Tag: Canon 18-55 f/3.5-5.6

First Rain Ride of 2009

My first decent rainy ride in more than 2 years, turned out to be a really good and satisfying in the end. Though I have ridden to Mumbai in the very first rains of the season, it was more of a high speed run on near perfect piece of tarmac.

In search of a decent resort in or around Mulshi, for a family outing next weekend, I decided to visit there on a motorcycle.

By the time I got kitted for the ride it was lunch time, though the normal routeto Mulshi is via Chandni Chowk – Pirangut – Paud, I have been on that stretch so many times that today I was just not feeling like riding on the very same stretch. So, I head out in opposite direction on NH4. After filling more than enough fuel for the ride at Shell pump (a rare thing for me, I often land up filling lesser fuel than needed for the ride and then searching for one later) I headed towards Lonavala. After having covered some 10 odd km’s, I got bored of the tarmac and got onto a road through villages and headed towards Pavana dam.

It was a bumpy, slow ride all the way with lush green scenery all around me. Though it was bone dry in Pune, as soon  as I got on this road rain god welcomes me with heavy showers. All my plans of stopping to capture greenery were put on hold, thanks to rain.

Enjoying every water filled pothole, occasional good section of tarmac and gravel, I reach the dam. Disappointed to see it not yet fully filled. A small stop and I was heading towards Paud. Just as I started to climb, the beautiful view of Tung fort made me get off the road for some offroading on slush + green grass stretches.

The ride till Paud was kinda monotonous with no rains and no great view that would made me stand up on brakes. Road conditions deteriorated soon after Paud and I was already in no mood to repeat the Paud – Mulshi stretch on my way back.

After finishing the inspection of all the probably resorts, I was feeling hungry so pulled over for a pit stop around 3:15. Missal Pav it would be for the near empty stomach. While having food I decided to head towards Lonavala. It was almost 4pm and with bike’s chain a bit loose for my comfort and rear sprocket having a bit of play (may be rubber bushing/bearing gone), there was a distinct possibility of getting stranded in a jungle. All part and parcel of adventure on two wheels, I said and got on the bike and headed towards Tamhini.

The road was bit better than before but the non-stop rain was giving very little chance to bring out the camera. Just after crossing Tamhini village, I got off the road and got on the offroad section towards Amby Valley. After a decent stretch initially, consisting of broken tarmac and some gravel I got on a stretch that was mostly a layer of stones, almost till the end. With rain, jungle and hardly any civilization, I wasn’t complaining much about the road surface. After all I didn’t want to go berserk on near perfect tarmac.
It was disappointing to see not too many sections of road under water, not enough water streams or over flowing rivers, as I encountered during my last ride on this section.

Before it got anywhere close to dark I was on the tarmac section near Amby valley, twisties at its best. It was tempting me to push like crazy in search of scraping my knees against tarmac. Alas, if wishes were horses I would have been on a 223bhp machine and not a 223cc machine. In no time I was riding in thick fog, with near zero visibility, so all plans of pressing that “red” button were put to rest. Though the pace was really slow, still it was fun. After all I was still out of city limits with not much traffic to deal with.

Soon the dream run came to an end, as I approached Bushi Dam. With no fog and rain around, I switched from fun mode to reach home mode. After a initial struggle to pass the long queue of cars, I somehow managed to come out on NH4. The traffic is diverted and I came out just next to the turn for Rajmachi. It was very very tempting to take the turn but with clock well past 6, it was just too late for my comfort. So, it was time to slot into top gear and finally press the “red” button to head home before it gets dark. In the end, just managed to park my bike in garage before it was pitch dark to end a much needed and entertaining ride.

When: 8th Auguest 2009
Route: Pune – Pavana Dam – Paud – Mulshi – Tamhini – Kundalika – Amby Valley – Lonavala – Pune.
Distance: 213km’s
Time taken: 6hrs 35min.

Out of reach

Pangong Tso

It is not that I was very actively updating my blog here, that anyone will notice that I’m away from Internet for sometime.

