A wise mind is the source for peaceful life, and an insane one is for a life full of adventures. I am thankful to god, that i have a couple of friends, who given an opportunity can come up with weird-do plans on the fly, that definitely can make people think "Are these people gone mad !!!"
Well we did something of this sort last weekend.
Nakul the brain behind it (I sincerely want to thank you publicly for this ride, dude i would have never even thought about doing something like this, and you made me do this, ur an energy bomb brother).
Initially some of us were planning to go to Kolad for Weekend, but since our friend Apurv wasn't available, we decided to go somewhere near for the weekend, and postpone our kolad trip for sometime.
Then Nakul asked, lets do a night ride to Sinhagad, i had just heard that people do ride to this place, but had no idea about the terrain agreed readily for the same, so the draft was set.
I decided to do the ride on my rugged, trusted, time tested, age old hero hawk,
as the terrain was a strictly no no for a road bike.
We decided to meet at a common place at around 11PM.
A friend Advait was also to join us, but was running an hour late, I didn't wanted to just wait, so we decided lets roam around the city, and decided to go to Chandni Chowk and be back.
This was really crazy of us, we just went to Chandni Chowk almost 8-10km away and did what - bought a bottle of water.
Moving on from there, we caught the NH4 highway, and just zoomed to reach our initial location, where we joined Advait and started cycling towards Sinhagad fort.
Adjacent to the khadakwasla dam back waters, the road appeared so beautiful, accompanied by a full moon, slight cold wind, being there at that moment itself felt like a blessing.
Passing by villages i must say, no matter which village/area we passed dogs didn't miss a single chance to announce our presence, some even gave us a run.
I was tensed, since i knew if these dogs decided to chase, I wont be able to sprint, but anyways nothing eventful happened, and we reached the sinhagad fort base.
Soon enough we started the Sinhagad climb, its a 10km climb. I wont say this was the toughest or the longest that i have ever done, but the road, and the night did made it a tough one.
Initially the road was good, and we were going pretty casually slowly steadily and then, VOILA no road at all ......
Just sand and gravel, and if I try hard to peddle, my wheel would just roll at its place. This gave me some tough time, as my bike was continuously skidding.
So we decided, lets drag our bikes till the point from where proper roads start.
This way we continued for around a KM.
As we were approaching the top, it was getting more windy, and chilly.
I really didn't wanted to stop for breaks much, as starting again in this kind of cold was really difficult.
It was a very cold night, thankfully the full moon, made the night appear very beautiful.
As we were inching towards the top, the night view of the city beneath was getting more and more breathtaking.
I really liked the road, running adjacent to mountain top, one side was the cliff, and the other trench.
It took us almost 2 hours to reach the top, and i am wholly to be blamed for slowing down everyone's speed.
And finally the top - reaching there literally felt like an achievement to me.
And I wont believe my luck, an old couple at 4AM in morning, opened their small tea shop, and offered not just the tea, but bhajias as well.
In this kind of spine chilling cold windy night, hot bhajias, and tea - what are you thinking, ofcourse it was like a wish getting fulfilled.
We ate lots of it, to our hearts content :)
That time, Advait asked the couple have they ever seen leopards here.
He said yes very casually ................
I was dumb stucked - dude he is talking about leopards, the man eater one, the real one, and he is talking as if he pets them.
He was confidently saying, they never harm humans, they fear us, we fear them, and mostly never come on roads, but still its a LEOPARD.
So after enough of chit-chatting and enjoying early morning, we decided to start our descend.
But ................ you remember it's early morning 5AM, top of hill, windy and cold.
So Nakul suggested lets do some running and dips, to warm ourselves enough before the descend.
So as suggested we did some 6-7 laps of running, followed by dips.
It was really really good way to warm ourselves.
So with a happy tummy, we started our descend.
This time again the bad roads slowed us done big time. Continuously clutching the brakes, i don't know about the other guys, but atleast my fingers went numb.
And we took a break .....
so now, even the downhill is getting tiring, i still laugh thinking this.
From distant i saw some light on the road, looked like torch light, some 4-5 people.
OK, but what are they doing at this time of morning on this road, when while ascend, we didn't find a single soul right until we reached the top of the hill, i wasn't expecting anyone, atleast walking.
On reaching closer, Advait asked from where are they coming, that's when we got to knew, these people are doing night trek, from Katraj to Sinhagad Hill top.
Something very famous, many people here desire to do this sometime, and i remember once Saurabh also said, they had done this sometime, and it was fun.
And we saw more and more people as we were reaching the base, it must have been a total group of 20-25 people.
By the time we reached the village at Sinhagad's base, sun started to rise.
It was very foggy, still cold, but atleast a relief, soon it will get warm enough.
We reached Khadawasla Dam, and decided to stop for a photo session break.
Now this early morning view of Khadakwasla back waters, was so beautiful, simply breathtaking.
It was absolutely quiet, and just beautiful.
We had a photo session. Many other riders started to come, probably to enjoy the morning just like us.
And after a long break, we started our journey towards our homes.
A weekend started well ............... :)
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