"If you don't ride in the rain and get dirty, then you don't ride".

Pune MTB Dirt Race - Edition 1, organized by Team Pune Racing, was not about just cycling, it was a phenomenon which has just started, a whole new level of  competition ever experienced by riders.

As mentioned by few rides "Awesome trail, a very different one and it was fun riding".

And we guess this is what MTB Dirt Race is supposed to be, a tough, rugged, unexpected, muddy, rocky path to test a rider true cycling spirit, to test his stamina, endurance, his skill and maneuvering qualities as a mountain biker. Surrounded by scenic hills of Sus Gaon, this cross-country race gave riders chance to explore and understand different types of Mountain Biking  genre.

The terrain was fabricated of single tracks, forest tracks, downhill portions, gutwrenching uphill. With the total distance of 3.5km. Also rains 2days prior to the event, made the track little more interesting. The format was very also very different, there were 3 categories based on riding skill Elite, Pro and Women's categories, and all categories had different laps. As the race progressed, riders rushed to get hold of that podium and results were  unbelievable. Even the army brats gave a tough competition to experience downhill and MTB riders of Pune. Pune Racing an initiative by Raw Adventure Solutions have started with new series of cycling, running and all different kind of race activities. They are planning to have mountain biking races, road races, trail marathons and the list is uncountable. These races will help Pune Cyclists learn more about cycling, different kinds of races which happens in cycling sports and will also encourage cyclists to understand more and love cycling sports.

Disclosed here few pictures from the race.

Revving up the engines, lined up, full geared, all modified bikes. When we all  started the ride to complete 60km of tough terrain, crossing some unknown pavements, jungles, mud, slug, broken rocks,  n number of waterfall, rivers, we had no idea how the ride will be.

Even though the route was same for 70%, there were 100% chances of surprises, and u can not tame a dense n dark jungle who is ready to gulp you up and leave no traces of you or your machine.

Race path was so slippery,  that even a minor mistake you take you to deep inside the valley which was following us at every turn.  Even though we fell again n again, but we keep riding and kept conquering the untamed path across Panshet Jungles.

And we reached the completion of Stage 1 30km from the start point. Rested for few minutes,  some photo sessions, some stunts, some enjoyment in the cold river and we were ready again to complete the journey u had started.  This time controlling bike was difficult now. Trails were more slippery, slugs and mud had covered whole bike and the riders, even the off road tyres failed times. Enjoying the beauty of Panset Dam and struggling with offroad we finally reached to finish line.

Pune Off Road Expedition is not a race or a rally, it is a whole new level of a ride for everyone. You will get time and chance to understand your machine and yourself. Not everyone over there is dirt race professionals. There were many bikers of different genre and many first timers. And at the end you will be a different biker, a biker who respects his machine, his friends, his co-riders. This was my 2nd Off Road Expedition and I had an awesome time meeting some old friends and making many new ones. As I mentioned this expedition helped me to understand my machine and how it behaves in different conditions. What are its limitations and where my bike excels, which I would not have learned ever in million of km of road riding.

Now this brings me back to my question, and my answer is yes, it does not matter what machine or bike you have, it does not matter if your mudguards are removed or not, it does not matter is you have a dirt bike or not, only thing what matter if you have the courage to ride an unknown and different terrain with your lovely machine. And it bet once you complete the track, you will thank me.

Every time I do a solo ride, questions starts pouring on me.

And all I do is smile on their misery and go on one more solo trip, bombarding my social website with lots of more photos and giving glimpse of how awesome my solo trips are.

I am not a pro rider or a traveller but I had done enough of rides and travelling all solo to rant about, how fun and excitement a solo trip can be, and advantages of travelling solo are enormous. So here based on my experience I am adding few points which makes me love solo riding or travelling.

1. Freedom. Peace. Flexibility. 

Travelling alone gives you feel of freedom and peace related to your plan. You can change modify and update your plans spontaneously without any compromises or accounting for anyone else feelings. You can stop where ever you want, can have food wherever or whatever you feel like. Can go places you like. Can sleep, stay, do on your wish, no discussion or wastage of time. So you will be travelling on your own term and guess this is the reason you opted for the holiday at first place. Your trip is like a blank canvas,  start painting it with colors of your preferences. 