Still, for those who stay in touch with me via e-mail, IM’s and other mode of communication, please note that I’ll be out of reach for next two weeks. The picture above should give you an indication as to where I can be found, if at all. 🙂

Slow Sync …

Pug-OT, a yahoo group I’m a member of have started a very useful thread TOTW (Technique Of The Week). As you could have guessed now, Slow Sync was the first topic of TOTW. As a beginner with photography, it was a nice learning experience for me.

Slow Sync – A technique in which we fire the flash along with slow shutter speed. One use of it, as shown in the above image, is to increase the illumination of background.

Following are some of the links I read to learn about this technique
Flash Photography Made Simple

Slow Sync Flash

In the above image, the top picture is clicked in Full Auto Mode and the bottom picture is clicked in Manual mode. Following are the details.
Top Pic: Auto(1/60sec, f/3.5, 18mm, ISO400, Pattern Metering).
Bottom Pic: M(6sec, f/3.5, 18mm, ISO400, Partial Metering).

Camera: Canon 400D
Lens: 18-55

Malshej – The least visited place

Malshej Ghat – a beautiful heaven of towering peaks and bottomless valleys with air so fragrant and pure, one wish to pack some to bring back to pollution filled cities.

Just like all the hill stations in Maharashtra, monsoons is the best time to visit Malshej Ghat. The black tarmac is cleaned by rains, valleys turn lush green and surrounding is mostly covered by clouds. Though one might not get too much to see during peak monsoon but the experience still is worth a visit.

Destination so breath taking that I wonder how come I have just visited this place just once and that too way back in 2003. So when the opportunity came to visit Malshej again on 2nd Oct for a Pune-Bombay Nomads meet, I coudn’t let this oportunity go by. Though the rains were gone long time back, I was expecting to encounter lush green valleys.

The group from Pune (Me on CBZ, Nalin on CBZ-Xtreme, Praveen Sathaye on P180 DTSi and Biswa in his M800) meet at Nashik Phata from where the ride started around 7am. The relatively empty road combined with cool weather, while riding, felt like heaven. Though two lane for most part, it was still not much an issue riding, except for when crossing cities enroute.

After covering around 80km from Nashik Phata, we got off the Nashik highway at Ale Phata and turned left towards Malshej. Road surface after sometime got little bad but it improved as we started the climb up the ghat. Twisties were so inviting that we decided to take a break to soak in the beauty.


View from the start of Ghat

After a small break we headed towards the meeting point, MTDC. By 9:45, having covered 137km, we were at MTDC and didn’t have to wait for long for the Bombay guys to join us along with Harshad from Amhednagar. After a round of introductions, between those who were meeting for first time, we had breakfast and then decided to walk around to let our eyes enjoy the beauty. Later few guys decided to bring their bikes and it was time for cameras to get busy.


Tunnel’s view from top of ghat


Poser boy


Twin models


Small water pond at the top

After spending some time at the top of valley, we headed towards the overflowing lake, whose water has submerged a small road running parallel to main road. Here, while couple of guys decided to go for swimming, rest stayed back on the banks.


Where the road ends


Can I?


Only water could stop me

As the lunch time neared, we all headed back to MTDC for food. After gupling down our favourite food, at 16:20, Pune guys decided to ride back with Bombay guys. The road on Bombay side of ghat is right there with the best road surfaces I have ever ridden. It was a fast rip to the bottom of ghat.


View of the valley on Bombay side


Pit stop

After riding for 33km’s from MTDC, we reached the junction where Pune guys turned left towards Karjat. Sun has gone down by now, so it was getting dark, hence it was left to Roy to lead in his Gypsy while Biswa took the tail in his M800 with all the bike riders in between them. The road is a narrow running through forest.


Sun is finally going down

At around 8pm, after covering 118km from MTDC, some 2km before Khopoli, we came out on NH4. Enroute to Pune, we halted at Toni for Dinner and at 12:30am, having covered 190km’s I reached back my home.

Hampi – BN Annual Ride 2007

The ruins of Vijayanagar, near the town of Hampi, are some of the most fascinating in India. Once the capital of one of the largest Hindu empires in India history, Vijayanagar was founded by the Telugu princes in 1336 and hit the peak of its power in the 16th century.

The regular annual meets of BN were kick started in 2006 at Goa. For this year, the destination was selected as Hampi. Having returned back from Hospet in 2004, I didn’t want to miss another chance to visit Hampi, so I joined the 30+ nomads who headed towards Hampi on 23th Nov.

