणकार (आणि 'पोहोच' असलेल्या) माणसाच्या कानावर पडो.

Cycling: Lavasa and My First Century Ride

My Sporterra Sport became a month old today. So far, it has run around 650kms. Quite a few long rides in those 650kms - twice to Lavasa and back (~100kms each), then twice over the Katraj Ghat (around 50kms each), and couple times to Pirangut and Mutha ghats (around 30-50kms each). I can feel the stamina and muscle improving. I can feel my heart, lungs and legs getting in better shape and getting stronger. This was not the case when I had just got the cycle though.

Since my last Lavasa climb, I had started cycling frequently. Fresh air and lack of traffic in the morning, opens up quite a few routes around Kothrud/Chandani-chowk area for cycling. One is along the bypass through the new Katraj Tunnel, take a u-turn at Shindewadi and take old Katraj Ghat - old tunnel - Katraj bypass - Pune bypass - chandani chowk: ~50kms. This route can be done other way round as well and that involves old Katraj Ghat climb which has quite a challenging gradient. Another is to Pirangut and back: ~30kms. If you have got time or start quite early in the morning, Mutha Ghat climb is even better and is around 50km ride.

One such Mutha ghat climb, which is around 50km ride, had taken me 3hrs for to-and-from journey and had given me a confidence boost about my improving edurance. I was feeling the improvement and was getting psyched up to tackle the grand-daddy of them all - Lavasa - again.

So I woke up one fine morning, did some stretches (important!) as usual, and started for Lavasa at around 5:30am. There were 2 goals: one was to reach the top in 3hrs and second was 5hrs of total to-and-fro timing. Given the experience of first time, both the goals looked tough and I was expecting around 3:30hrs for the top and 6hrs to-and-fro.  Also, this time I had Sports-Tracker as my ride tracker, and given its excellent power management, I was sure I would be able to lock in the whole ride's data without battery issues.

The sky had just started lightening a little when I reached Pirangut descent. This is one of the best descents out there, and it's here where I have clocked my top-speed of 60.4km, which I haven't been able to manage on the descent of any other ghats despite standing up. By the time I reached the point where Mutha Ghat starts, I had taken 2 breaks - one for ATM and another for buying an extra water bottle; just in case. The ghat climb was done without any amount of exertion. In fact I reached the cusp, when I was expecting further climb. I remembered my last time when I was huffing and puffing and desperately waiting for the top. I was in much better form and shape this time round.

View from Mutha Ghat Top down the Pirangut-side Valley

While climbing up Mutha, I saw couple of bikers speeding up and down the ghat perfecting their cornering skills and enjoying the adrenaline overall. Lack of traffic early in the morning, cool air, excellent road condition and the twisty nature of the Mutha ghat makes for a rider's heaven. No wonder these adrenaline-junkies, fully dressed up in protective gear, were whizzing up and down it.

Subsequent descent and Mutha town came by quickly. "Lavasa: 18km" read a board. 10kms more and I was at the Temghar wall. Saw a lot of school-children on the way to school. Oohs and aahs and laughter and comments passing would ensue when they would catch sight of me. The cycle indeed attracts a lot of attention, especially of the younger lot. And the older teenagers out of these school-goers are not always nice. Some of those jackasses pass quite nasty comments trying to attract attention of the girls (walking behind) and win brownies by deriding the urbanites. More power to you hillbilies.

At the Temghar Wall

Reached Temghar dam in next half an hour. Took one final break at the Temghar wall which marks the start of the much awaited Lavasa climb. Sip of water, a little stroll, stretches and I started up. Last time I had climbed, I had wondered if anybody would be able to do it in a single shot, without a break from Temghar wall to the Lavasa top. So this time round, the goal was to do exactly that - go up without a single stop.

I took it easy in the start, trying to conserve energy for that horrible Lavasa-4 to Lavasa-3 stretch. Noticed the same pair of Mutha riders (all helmets look the same), labouring up and down the slopes of Lavasa now. Cornering is a bit more challenging here due to switchbacks.

At Lavasa Finally

By the time I got to the Lavasa-4 milestone, a bit of exhaution had set in due to continuous climb. And boy, the Lavasa-4 to Lavasa-3 stretch was just as horrible, as brutal, as pure-inferno as it was the previous time. But this time, I somehow held up. There were few more leg muscles this time round, which allowed me to partially power through some of the trecherous climbs. I persisted without a stop. And finally, there it was - the cusp! It took me 40-45mins this time to cross the 8kms of climb. The total 'to' journey - from home to lavasa - took 2:36hrs -- 24mins shorter than the goal I had set. There was a tremendous sense of achievement.

On the top, I took some breakfast, and in 15-20mins left for home. The return journey was not much eventful apart from the Mutha and Pirangut climbs, which appeared more gruelling due to some level of exhaustion. On reaching Chandani Chowk, I realised I had done around 88kms and would need 12 more kms to complete a century. Took a detour along Warje, Nal Stop route and got back home after completing 100.7kms in 6:02hrs.

Here is the full GPS track of the ride; and here is the speed elevation profile of the route -

Interesting Correlation

The elevation profile of this Lavasa ride in Sport-Tracker struck as a familiar curve. Initially I thought of it as the impulse response profile of a 2nd order control system. But that curve has an envelope which reflects over X-axis. This elevation profile is on one side of x-axis, i.e it doesn't have a negative elevation. So not applicable.

Then I thought of it to be a sinusoid damped by Gaussian function. Still the Gaussian function curve dies pretty quickly and one doesn't get enough peaks before the sinusoid damps dead.

Finally after couple hours of mathematical and graph plotting jugglery, I could place this curve as - an exponentially damped up-shifted sinusoid, riding a standard normal Gaussian distribution curve. Here is the equation that I came up with -

And here is the graphical plot of the equation -

A Graph That Correlates with the Elevation Curve of Lavasa Route

You will agree that this plot shares a good deal of correlation with the elevation profile of the Lavasa ride. Interesting, isn't it?