2. Learn New things.

Life is a long learning process. And travelling alone opens the door of knowledge.  You will get to know and learn many new things which no book can teach. Once you hit the road, you will face the reality, it won't matter how much preparation you have done, life out there is different and sometime can be cruel and that where you will excel. During my trips, I actually don't plan much, I decide on the go, depending on conditions.

3. Making new friends.

Travelling alone gives you the chance to make friends and interact with many new peoples. Many are scared of doing so, and the reasons are always valid, but u don't get always negative. During my trips I meet 80% of good people, some welcomes you for dinner, some let you camp at safe place. Being solo you are naturally open to everyone and the hesitation is lost.

Example :
 During my GOA trip, I had flat both of tyres in my cycle, glad there was a restaurant opposite to road, he helped me fixing my bike, if he had not been there I would have been stuck in a dark night on a highway surrounded by jungles.

One more story where I had beer with Bikers from Chandigarh during my Leh trip.

If I had been in a group all of these would not have happened, I would have been stuck with people I came or I am with.

4. Confidence.
While travelling alone helps in building confidence, as when you are alone, you have to face all the situations by your self and this helps a lot. Like you have to camp alone, make camp fire. Travel in a new city without my issues. While in group trips you wont face all of these situations as someone or other will help you for sure. Like I had to repair my bike when it breaks down,  even if  it takes time I learn while I do and it helps me in my next trip. You overcome the fear of heights, darkness, spiders or even new food. The more you travel, the less you fear. As long as you make regular solo trips, you will feel more confident each time, no matter what your fear is which is also a good excuse to travel regularly.

5. Save Money.
This is kind of contradiction, but I was able to save money many times during my solo travels. You get hotel as per your own budget, you eat what fits in your pocket, public transport etc. Solo travelling opens gate to all such possibilities.

For example like in my leh trip, I am able to save almost 50% of amount, the tour organizers charge. No one actually believed me.


So next time, you are in doubt, gear up and leave on a solo trip. You never know what you will hit and what amazing story awaits you on the other side.

15th August 2015, 6:00 am.

Started early with little snacks and in few hrs I was out of Maharashtra borders. You can feel you are in Karnataka, roads feel like heaven decorated with lots of trees and flower plants , peacocks and sky get more colorful and dramatic.

Early mornning breakfast point

Bangalore Highways

To GOA, there us a turning after Nipani which we have to follow and it will end up in Goa highways, crossing some of the beautiful terrains, jungles, waterfalls and streams. Before turning  for GOA, I had my breakfast, meet many bikers of Kolhapur who are again on Enfield doing some Independence Day Ride.

Kolhapur Bikers

But most interesting was when I meet one more cyclist who was riding from Bangalore to Leh. We discussed for hours, regarding respective experience on cycle touring. It was cool meeting this guy, he shared lots of information, as he had already done many rides like this. The coolest guy I meet, he was travelling all alone and he was also happy to see me as mentioned " a cyclist after 13 days of the ride".

This is the cyclist, who is going leh from bangalore

Soon we bid good bye to each other and started towards our respective destinations. Goa is not only about beaches, it holds much more, the flora fauna, the beautiful jungles, majestic  ghat sections, and soon it was raining. Even though I was carrying my raincoat, I didnot used it, was not interested to spoil the fun of riding in rain shirtless. Removed my shirt, shoes and was riding as fast as I can in that rain, it was too fun. Kids crossing  were shouting as I waved my hand.

Who says road bikes cant do offroading

Dark forests before Amboli Ghat

Reached Amboli Ghat around 1pm, being weekend, it was overcrowded resulting police had to jumpin for creating space for ongoing vehicles. One of most beautiful and picturesque place to be in monsoon, complete valley was covered with green and colorful trees, with clouds passing by making the place like heaver. I spend few minutes enjoying whole scenario and started , after that it was downhill for 10 to 15km. I had to be cautious of bad roads, but there were none, that 30 min was best moment of the whole ride, crossing effortlessly.

These guys took lots of my photographs

Amboli Ghat Waterfalls

After Amboli Ghat I entered the last city of Maharashtra, Sawantwadi. a simple and beautiful city surrounded by mountains with a lake in between which is a popular place in the city. I spent some time relaxing and enjoying the evening sun going down. It was slowly getting dark I was approx 50km more from Mapusa, increased my speed to reach my destination in time.