Few bikes and couple of cars of Nomads started from Pune on 23rd Nov early morning at 6:50. It was perfect weather for going on a bike trip. Around 7:30 we were out of Pune and cruising on partially empty NH4 towards Satara. Faster vehicles went on to enjoy the speed while I was the slowest one to take on the rear. Around 8:20 we all regrouped at the breakfast point, having covered 85km’s since the start. It was an hour long break after which we headed towards Peth, the turn off point for Sangli, our Lunch halt.

Once again the group was split with all riding at their own pace, to regroup at Peth. It was now a 2 lane road till Sangli, so we all decided to ride together with one car each leading and sweeping the group and all bikes in between them. There was a bit of truck traffic to content with. It was 12pm by the time we reached Mayank’s place in Sangli. So far we covered 138km’s. At Sangli we saw not just three nicely maintained bikes of Mayank but also the nicely maintained garage.

At 13:30 we left Sangli after a nice food for riders and fuel for rides. Once we crossed Miraj, traffic eased off and the road was relatively empty. This stretch was one of the best 2 lane road to ride on. With both the cars tailing bikes, we reached Bijapur. We all regrouped after Bijapur for a cup of tea at 17:10, having covered around 500km’s. It was now confirmed that it will be a long night ride we will have to do. At 17:50 we resumed the ride with sun already went to rest.

We knew it will be a lot of truck traffic till Hospet so the group got split into smaller groups with 2-3 vehicles per group. It was slow at times getting passed convey of trucks. As time went by the night went from cold to colder. By the time we regrouped for Dinner at 22:30 it was freezing, having spend another hour in couple of breaks before it. So far we had covered around 600km with just 30odd km’s left to Hampi. At 23:20 we started our last leg of the ride to Hospet where all the early birds were waiting for us. 35min past mid night we all reached Hampi having covered around 620km’s. Though it took us 17hrs 40min to reach Hampi, the actual riding time was only 11hrs 40min.

24th Nov was the day to explore Hampi so instead of going in one big group we all split into small groups, to regroup back by 3pm for group pictures back at hotel.


Water reservoir


First View of Hazararama Temple


Inside view of Hazararama Temple


Lotus Mahal


Just Ride!!!


Lotus Mahal

Elephant’s Stable


An attempt at Table Top shoot


Bikes line up at Hotel


Bikes ‘n’ Riders line up outside Vitthala Temple

Views of Vitthala Temple


Bonfire

The evening was spend in an hour long introduction of all the members followed by dinner. There was an unsuccessful attempt to have bonfire later in the night. After partying till late in night I went to sleep at 2am.
Around 6am people started to get ready to return back home. It was only by 7:30 that we started back towards Pune with Bangalore and Hydrabad guys taking it easy due to smaller distance to cover. At Hospet we refuled our rides. After riding on Sholapur road initially we turned towards Hubli, knowing that there are lot of potholes on this road, still it was going to be much faster due to longer 4 lane stretch. After a couple of 15mins break we reached Hubli. Except for one stretch of road which was anything but potholes everywhere, rest of road was still ride able but only in day time.

Since I was going to be the slowest on NH4, I split from group and carried on as I didn’t need the break, assuming that the faster vehicles will catch me up down the road. After crossing Dharwad, I started to feel hungry and sleepy so at 12:15, I pulled over into a road side hotel for food and sleep, having covered 222km’s so far. After a 25min break I resumed the ride, cruising at speeds around 80 on NH4. To kill the boredom of NH4 I kept on taking small 5min breaks every 80-90km’s. Once I crossed Satara, I started to feel hungry and with the traffic also increased, I slowed down a bit. At 17:35, I halted at Khambatki ghat for food break with just 70 odd km’s to go. Sun was going down fast, so at 18:00hrs I started the last leg of ride, with the rest of group still over an hr behind. The traffic was heavy and it was like a high speed dog fight on road. Thanks to the 4 lane road it was not difficult to ride here even though it was dark. As I entered Pune, I was greeted by a big traffic jam and it was by 19:10 that I reached Chandni Chowk having covered 621km’s.