Cycling: Lavasa Conquered

It was just a week since I had got the cycle. I had been on some initial training rides of 10-15kms daily, but never had been on a long ride before. The cycle was new, and the overall experience of riding it so far was way better than the one I used to have in my childhood with a Hero Jet first and then a Hercules MTB, Both of them were fixies with reversing paddles. This one on the other hand was a hybrid with gear, and tilting more towards road-bike category with tall gearing, lack of suspension and roadbike style saddle. Quite light, it raced with wind downhill and was not a big deal to drive up a climb, provided you chose the right gears. I was enjoying it so far and was itching to test myself on some mountainous ground. So Lavasa, being touted as quite a tough climb in the cycling community, was always on the back of mind as a challenge to take up as soon as possible.

On Sunday, 2nd Oct, I left home for Pirangut around 9am. It was not that hot, and even after reaching Pirangut, I didnt feel tired. So went on towards Mutha ghat. The idea was to turn back when it stops being pleasant. The Mutha ghat climb was quite an arduous one. Lack of training and you start feeling exhausted quite early. Sangli is laid out on a plain with hardly any elevation change throughout. So I was a total newbie to ghat-climbing ovrall, and naturally I struggled. I took couple of breaks and reached the top with quite a bit of effort.

The descent to Mutha town felt very pleasant due to the cool breeze that accompanies speed. On reaching Mutha, a roadside board announced Lavasa was mere 18kms from there. Too close to turn around from a tempting challenge. Lavasa, I had heard, was a pretty hard climb. I had been therer on bike and in car, but had never appreciated the toughness of the climb from a physical-energy perspective. So I marched on.

After pedalling for around 10kms, I reached Temghar dam. There was quite a bit of crowd in front of the Temghar wall. All weekend public. Loud music in the cars, trendy show-offs with slicks and goggles and fake accent, and quite a bit of fresh plastic garbage around. Not to mention the 'water-sports' going on in the released water. This waterfall and getting-wet fetish people have is beyond me sometimes. One drive on a rainy Sunday in the Tamhinis and you will understand why my cynicism borders on the lines of disgust.

Right after the Temghar wall started the real climb. From Temghar wall, Lavasa top is around 7-8 kms. All of that is energy sapping climb, with a kilometer of pleasant descent till the Lavasa gate once you reach the top, thrown in as a reward. In the first couple of kms itself I started realising how grim the climb was getting. It was gradually getting tougher and tougher. I had to take a lots of breaks - for water, for catching my breath, for stopping my lungs from exploding any moment and for keeping my leg muscles from tearing apart. There were quite a few on-lookers - bikes, cars, buses, tempos, who were craning their necks to have a look, with a combination of who's-this and what-the-heck questions written all over their faces. Some of them smiled, some waved, some of them had a cheerful word while passing by.

It was all misery nevertheless. Especially the climb between "Lavasa-4km" and "Lavasa-3kms" milestones was absolutely brutal on me. There were switchbacks which were inclined so terribly that if one would stop pedalling, he would start rolling down immeditely. Later on I figured, this particular climb is part of a stretch that gains 372 mtrs (~1220 feet) of height in mere 4.6kms! That's a freaking 8.1% gradient, and it kills. A point came when I couldnt take the bicycle over even a single climbing switchback without panting for breathe. These switchbacks were getting severe and I had to do something about it, since turning around was not an option, and I didnt want to push the bike even a centimeter to blot the final achievement. So I altered the riding pattern a bit. Rather than taking break just at any point, I would ride till the base of next intimidating enough climbing switchback, and then take a break for sometime. Would freshen up with a sip of water and then would 'attack' the climb with all the gathered energy. It worked.

Those 8kms of climb took me an insane 1.5hrs. By the time I reached the top, I was as miserable as a wet dog. Exhausted and hungry, I took a sumptious lunch at one of the hotels near the entry gate. Idled for about an hour, sitting on a chair outside, taking in the views and the movements, and wondering how in the world was I going to make it back to home. I had come till there alright, but home was still ~50kms from there; the only saving grace being there was no other Lavasa climb on the way back. Took a look at the GPS track from My Tracks android app which showed I took ~5hours for home-to-Lavasa journey. That was a long time, and it was a long way back home now. Unfortunately, the battery had depleted and I had to switch off tracking and the phone altogether, during the return journey.

Once the lunch was settled, I got back on the bicycle and started towards home. The Lavasa descent is not *that* pleasant due to the same dangerous switch-backs where one has to slow down or skid off the edge.

The reverse Mutha climb (towards Pune) is even more arduous, than the one coming from Pirangut. But climbed it without a single stop and took rest only after reaching the cusp of the ghat. Mutha descent is pleasant on both sides, and it doesnt take much time to Pirangut after that. The Pirangut ghat, while climbing towards Pune, is mighty exhausting. But did that without a rest too and took rest at the top. Small challenges like climbing ghats without a stop or timing the climbs make things interesting and take your mind off home and hunger.

By the time I reached home, it was 6pm and I was again very hungry and exhausted. I had left Lavasa around 2:45pm and that meant I took around 3:15hrs for journey back home.

Surprisingly, there were no pains apart from the exertion pains, which are actually pleasant in a way because they indicate evolving muscles. I had a fear that the knee pain I had developed during Katraj-Sinhagad trek would show its ugly head. But thanks probably to my prudence of maintaining good cadence throughout, no injury (re)occured.

Here is the GPS track (one way till Lavasa) on Sports-Tracker. And here is the speed and elevation profile along the route -



I had used My Tracks android app for tracking, and it recorded the GPX file well. But it was a battery hog and compared to it, Sports-Tracker offered much better features and eye-candy plotting (the one you are seeing above, is from Sports-Tracker). So I uploaded the GPX file from My Tracks to Sports-Tracker. I tried some other apps as well, including Endomondo, but chose Sports-Tracker finally, despite few of its irritating niggles (like slowy slow UI). So far, it hasn't crashed on me mid-ride, touch-wood.

