Dug up ride...

"Pune Municipal Corporation ki jay"... Dunno who so ever is ever going to say that. Its something part of a far fetched reality. Have faced the brunt on numerous occasions.

This one happened yesterday, was on my way to the Baner office Gym. The roads were pretty ridable till about near the Rajwada hotel , then starts the waltz (dhik tak tak ...dhik tak tak ..dhik tak tak .. dhik.. tika tika). The 2 ways trurn to one, the road transforms to a mud path. But still, atleast, looks ridable. A couple of confused cars and a huge confused truck were lost what to do where to go, an auto driver ahead kept a cool head and helped the helpless truck driver get on the left sideof the right road so that all the cunjested vehicles on the 2 sides of the right road get to move .. wow.. weird... and I thought rick. drivers only knew to keep a sour face!

Well, riding a bike has its own plus-es you see, a. You can sneak through any nook and corner b. You zip past crunchiest of situations and c. potholes or not ou can manage your wheels over them! JFYI, all the 3 points mean the same :P

Riding through the raising slush and the road getting ever narrow I happened to realize the rest of the cut-off road was actually laid with a cement block and pedestrians were having a ball walking causally aimlessly, one of the many advantages of putting 2 legs to the test.

Riding on came another hurdle, the road disappeared and it seemed to transform into a trekking trail as it took a right(!!!) towards the petrol pump. I was confused what to do, and found that following the rider ahead actually helped as we steered via the petrol pump and out to the trek track again. So effectively we crisscrossed the oncoming traffic.

Now I could vaguely see the twin towers of my Baner office, but the track made me gaze more onto the road/track/path (whatever). Then the front wheel goes thud into a trench (acually a dried up lorry tyre track) and then I race and get the wheel out and the back wheel followed suite, mind you I did not loose my cool neither did the rider behind me nor the maruti car guy coming onto me -probably he made calculations for his assault plan.

Suddenly the track ended and the road opened to a barricade. A trench was dug up perpendicuar to the road with barricades against it. The road was shut. My office was 10 meters ahead and the road was shut. The oncoming traffic was a huge single-file-stream as they came from the right corner of the road through a narrow pass over the trench -so could not take that route.

That's when I noticed the brave ninja riders. On any other given day, I would always tend equating them to "hassle and worry" of the road. Not today. This is what I saw,
The ninja behind got off her seat and whispered some secret mantra to the riding ninja and then they exchanged looks (play the huge GONG/CLANG that's heard before a martial bout). Slowly she purred her scooty to the right side of the trench where the barricade ended and poof she steered left and rode down into the trench! What the! I could still see her scarf moving along and her pillion scarf trodding behind her, then like a miracle they started to emerge from the left end of the trench on the other side. They exchanged glances some mantras looked backed at us and rode away to glory (play the huge GONG/CLANG that's heard after a martial bout).

Well soon me 'n other 2 wheelers followed suite. The entry to the trench was actually not a motorable pass at all, just a dug-out that led down and then there was a plank that bridged to the other side. In we went and out we came and there the road was slaughtered again. A small patch of road led to my office premises and the other was the suppositedly motorable concrete road (just looked like a long long block of concrete to me on which vehicles moved).

The guard was elated to see me (some guts a guy has to do all these idiocycs just to get to office on a weekend!), so I asked him since when and why was this done. He kept saying no one listens, they should not have closed the road etc etc... but he was damn happy to see me :).

So up I went and shed over 350cals at the treadmill and over 150 at the cycle and much much more at other equipments. Flushed and tired after over 2 hours and a cup of curd I was back at the parking lot ready to make my way back home.

Having faced the music on the way here, I had hardly any problems to face -just had to get over a some rubble and then back track a few times around office since they shut off the only road (thanks to my new sec. guard friend they opened the road for me). Well then riding along-over the potholes and via the petrol pump and eventually onto tarmac was a piece of cake. After all that, I needed to stretch my engine to its limits so got onto ITI road and eventually via Aund-Univ road hit a good 3digits and the same on S.B. road finally the silent gullies led me back home.

And today, the story was all the same :-), after burning another 400cals end up taking the return via Baner Pashan road (a new rugged one that leads to Sus road). Met Avik, Paromita 'n family at Chandani Chowk had a great 3 to 4 hours there before getting through another challenge, the weirdly concretized Kothrud and the ever crowded roads on the night of "Dhai-Handi"!

Who said you need to get out to the mountains for a dirt track ride, welcome to Pune!