But guess my fate was bored of all good things that happened to me. And the real game started. The highway was  too dark and only light I was having was a small torch and the ongoing veichles, adding to my misery  there were many small but very bad patches which are enough to bring a road bike down to earth. I missed one such pothole a  very small one, and then,

"Thud, thud"

And I knew the inevitable had happened.  I was stuck in a dark highway 50km before goa, surrounded by dense forests, with no lights and with my bike gone flat.



But there is always a hope, saw a small restaurant nearby,  went there and started repairing, as I was riding a road bike, so the tyres are different, glad I had one extra tube, changed it, repaired the second one. After 4 to 5  trial and struggle which lasted for 2 hrs I was ready with my bike, but it was not in perfectly repaired. Seems im not jack of all trades after all.

With a broken bike,, plus the uphills and the dark rainy night, I was sure, not even superman can help me to reach Mapusa City

Somewhere around 11pm , I managed to enter goa, found one resturant, had my dinner. After talking with restaurant owner, he allowed me to camp in resturant itself, as I was his last customer and he was anyway going to close. Problem solved. Spent few hrs talking with the cook and guard regarding my trip. Sometime it is really fun to talk and spend time with strangers. That night I can never forget.

16th Aug 2015, 6.30am
Woke up. packed tents and other stuffs, repaired bike properly and after a good breakfast I was again on the road enjoying beautiful morning of Goa. Everywhere it is green and clean, not much crowd, cheap rates and awesome weather. Sun was shining bright as if welcoming me to my destination.

Resturant where I camped at night

Morning Breakfast

In few hrs I was at Calangute Beach, had awesome breakfast, a bear, went to shack and spent rest day  having fish, resting , enjoying beach and cool breeze of sea.

Calangute Beach

Fort Augwada, took my bike inside as there was no security.

In this whole trip I saw lots of ups and down literally, meet so many people, spent best time being myself, enjoyed riding in rain, playing in water stream, eating most tasty food, talking to many people about my self, my trip. Over all , this trip gave me things which I was carving for long. Complete Freedom. Now what can be better way than this to celebrate the Independence Day.

As I am already done with all those Independence Day rallies which happen in Pune city. Most of the groups, be it the motorbike, cycle, running, photography all do their respective Independence day ride.

2015, I wanted to celebrate in some better way. As it is the monsoon, a weird IDEA popped up.

"How about a cycling road trip to GOA, exploring different places and  as per google maps it is approximately 425km, and as per my calculation it would take me 2 days."

Took Leave from Office. Had the call with Viaterra guys, for a cycling bag, they managed to send me a handlebar bag which was big enough for 2-3 day ride.

14th August 2015, 6.00am

When everyone was busy getting ready for office and most of IT guys were waiting at the bus stop, I packed my bag, tied my tent, sleeping bag, raincoat on the back carrier of the bike. Tied the Viaterra Handle Bar bag with some clothes and left. I had already received the road bike from the bike store 1 day prior on rental. And soon I was out of city cruising in highway enjoying music, calm weather as there was no rain, but clouds make the climate cooler. Most of motorcycle, car drivers, trucks were crossing me giving me a weird look. And all I did is smile at them.

This thing continued, captured photographs, selfies, videos. Road where not that good for a road bike, there were many bad patches which forced me to slow down, just to avoid going flat. I stopped at regular intervals, had water and refreshments and again started. There are lots of uphills and downhill, where down last for the fraction of seconds, uphill goes on for hours, sometimes it gets irritating. Anyway I was at the advantage due to my road bike and 27 gear ratio helped me a lot.

The best part of my trip started when I crossed Satara which was 100km from Pune, as the roads after that were in good conditions and I was able to take full advantage of having a road bike. And many times people use to come by and ask same old questions.

Where am I going? 
Where am I from? 
Am I  in some kind of race. and when I mention I am going GOA in the cycle. all of them had some expression. and it was too funny sometimes.

What  I loved is people are not that bad either, many wished me for my trip. Many enjoyed talking with me, some also took my photographs and it was an overall new experience which I never had during motorbike trips. Every solo trip I did it helped me a lot, to learn many new amazing things which I would have never learned.

Soon it was dark and I reached Kolhapur by 9 pm, 200km done for Day 1. Booked a lodge near to highway for 400 bucks. Already was in lot pain and, was dehydrated badly so had my dinner and what an awesome sleep I had.



Hoping for next day to recover and reach my destination in time.