Going Green with .... a bicycle(!)

my Schwinn Sporterra Sport - as on DayOne: 25Sep2011

Finally my search for a bicycle ended on last Sunday, on a high note. I bought a Schwinn Sporterra Sport 2011. The bike comes with 24-speed gearing, quick release on both the wheels, a lever for quick saddle height adjustment, and good components overall. The bike is very light-weight, runs mighty smooth and is a pleasure to ride. I rode it for around 12km, all the way from Shivram Sales to Kothrud, and deliberately chose non-traffic route with some serious ups and downs. It was 12pm in the afternoon that I started back to home and it was hot like anything. Still, I wasnt exhausted when I got back home. In fact, and I dont mean to drum it up, but I was still feeling quite fresh after the ride. That was a bit surprising since I was riding a bicycle almost after 6-7years.

Along the way that I had chosen, there were few testing inclines. But the gearing turned out to be very helpful while negotiating those inclines. My first time riding a geared bicycle, and I can already see why people actually love cycling.

It was not all rosy though. The front derailleur was out of adjustment it seemed since it kept faltering while shifting between 1st and 2nd chainrings. Next morning, I could fix it after a few turns of barrel-adjuster along with couple of high-low settings on the dérailleur.

Apart from that, two of my body parts were quite uncomfortable with this change in vehicle. First were my wrists and lower palms. And second - were my bums. After couple of rides, the soreness in palm and wrist started to recede. The bums on the other hand, were so sore that even sitting on a highly cushioned chair felt like sitting on a pair of spears. The saddle, like any other performance bicycle saddle, is a hard one and makes for uncomfortable riding. The pain has receded after a couple of rides, but it's still quite uncomfortable. So it looks like, as people recommend, a lycra bib or at least a short with chamois reinforcement is a must for riding such cycles.


Gearing: Gear Inches and Shifting

Gearing Chart

The cycle has 24-speed gearing (8 cogs in the rear and 3 chainrings in the front) with Shimano Alivio as the important rear-derailleur. Before I decided upon buying Sporterra Sport, I went through the drive-train setup of various cycles, including road-bikes. I felt that the sporterra sport's teeth configuration of 48/38/28 on the chainrings and 11-30 on the rear cogs made perfect sense for a beginner like me. I didnt count individual teeth on each of the rear cogs, but assumed a standard configuration as - 11-13-15-17-20-23-26-30. And then with Sheldon Brown's gear calulator, got an idea of what the gear inches will be for each of the gear and how they will change from gear to gear. Here is the chart that I got there, and I have highlighted what gears I will be using while shifting up and down.

As can be seen, even though the cycle is 24-speed, one can hardly use more than 10-12 gears out of those 24. Using the non-highlighted gears can quickly wear out the chain/chainrings/cassette.


Experience with Dealers

There are quite a few cycle dealers in Pune. Some are old timers, selling cycles for ages. Some are new comers, trying to tap into the booming market of enthusiasts with deep pockets (thanks in part to the IT industry). I initially went to the Track-n-Trail dealer - Surendar Cycles on Karve Road. In my couple of visits there one thing I strongly realized that this guy is all about sales and marketing talk. He tried to upsell, he tried to patronize me, he tried to be smart, he bragged, he berated other dealers, and even tried the classic FUD when I mentioned I might consider other dealers if I don't get a fair deal there. This blog is not a place to go in details about bits and pieces of the conversation, but suffice to say that - by the time I left his shop, I was disgusted with him, had not even an iota of trust in that guy, and had decided I wouldn't buy from him, come what may.

I went to Shivram Sales, on Satara Road, one of the dealers he had berated and had tried FUD on. Within half an hour I was out with a brand new Schwinn Sporterra Sport 2011 model, at a much lower price-point, with complementary basic accessories like stand, bottle-cage, lock and a bell; and as per regular practice - 2-free-maintainances and 1-year guarantee on the frame, handle and fork. All of which, this Surendar Cycle owner had written-off as "absolutely-not-possible" in a kind of virtual chest-thumping.

Moral of the story, stay away from such upsellers, and crooks while buying a bicycle in Pune. Look for a better deal with other dealers. These cycles are from international brands, and are not supposed to fail on you. Besides, these other dealers also offer the same maintainance and gurantee that these branded stores will offer. So dont fall for the FUD that these crooks are intent on spreading.

Lifecycle mall, by the way, also offers similar high prices, but they seem to have some ethics. They at least dont brag and berate other dealers, or brand of cycles that they dont keep. I had enquired about Fomas Roadking Deluxe and was told that they dont keep Fomas, but pleasantly enough, upon probing about the bicycle, I was told that apart from the weight issue, roadking deluxe is not a bad cycle for that price. The Surendar Cycle guy, upon enquiry, had told me snobbishly "we dont sell junk". I should have crossed him off my list at that point itself.


Way Ahead

I had thought about quite a few intersting plans around cycling, before taking the plunge and buying this Sporterra Sport. God-willing, if my left knee (which I had hurt during the Katraj-Sihagad trek last year) holds up, I will hopefully be able to realise those plans. Let's see how it all goes. Exciting times ahead. 

Power, Religion and Social Inhibitions

I have been wondering this for quite sometime now. Why do we have such a huge premium on morality? Where does it connect? Why is a girl/guy who sleeps around, looked down upon with disgust? It's just a physical need. What's wrong with satisfying it? Do we look down upon people who eat dinner at one restaurant and sweets from another? Why do we have this big taboo surrounding anything related to sex? Are we as a society so immature that we cannot handle openness about sexuality? Are we bound so much by religion and religious preachings that we haven't thought about alternative way of life, and fear that way might lead to chaos? fear of the unknown?

