A long weekend was looming large. Having wasted away the last long weekend, I was determined not to let go of this one. But therein lay the difficulty. What could you possibly plan at such a short notice. It was already Wednesday, and it being the Dussera weekend, we would not get train tickets to almost any place worth visiting. And for sure I did not want to plan a trip to Goa with only 3 days in hand.
There was only one destination that I could think of. Having discussed it with my team mates Vishal and Mali, I knew the trip was feasible. But it would require enthusiastic people to take up charge and set an example, for it would be tough, both mentally and physically.
A short background at this point is essential I suppose. We are a small group of friends, highly excited about bike rides. However, most of us have only recently started biking, and have at most gone for some 60 kms on a single ride. A few of us, like Rohit and I, had only just learnt driving bikes. I wasn’t sure how much we could endure if a long distance plan was proposed.
Never the less, I called up Vipin and laid down my plan in front of him. We could start early from Bangalore to avoid all the city traffic and head towards Mysore. A 150 km long ride would get us to the Mysore city. Stay at the city for the day and start for Ooty the very next early morning, The same evening, we return back to Bangalore. This is what I thought was a possibility. Vipin though, slightly altered the plan. He suggested we first reach Ooty, spend the night over there, and then return to Mysore on the day of Dussera. This way, we would be covering the larger and tougher part of the journey while we were relatively still fresh. And later on the urge to reach home would be the driving force for the return journey.Still, the one thing we agreed upon was that if we told the complete plan to everybody, there was a very high chance that they might pull out. There was a tacit agreement between the two of us to reveal our complete plan only at a very late stage.
Now that Vipin was in, it was time to spread the word and get as many people excited about it as possible.Vipin and I started buzzing people and telling them about our plan. Suhas immediately agreed. The count now stood at 3 people, 3 bikes.
The first shock was the refusal of Akshay to take part in out trip. He had already been to Ooty and Mysore, and did not wish to make that trip once again. No amount of persuasion could convince him to come along with us.The next bad news was from Lakke, who was leaving for home the same weekend. If any more people withdraw, our efforts could suffer a major setback I thought. So it was all the more important to get Sumeet onboard.
Vipin, Suhas, Sumeet and I were gathered in the pantry to discuss the weekend affair. Upon hearing the planned trip to Mysore, with a slight possibility of going to Ooty Sumeet was unsure if he wanted to do such a long trip. But then Suhas and Vipin put on an impressive show and listed out all the pros and cons in such a way that Sumeet had no choice but to agree. This would be our first victory. Now that Sumeet was in, it would be relatively easier to get others involved.
My flat mate, Rohit, instantly agreed. He was also itching to make the Ooty trip and did not want to miss this opportunity. Vipin called up his flat mates and two of them, Naveen and Aditya agreed.
I called up Arpit and he tentatively agreed, only to later reject citing migraine. My brother Ambuj was already on his way to Bangalore and would be making this trip with us.
At the end of the day, Friday that it was, we were at the cafeteria playing caroms and watching the live telecast of the cricket match. We were to leave the following day. A start time of 7 am was agreed upon by everybody. In walks Lakke, with his charming smile. He comes up to us and lets us known that he couldn’t get tickets to go back home, thus leaving him available for the weekend. This was like the icing on the cake. I broke into laughter and knew that the trip could be not not successful. With Lakke in, we would have lots of unlimited fun. Things couldn’t have ended on a better note. In less than 12 hours we were to start. We were an impressive team of 9 adventurers on 5 bikes:
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Vipin and Aditya on Pulsar 180
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Suhas and Naveen on Apache 160
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Sumeet and Lakke on Hunk 150
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My brother and I on CBZ Xtreme 150
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Rohit on his Stunner 125.
This was to be our first long, very long bike ride. And we couldn’t possibly be less excited.
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