Wheels in Motion...
These days, I get the eerie feeling of living in a soap opera. Where I'm hardly in control of the circumstances, and the said circs. are leading me, slowly and inevitably, to Valhalla.
But wait. Rewind. Restart. Such are not the wheels I intended to blog about. The wheels under scrutiny are literal. Namely, one shiny new rear tyre, bought when I was facing an average of a puncture a day, and an old cracked front, which "can go for another 250km", or so the tyre guy said about 500km ago.
The last two Sundays were starkly different - one was spent at work and the other in leisure - and yet, they had a common thread (other than the fact that they both were Sundays, that is...) They both involved bike rides in near perfect weather. I was considering a hike on the Sunday before last, when at the last minute but one a client called and said he wanted to meet. Argh!
Determined to make the best of it, I rode my Pulsar all the way to Ranjangaon, about 50km from Pune. It was a rainy day, and all the rivers and streams en route were awe-inspiring in their muddy rage. (For those of you who look askance in my usage of the word "perfect" for a rainy day, I ask them to take a bike at 100kmph through a downpour on a smooth four-lane highway after spending months on the potholed Pune roads, and tell me what comes closer) The meeting itself was a let-down - five minutes of issues that could have been discussed over the phone. But after the bike ride, and in anticipation of the one back, I hardly cared.
Last Sunday, I had a pillion in the form of Gina, another ardent traveller, though not too fond of the high notes. And we went to Wai, with no fixed agenda. Wai? Wai not? :P It was a lovely day, with not too much rain, and the temples at Wai and Menavli completed the feeling of all being Right with the World. Another chance discovery was the dam at Dhom, from where the spectacular beauty of the countryside could be drunk in. We lay on the grassy embankment, doing just that.
Sorry folks, no photos from either ride - my camera already seems to be culturing some fungi, and I don't dare risk any further misadventures in the rain, having already abused it on the last few beach trips.
But wait. Rewind. Restart. Such are not the wheels I intended to blog about. The wheels under scrutiny are literal. Namely, one shiny new rear tyre, bought when I was facing an average of a puncture a day, and an old cracked front, which "can go for another 250km", or so the tyre guy said about 500km ago.
The last two Sundays were starkly different - one was spent at work and the other in leisure - and yet, they had a common thread (other than the fact that they both were Sundays, that is...) They both involved bike rides in near perfect weather. I was considering a hike on the Sunday before last, when at the last minute but one a client called and said he wanted to meet. Argh!
Determined to make the best of it, I rode my Pulsar all the way to Ranjangaon, about 50km from Pune. It was a rainy day, and all the rivers and streams en route were awe-inspiring in their muddy rage. (For those of you who look askance in my usage of the word "perfect" for a rainy day, I ask them to take a bike at 100kmph through a downpour on a smooth four-lane highway after spending months on the potholed Pune roads, and tell me what comes closer) The meeting itself was a let-down - five minutes of issues that could have been discussed over the phone. But after the bike ride, and in anticipation of the one back, I hardly cared.
Last Sunday, I had a pillion in the form of Gina, another ardent traveller, though not too fond of the high notes. And we went to Wai, with no fixed agenda. Wai? Wai not? :P It was a lovely day, with not too much rain, and the temples at Wai and Menavli completed the feeling of all being Right with the World. Another chance discovery was the dam at Dhom, from where the spectacular beauty of the countryside could be drunk in. We lay on the grassy embankment, doing just that.
Sorry folks, no photos from either ride - my camera already seems to be culturing some fungi, and I don't dare risk any further misadventures in the rain, having already abused it on the last few beach trips.
Soap opera? Wai?
ReplyDeleteStill, Valhalla is not so bad... :)
This is getting better!
ReplyDeleteYou make the rains sound nice.
Like I just made your blog sound nice :)
Senthil: I'd prefer The Playboy Channel to a soap opera anyday, but I seem to have lost the remote somewhere...
ReplyDeleteRJ: Thanks! Now you know where I get most of my aachoos from ;)
Xohra: a camera cover is little protection against a fungus brought up in the hardy tropics. But yes, my poor camera.