We are a land where Kamsutra originated. We are a land where Khajuraho was sculpted. Our Ramayana and Mahabharata are ripe with stories with hidden references, like Ahilya's story, and Yayati's story, Indra's lust, Kamdev's adventures etc. Considering all these, it's difficult to understand why we have inhibitions about sex and sexuality? Are we being controlled under the pretext of religious preachings?

All the powerful and creative people behave uninhibited. May those be actors, diplomats, celebrities, musicians (case in point is an 'illegitimate' child of a Sitaar maestro), sportsman. I wont even mention politicians.

Why then only the middle class considers that staying 'pure' is a way to save the culture? Europeans had a culture as well. The French, for example, come across as some of the most outgoing and free-est people when it comes to openness, sexuality and life. French directors have been handling taboo subjects way ahead of their times, since the mid 20th century. The subjects were controvertial, and sometimes tilted towards soft core porn as well. But they had the openness and courage to try it. Their society didn't burn them for that. And despite this, their culture isn't going anywhere, and is as intact as it was before.

I have an inkling that these probably sound like randomly hewn fabric of crude thoughts, but when you see an Emmannuel exploring her sexuality, or when you see some Dreamers enagaging in acts that border on incest, or a when a Laure lets go off social inhibitions and engages in exhibitionism and free sex, you can't help but appreciate the ahead-of-its-time boldness of French cinema, and lament the fact that even a simple and practical concept like live-in relationships doesn't find acceptance in our society.

Tata Docomo Rocks (er ... not really)

Within 2 days of getting a Docomo SIM card, I am a total convert to Tata Docomo now. Never knew grass was so green on the other side.

First the plans are plain and simple and competitively priced. Then there are no differences in network coverage I could spot between using a Docomo prepaid service and Idea's postpaid service. The 2G GPRS plan that Docomo has come up with recently, is a killer. Rs.65/- for 2.5GB per month is wayyyyyyyy better than the Rs.200/- for 500MBs per month that I was paying to Idea since ages.

Most importantly things happen lightening quick and fast with Docomo. My new Blackberry (a humble 8830 world edition) was up and running in mere 3hrs after sending a subscription SMS. I didn't have to go anywhere, nor pester anyone even though it was late in the night. And out of those 3hrs, 2hrs were wasted due to some n/w issue that I was updated about in advance. Otherwise things would have got setup in merely an hour! That's lighetening quick in my book. And that too without any hassels. The executives who instructed me in setting up my Blackberry for registration, who setup service book remotely to my handset, all sounded highly professional and top notch, unlike Idea.

I have been using a Docomo 3G e-stick for months now, and already had a real good experience so far with it. And now after these awesome prepay plans and quality Blackberry setup experience, I am entirely sold on porting my main postpaid Idea number to Docomo prepay for good. There with Idea I have been paying a rupee for minute since last 5yrs and they never came up with any migration plan for me even after years of second-billing explosion in India. On the contrary, they still charge me Rs.49/- for caller line identification!!

Over last 5yrs, all they came up with, for me, were some ponzy schemes which appeared good on the face of it, but later made me regret for subscribing after I realised the catch. Besides, pathetic website, patchy customer service, terribly late introduction of 3G, absolute lack of imagination and creativity with billing plans and those B-grade Bachchan TV commercials which always embarrass me for having an Idea connection; all of these factors are making me think of dropping this Idea connection of 5yrs and port my mobile number to Docomo on the next tick of a second.

It's gonna happen soon for sure.

EDIT: (5Aug2011)
On a hindsight, it was a bit premature to come out gaga over Docomo. I came to know it after using it for a week or so on the blackberry. First, the blackberry was not powerful enough; and second, the Docomo network was not consistent either. So the blackberry kept losing its data connection time and again, and when-in-doubt-pull-it-out policy vis-a-vis blackberry battery didn't work effectively to restore that data connection either. So finally, I ended up disconnecting the BIS altogether. Tried Docomo GPRS instead. But it was neither consistent nor quick. Idea card in the blackberry on the other hand, gave much better GPRS data. And it was consistent too. Not sure if this better QoS was because my Idea connection is postpaid.

So all in all, Docomo has much better plans, very affordable addons and good customer service. It's great when all you want from your phone is calls and SMS. If you want GPRS (2G), at least Docomo prepaid was not upto the mark. Wonder if Docomo post-paid has better QoS that this.

Anyway, time-being, since data is a lot dearer to me than calls and texts, I am going to hang on to Idea. Can't risk bad GPRS connectivity for lesser expenses.

172kmph

Last time I wrote about 151kmph in my Palio on NH4, I had promised myself I was going to take the car on the express-way some day. The revv-happy car begged for a high revv, high adrenaline drive on the wiiiide and loooooong empty stretches on probably the best road in Maharashtra.

I didn't get an opportunity till March-2011 though. Every time I took the car on express-way before March, every time I had some or the other issues in taking the car all the way up on gas. Sometimes it was dark on the expressway, sometimes there was just too much traffic to allow for the risk, and sometimes it was the age of people in the car that prevented me from even thinking about it.

Then came March 8, 2011. I had bought a 21" Wacom Cintiq pressure sensitive tablet from a friend in Goregaon Film-city, and since he was leaving Mumbai in couple of days since, I thought of a plan to make a dash for Mumbai early in the morning, and get back to Pune before office hours. It was a wicked plan, but if successful, it would allow me absolutely ideal conditions on the expressway while coming back - early morning, low road temperature, low traffic, warmed up engine, and most importantly - nobody else in the car whose life would be my responsibility. The expressway and the car would be all to myself. I realized that I may not get such an opportunity to strike 2 birds in a single stone, again.

That day, I left Pune early in the morning, 3:45am, if I remember correctly. I could barely contain my excitement, and could hardly sleep the night before. Even though alarm was set, I got up on instinct, before the alarm went off, and got ready quickly. In no time, my car was on expressway. I had decided to keep it steady while going towards Mumbai, since it was a dark night, and visibility obviously was poor. I was going to cut lose while coming back anyway, so I rather concentrated on getting to the destination, picking up the tablet and then getting back on expressway as quickly as possible, before the Mumbai traffic could bite me.

I reached Filmcity by 6:15am - 2 hours 30 mins door-to-door from Kothrud to Goregaon Fimcity. This was largely thanks to the sometimes-awesome-sometimes-horrible-but-this-time-awesome GPS navigator - Motonav in my Moto Milestone. The maps are probably from MapMyIndia, and the app routed like a charm. That app has been my guiding light in quite a few occasions now, and it has faithfully got me out every time.

After completing the transaction and picking up the tablet, I left Filmcity by 7:15am, took a wrong-turn earlier than the GPS suggested, and then wasted 5-10 minutes further till it got me back on the right route. By the time I reached Vashi toll booth, the sun had already risen up, and it was neither hot, nor chilled - just a pleasant morning with a cool breeze flirting shyly across the face. I was taking in all that while driving in the high speed lane, when I noticed an Innova honking behind me. Before I realized the reason, he changed his lane, cut me in, and then started choking me behind him, as a revenge. That was the kind of provocation I needed when I was all propped up for a high speed blast on expressway in few minutes. I cut in 2 lanes to my left in a wild single swoop, like the auto drivers recklessly do in Pune. Unlike the auto drivers though, I wasn't reckless, but had my eyes on both the rear view mirrors. Again switched one more lane to the left to avoid a bus in front, and was racing parallel to the Innova in no time while cutting through the traffic. But my Palio's 2nd and 3rd gear proved too much for the Innova guy. In a few moments, he was in my rear view mirror, and though he tried a lot to race me, he could never see anything but my car's tail-lights after that.

First it was the cool breeze, and then the pleasure of comprehensively beating a highway bully on his provocation, that set the tone for the expressway for me. I was hyper excited since the plan had worked well and I was on schedule. I was in right frame of mind, with all conditions favorable, to take the final plunge.

I joined the expressway by around 8:15am. Cut through the initial "slow-moving" traffic and once the stretch was long and inviting enough, I cut lose. This was the moment I was waiting for. I built up the speed right from 2nd gear; flirting with the red mark on the RPM gauge. Soon I was racing with the wind. A Swift Desire (VDI if I remember correctly) tried to race with me, in vain. He never made it to the front and gave up trying around 140kmph mark. I kept on building the speed. I literally whizzed past a lot of cars, which were probably doing a respectable 120-130kmph. I bet they would have wondered if Audi/BMW had started building a hatchback, and since when. ;)

I was comfortably past 160kmph mark now and the car was stable. I kept the peddle floored. 165 - 166 - 167 - 168 ... the progress was a little slow in this band, despite the gas. 170kmph - 171 - 172 ... and I noticed the car was a little wobbly now. The same car which was rock steady in 160s, was noticeably wobbly during the 170s. I had a pair of Bridgestone Turanza ER-60 in the front, which are rated for high speed till 190kmph. But in the rear, I had a pair of old Good-Year Assurance, which I was not very confident about. The wobbliness of the car, added to the lack of trust on the rear tires, created doubt in my mind, and in a flash I took my foot off the gas.

I kept it around 145kmph till I again got a psyche and went till 165kmph just for the fun of it. But in the back of my mind, I had accepted 172kmph as the tops for the day, and felt there was no point in going any further till I get something like Micheline PP2 or Yoko S-Drives on. I had already breached 160kmph, which is the psychological 100mph (miles-per-hour) mark. I had already breached 165kmph which the manual mentions as the top-speed (bollocks!) of Palio Stile 1.6 Sport. And besides, this was an accurate 172kmph speed, since it was measured on the GPS. I am sure if the speedometer in the dashboard was working, it would have hovered somewhere around 180kmph mark, due to inherent measurement errors in the mechanical speedos.

Not a single car overtook me on expressway that day.

I reached home at 9:30am - 1 hour 15 minutes after I took to the expressway, and 2 hours 15 minutes after I left filmcity. In all, I left pune at around 4am in the morning, and came back from the heart of Mumbai on the same day by 9:30am in the same morning. Many didn't trust me on that, but the Cintiq stands a tall witness to the fact.

For a driver who had learned driving 8-months back, achieving 172kmph in a stock car, without any mods, is a booster to be cherished for long time. And cherish it I will. But equally true, it doesn't stand anywhere in comparison with those who have scaled 200kmph and higher in their cars, modified or else, on the same expressway. John Krakauer maps this emotion to words well, when he gets fascinated with the life in Chamonix, in his Eiger Dreams, and muses -

"It's a luminous fall afternoon in downtown Cham,
and I am sitting on the terrace of Brasserie L'M,
loitering over a strawberry crêpes and café au lait,
wondering whether I might, given my limited talents,
ever rise above the life of terminally banal."

Shivneri, Sangli, Online Booking and Me

PART1: ~8pm, Friday, 17-Jun

Every time I go to Sangli using public transport, something just has to go wrong. This time round, I booked a ticket for 6pm Shivneri to Sangli from Swargate. After waiting for one full hour at the bus stand, for the 6pm Shivneri, which never turned up, a quick, sane recheck of the ticket printout suddenly made me realize I had actually booked a ticked for 6AM bus rather than 6pm!

So even after leaving office by 4pm, here I am on the way to Peth now, just crossed Katraj ghat at ~8pm (!), with Pethnaka still (at least) 3hrs from here. Then Sangli will still be at least 1hr from there, via a truck, or if I get really lucky - an asiad. Not to mention that there is this constant worry about rain killing those books and laptop in my backpack.

To add to this misery, couple of idiots sitting on either side of me, are constantly chatting on phone for last one full hour. There was a 10 minutes break. But now they have started up again! How fucking difficult it is to stay calm and silent for sometime? Why dont their batteries just dry up? Doesn't their mouth ache due to so much of continuous talking? Don't they get exhausted holding the phone near ear for so long?

If there happens to be a break between all these phone calls, they start chewing something like those salted and roasted peanuts, the smell of which gives me a kick in my guts and strongly reminds me that I am hungry too.

And as if all this is not enough, there are these lamest of the lame and gayest of the gay songs playing in this Kolhapur-bound Shivneri's stereo, that are driving me nuts. I mean I pay premium price for a Volvo ticket and I can't even get a moment of silence forget a peaceful journey? If anyone wants to hear this lame and meticulously-chosen-to-torture 90's Hindi music, he should get his own player and shove those ear-buds up his ... ears. Why force everyone to compulsorily listen to this junk? But that's the way it is, and I need to bear this for 3 more hours at least. Best of luck to myself!

So in short, yet another miserable and fucked-up journey to Sangli via public transport. Jai Ho!



EDIT:PART2: 10:30pm, Friday, 17-Jun to 12:15am, Saturday, 18-Jun

I was partially dozing when I suddenly got a jolt and woke up to find that the bus was standing near a fly-over on NH4. I cursed the conductor for not even announcing that the bus had reached Pethnaka. Hurriedly I got down after one other guy, and thanked my stars for waking me up just at the right moment. A 2 minutes walk after getting down and I realized I had actually gotten down near Karad fly-over and not Pethnaka fly-over. Bravo! It was 10:30pm and it had started raining too! Just what the doctor ordered. Life couldn't get any rosier.

Just then, as if it was all scripted, I spotted a Miraj bound asiad entering Karad, and after a 10 minutes wait on the pavement, I was in the asiad, on the way to Sandli-direct, sitting comfortably by a window seat taking in the cool breeze.

So just like that, I was out of the hours long misery and into a blissful state, sure that I wont be stranded anywhere, and will reach Sangli today night itself. When I am hungry and such a stark transition takes place, it makes me feel like someone up there is playing with me, telling me - "see that fella? see how I can screw you? and then unscrew you too in a jiffy? that's my power. now surrender." Well, guess what, here is a finger for you.

Then I reach Sangli in the dead of the night, eat something, and I get my sanity back.

Of Androids and the Everlasting Fetish

It's just been an year since I bought my Moto Milestone, but it has already started looking very old and outdated in terms of hardware. The 600MHz single core processor on it pales in front of the 1GHz dual-core Tegra's and Snapdragon's that have come out. Responsiveness is the most essential feature of any cellphone, and the Milestone seemingly lacks that now, in comparison with those dual-cores. Not to mention the buggy 2.2 Froyo upgrade from Motorola that kills my home screen time and again, and adds to my frustration.

I have been contemplating buying a new blazzzing-fast, top-of-the-line, state-of-the-art android for sometime now. Samsung's Galaxy series automatically comes to mind, even though their reputation is notorious when it comes to delievering pure android experience. They spruce up the UI quite a bit I hear. The other option being Nexus-S that has launched recently, but looks overpriced when compared with a similarly juiced Galaxy. The Galaxy S-II with its super hardware, was looking very tempting and then came the news of Samsung working on its next flagship Galaxy S-III. Though the release is slated for 1st quarter next year, another news that has grabbed my attention, and put my Galaxy plans on hold, is that of Nvidia being in the process releasing a QUAD-CORE(!!) mobile processor, code-named Project Kal-El. Even my laptop doesn't have a quad-core as of now! The details about the graphics performance are impressive, and makes me longingly look forward to its release and subsequent release of an android featuring it.

Besides, now that not many handsets are being released with hard qwerty keypad, the focus having been shifted to swype instead, I think I will need to reorient myself towards swype, let go of the hard-qwerty drool, and grab the first Tegra quad-core android that comes out in the market.

Beyond Crossroads - A Month Goes By

World beyond C++ has been perplexing and kind of intimidating so far. Probably the same reason makes it quite exciting. I mean, it's not like c++ was a cakewalk or something. I had worked hard to get some good purchase on the linux workflow - builds and makefiles and scripts and editors and gdb and the gamut of technologies that make a c++ backend work.

By the way, this 'getting purchase' thing has come from John Krakaur's highly influential Everest disaster saga - 'Into Thin Air'. I was blown away after watching 'Touching The Void' and then was literally breathless reading 'Into Thin Air'. Couldnt put it down. Anyway, I better keep this newfound fascination for mountaineering, for some other time.

So coming back to c++, I never had a full grasp of how much different the world is outside c++. Python, ruby, rails, php, java, javascript, jquery, struts, ejb, soap, xml-rpc, spring, swing, ajax, django, php frameworks .... the world was oozing with tools and technologies for the web platform, and here I was sustaining some glorious yet already-implemented c++ backend for last couple of years. I was happy only learning and reverse-engineering the marvelous architecture, even though I knew it wasnt going to be implemented again.

I kept neglecting my hunch that entrepreneurial chances are more prevalent in emerging technologies, precisely due to their relevant immaturity; rather than in a time tested technology that's losing its relevance over time.

God knows how much time I am going to take to get a grip on this fish-market of web-technologies, but till then it will be very painful to feel so incompetent whenever I come across a fabulous webapp (or framework) and understand zilch about its internals.

These days I feel like some stone-age tribesman from the amazons. Just out of the wilderness and smack into a modern civilization. I know how to make a stone-spear and hunt using it; but hey, these modern civilizations eat processed food and besides have sharper weapons much more effective than my hand-made stony meanie weenie. So where do I go? All that's useful, and left with me, are some leaves wrapped around my waist ...... and some instincts.

सुकलेल्या खोडाचं गुलाबी स्वप्न

आजकाल नवीन लेन्स घेतल्यापासून रोज कुठेतरी रानात फोटो काढत भटकत असतो. तसाच आजही गेलो होतो. घरी आल्यानंतर फोटो चेक केले आणि ते एका मागोमाग एक एडिट करत असताना हा फोटो समोर आला -


फोटो तर छान आला होताच, पण त्या सुकलेल्या झाडाला फुटलेल्या गुलाबी मोहोराचा विरोधाभास बघून सुचलेल्या या चार ओळी -

जीर्ण तनु जरी झाले तरीही
मनी पाकळी फुटे गुलाबी
ययातिपरी शापित जगणे
शरीर सुके पण ओठ शराबी

Destination Malvan: Day 2 - A Surreal Drive on NH17 back to Pune

Continued from previous post: Destination Malvan: Day 2 - Dolphins and Snorkeling

There were few reasons, why I felt against taking the same route back to Pune - Malvan -> Kankavli -> Gaganbavda ghat -> Kolhapur -> NH4 -> Pune. That route would have been quicker, but nothing is as boring as taking the same route back to your home. Besides, NH4 is not as serenely smooth towards Pune, and on Sunday, tremendous evening traffic, which I had experienced while coming back from Raigad via Varandha ghat, makes it dangerous road to tread on. And there is no driving pleasure due to its one-way nature. You just have to go through the motions and traffic. If there is an accident somewhere, it's even more cumbersome to switch lanes and get going. And believe me, accidents do happen here during rush hours. People are careless thinking they cant have an accident on a one-way and then one unseen pothole, or one unseen animal on the road, or one unseen car parked by some idiot in the night without blinking hazard lights, can lead to a series of high speed accidents/scrapings/heated arguments that can hold up the entire traffic behind them.

Apart from that anti NH4 stance, there were some pro NH17 feelings making their way as well. NH17 is considered to be one of the dangerous roads, at least in Maharashtra, due to its single-lane nature and the high-speed and careless Mumbai-Goa traffic. So for a new driver, it's a challenge he cannot say no to, and also an opportunity for testing the turf before taking on some highly difficult drives like Manali-Leh, later on in life. Other than these reasons, we were also thinking of doing Ganapatipule on the way back. So NH17 won over NH4, despite being at disadvantage in terms of time and distance in comparison with NH4. And we took Malvan -> Kankavli -> Ratnagiri -> Chiplun -> Mahad -> Mangaon -> Tamhini Ghat -> Pune route.

We started from Malvan at around 2:30pm and reached Kankavli, which is about 40km, in an hour. Took our late lunch there and by 5pm started our main journey. It was around 480kms of journey back to Pune on NH17. Out of those 480km, nearly 350kms were on NH17, and it had already started nearing sunset. So majority of this drive would come during stark night, on a dreaded single-lane highway, without any street-lights, alongside bad mannered and careless drivers, and through zigzag ghats, since NH17 is comprised mostly of ghat sections. It was a monumental drive coming up, and god knows I was excited as hell to take on this monster. It's not always that you learn to drive, and then within 3-4months you get to tackle one of the most dangerous highways, during night, all by yourself. Honestly, despite at the risk of sounding like a preacher, I strongly believe and feel that these are the real pleasures of life. I will any time splurge on such drives, rather than spending in malls and multiplexes.

Anyway, so we began our journey at around 5pm. Ratnagiri was 129kms from Kankavli and chances of Ganapatipule started appearing bleak as the drive progressed. But boy, was that an eventful drive! Shortly after leaving Kankavli, towards Ratnagiri, the road started getting better and the daytime views on NH17 are pretty good. It made us drive leisurely without realising how it's going to affect us later. I was driving at around 60kmph, using gear shifts to control the speed, so that the brakes don't get overheated, which can result into a fatal brake-fail situation later on. Suddenly one yellow Maruti Alto overtook us at a blind corner and cut us in, to avoid incoming traffic at the corner. That was a very provocative manoeuvre and I felt like bumping into that guy for overtaking in such a dangerous way. It was a challenge, and though I had stayed away from falling prey to provocations on highway, this time I just couldn't let go. I accepted this challenge and thus began a half-an-hour race on the NH17. Suddenly the speed picked up to 90-110kmph, even in the ghat sections. His was an Alto, painted yellow, with a 1-litre engine; and mine was a Palio with a 1.6-litre engine. So the only way for him to stay in the competition was to take undue risks that I wouldn't take. That's what he did. Overtaking at blind corners was what he regularly did, and got lucky with it every time. I always refrained from doing that. Overtaking at blind corner is a gamble which if goes against you, you don't get to gamble again. Simple as that. So blind-corner-overtaking is a complete no-no. सिर सलामत तो रेसेस पचास.

My advantage, on the other hand, was when there was climb in the ghats. Having a powerful engine helps you climb steep roads without much difficulty. Still, I wanted to race without straining the engine. So I maxxed out at 4500 RPMs, strictly not more than that. I had a long journey ahead of me, and didn't want to strain the engine unduly. So the accelerator was never floored during the race. This game of cat-and-mouse catch-up went on for around half-an-hour. I would catch him, and when I am almost there, he would take his nose out without realising what kind of risk he was taking. Due to this, while he got away, many a times, I got stuck behind some slowwwy slowwww containers blocking all corners for vehicles behind them. But ultimately, I caught him on a moderate climb with some straight road, drove for couple moments in parallel, gave out a war cry and raced ahead at 110kmph. Within couple of minutes, he disappeared from my rear view mirrors.

By the time the race was over, sun had set, and it was getting dark. So I slowed down a little and took it easy. We reached Ratnagiri at around 7:30pm. Ganapatipule was ruled out now, as we still had 350kms to cover till home. So we took a short break, and after filling up petrol at a highway petrol pump before Ratnagiri bifurcation, we carried on at 8pm. Our next stop was Mangaon, just before climbing Tamhini ghat. And it was almost 210kms from our location. So we estimated that by 11pm we would reach Mangaon, and from there, Pune is around 120kms and it will take at least 2.5hrs for us to get to Chandani chowk. So target was Mangaon by 11pm, and then Pune by 1:30am in the morning.

Rest of the journey onwards from Ratnagiri, was not as eventful, though we did have butterflies in stomach, on couple of occasions. It was stark dark on the highway by then, and people were as manner-less as they can get anywhere else. Nobody bothers about the comfort of the incoming driver. People never mind driving with 'upper' all the time. I used to switch between 'upper' and 'dipper' when I saw incoming traffic, but not many were responsive and very few cared. So rather than getting into a sticky situation myself, while trying to save some careless ass from a little discomfort, I stopped doing that. I only responded when somebody switched to dipper pro-actively. To top it all, I also saw some highly irresponsible mofos who were driving with as much as 4 high-power xenons, where even 2-high power xenons can absolutely blind the driver of incoming vehicle. Initially I would curse no end, vehemently. Eventually, it became a norm and I also ran out of my stock of choice-words. So as the night wore on, and the initial bout of highway-night-driving-frustration began to recede, the cabin fell silent.

During the night driving on that single-lane highway, to my own surprise, I was consistently driving at 100-110kmph. The ghats would bring the average speed down later on, but there also, in the ghats I managed to successfully overtake a v-tec, a fiesta apart from other sedans. I also gave a successful chase to an innova in the ghats after Chiplun, on the way to Mahad. I was driving quite good, enough to chase that impressive innova driver, so much so that after some time, we were the only two headlamps seen in the area, without trace of any other vehicle. But at the end, that innova guy was just too good for me. One bad judgement on my part, when I got little stuck behind a truck, and he vanished ahead of me.

We reached Mangaon by 10:45pm, 15-mins earlier than our estimate. Took a short 5-10mins break before we began to climb the lonely Tamhini at that late in the night. We had lots of baggage in the boot, including a costly DSLR gear, and I was really worried about waylaying in the 'famous' Tamhini forests. I told people about the risk, told them that we aren't going to take any break until we reach home, locked all the doors from inside and carried on.

The road condition of Tamhini was absolutely abysmal. It was very frustrating to drive in that area, in 2nd gear, because of the huge potholes. It took us 3-insane hours to cross Tamhini in that speed; and we reached Chandani Chowk by 1:45am and home by 2am. I took a pledge right after reaching home, that I will never ever take to Tamhini again, unless Tamhini is my destination. The roads are just abysmally pathetic after this monsoon, and it's better avoided.

The Malvan chapter closed at 2am in the morning of 27-Dec in Pune, after an eventful and surreal journey on the NH17, where I learned some of the hardest but most essential lessons from a driver's perspective. And thankfully, this learnings didn't come at a fatal price, and we reached home safe and sound.

Destination Malvan: Day 2 - Dolphins and Snorkeling

Continued from previous post: Destination Malvan: Day 1 - Pune to Malvan via Kolhapur

On Sunday, 26-Dec, we got up early in the morning, rushed to the Malvan jetty, where the guy, with whom we talked the previous night, was waiting for us. He managed a boat for us, and excited, we scrambled in

the boat for a best-view location. We were going on a dolphin-trail.

Dolphins are sighted near Konkan coast around Ratnagiri, it seems. Last time we had been to Anjarle, in Dapoli, there too, we had a chance to go on such a trail, but our laziness had killed that opportunity. This time round though, we were in the boat, and on the trail.

Early morning boat-ride, with a pleasant and cool sea-breeze, and sighting and subsequent trail of a small group of dolphins, was what we did and enjoyed a lot during the couple hour trail. We wished the dolphins would jump out of the water and give us a shot of a lifetime, but that wasn't to be. All we could see was a dolphin's tail/fins, as they were breast-stroking (to map it to human swimming styles).

After coming back on shore, our guide packed us on a boat to snorkeling destination. Now this was an interesting part. I had been looking forward to doing snorkeling, if not scuba diving, for ages, since when I was in England. Little did I know that it was available in our own backyards.

Scuba diving, it seems, was also available, but it was discontinued. God knows why!

Off we went in the boat, near Sindhudurga fort (the backside of it), where we were given, snorkel ls and goggles, and I was finally in the water looking below the water to spot anything that can be of interest! There were different kinds of fishes, sea-weeds, corals etc. The water was a little disturbed, so it was long way from being as clear as they show on NagGeo or Discovery. I had managed to pack my Samsung Marine in the pocket of my swimming shorts. I was all 'gadgety' on this trip, and it paid off. I pulled that phone out in the water, and managed to click some pics under-water. The phone, as was advertised, didn't give a single problem, and allowed me to shoot underwater. What a privilege! Have look at these pics which I took with it underwater -

The snorkeling activity lasted for around 20-mins. The guide would take us to some underwater creatures, pronounce their names, and that's it, we move on to the next. I don't remember a single name now, apart from the zebra-fish. Besides, what I felt objectionable in his practice, was using a bread slice to attract fishes, so that tourists can have a better look at them. This I found unhealthy for the marine life, because one of my bird-photographer friend had once told me that he never places baits to attract birds, so as to shoot them. Placing such baits can alter the bird's feeding habits and will make it dependent on your baits for food. This can unable the bird later to secure his own food, once you are done with your shooting and stop placing the baits.

By the time we were done with snorkeling, and returned back on the shore, it was around 11:30am, and there was a huuuuuuuge crowd going to Sindhudurga fort. So we instantly dropped the plan to see the fort. We had our breakfast that time. Came back to our room, had a bath, readied ourselves, paid the host his dues, and by 2:30pm, left Malvan for Pune.

Continued in the next post - Destination Malvan: Day 2 - A Surreal Drive on NH17 back to Pune