In summers of '13, we went on an unforgettable bike trip to Mussoorie and Dhanaulti, when we climbed the queen of hills riding on Hero Hunk and Bajaj Avengers from Delhi to Massoorie and Dhanaulti near Dehradun, Uttarakhand.

Cover


Prologue:
It was a usual afternoon in the office and I was sitting with one of my best buddies, Amit Tyagi  and we were chatting n sipping coffee on one lazy afternoon, suddenly we started talking about bikes when I was looking at my facebook cover photo from my last bike trip to Shimla. Since that trip I was looking for people who have the passion to do a bike trip but unfortunately I was not able to find any until that afternoon. There is no point in forcing someone to the trip, because if you force people to do something then it is not fun at all. But on that afternoon with just a hint of ignition, my colleague got excited even more than me. Within 5 mins of talk about bike trips and by looking at few travelogues on the net, he was raring to go. I generally don’t take much time to decide to say yes to these kinds of trips and within a click span we were two people ready to go and foundation was laid. Also the timing was perfect, next week from that point of time was a long weekend, because on that week Friday was an optional holiday due to Ram Navmi. So the dates and high level itinerary was also decided, leave early Friday morning and come back home Sunday evening.
With still more than a week to go, there was a task of gathering fellow gang members to join the elite biker group of our office. We straight away called up our cool buddy, Chandan Raj . I knew he wanted to do such trips because we had a talk regarding this on our last office trip to Kanatal. But there was one thing for which I was not pretty sure about him and had a doubt, he's newly married and with added responsibility will he go? And when we asked him about his willingness we got the expected fuzzy answer.. "ummm..ummm I'll think and let you know". By this reply I was not very sure about him whether he'll eventually go or not.
Now the hunt was again on and then we asked another colleague and a friend, Gaurav Goel . His quick ‘yes’ was very crucial at that time because if he would have said no at that point of time, the trip and a thought of it would have gone straight into the recycle bin. But he straight away gave the positive response and then with 3 members, the trip was definitely on and then the whole planning started seriously. With some provocation Chandan also joined in after 3-4 days. Now it was the time to make the lists, it was time collect the items, it was time to order the stuff or go shopping for them, it was time to service and feed the beasts.
Now is the perfect time to introduce the machines as I have already introduced the riders.
I, Saurabh Soni, would ride my 2008 model and 46k kms old 150cc Hero Honda Hunk. Amit Tyagi would be with his 200cc Red Bajaj Avenger and we had another Avenger, Black in colour, with Chandan Raj. So a Hunk and two Avengers would do the climbing to queen of hills. We also considered a rule that bikes should be 1 less than the riders for emergency reasons.
I got my hunk serviced and for the first time I got it serviced from a local mechanic because I wanted to be double sure. I deliberately asked him to change the clutch wire because on our last trip our Bike’s clutch wire got broken. I also got shocker repaired as it was leaking and my beast was ready in just 670/- including the engine oil change. Now with things set into place, machines got serviced we were eagerly waiting for Friday the 19th April to start our journey.

Enough of the writing now and let me throw some teasers before starting the actual travelogue.

Introducing AMIT TYAGI


GAURAV GOEL


CHANDAN RAJ


your's truly, SAURABH SONI 


we all 4 together


and there we go...

Day 1: 19th April2013, Friday


A day before I took all my luggage to my relative's place at Sahibabad, from where I decided to start the trip. This way I saved my self 30 kms, which I would have traveled more, had I started from my home at Ranibagh .
We decided that me and Chandan would start from our respective places at sharp 5 am, me from Sahibabad and Chandan from Sector -62, and then we would all meet up at a Left Turn after Raj Nagar Extension. On the way Chandan also had to pick up Gaurav Sir from Ghaziabad.
It got a little late to sleep that night and I only managed to get a sleep for just 3 hours before the alarm in my mobile woke me up at 4:15 am. Now I had 45 mins to get ready and also had a mighty task of fitting my three bags on the Beast. I had purchased two Bungee ropes for this purpose and those two definitely proved very handy all along. I got ready and was all excited and got downstairs in the Garage, where my Bike was also waiting for the journey. Ideas come to you naturally in the mornings and that morning also an Idea struck my head on how to tie those two Bag Packs on the Bike. The picture below shows how I tied those bags on my bike in a very secure and safe way for the whole journey. I didn't want to carry the BagPacks on my shoulders, all thanks to the learnings I received by reading other Biker's stories, there is always a chance of complication and finger numbness later if one carries bag pack on his shoulders for longer duration of time.



So, the bags got attached. The meter reading was set to zero .



Finally I wore my knee and elbow guards, gloves and Helmet and at 5:15 am I pushed the ignition button and took the name of God and yes within no time I was on the road, yet again riding for my another long trip. The morning was perfect, It was clear and a cool morning breeze was blowing. I took my earphones( in-ear earphones are very dangerous while riding, so I took those old earphones). I was listening to one of my favorite songs by Audioslave and the lines made the pleasure two folds "I am not your rolling wheels, I am the Highway".
I crossed Raj Nagar extension, within no time I reached our rendezvous point where other two bros were waiting, took few photographs while praising the morning in a chorus.




Now we were 3 and the other bro Tyagiji, as everybody calls him with love, would join us at Meerut, his starting point.
So, After riding and cruising for another hour or so we reached Meerut and Tyagiji joined us.



Full strength of the team was achieved and now with everybody on board, the journey to the queen of hills started. My luggage was intact on my bike but other bikes were not getting hold of the bags in a correct manner and we had to stop from time to time till half of the way when we finally got hold of them in a right way.
While riding through farms or open villages it is advisable not to expose any body part not even fingers. Because various kinds of insects and flies fly around and they can bite you hard any time. That's what happened and something bit Gaurav sir on his tiny finger and we had to stop. We were riding effortlessly on Toll road as it was butter smooth road but because of that incident we had to stop. Apart from that issue it was a welcome break as we rode 50-60 kms since meerut. We again took that stoppage as an opportunity to click few photographs.



After this we again started and our next halt was at Haldiram to fill our own tanks i.e to have a breakfast. We bikers stopped and got us filled up with Aloo Puri, Haldiram's trademark chole Bathure and Raj Kachori.



So, stomachs were well fed and we were on our bikes riding again and then toll road ended, just after Muzzafarnagar. And now the road started testing us  . That road appeared smooth and then just when you speed up, suddenly a well(very deep pit) comes from nowhere and your machine and you get on the verge of drowning inside it . Also only one side of the road was accommodating the traffic of both ways. So, bikers weren't able to get their small share of the road and we had to do off-roading from time to time. In this pitted riding process the bags were again started to move to one side of one of the Avenger and then we stopped again to fix those.



This time again the perfection was not achieved and we would stop once again to correct this. But after this stop we managed to again temporarily fix the luggage like the snap shows below


Traffic density was increasing with each passing Kilometer and in the mean time we reached Haridwar. In Haridwar traffic was touching its peak and because of lack of wide road, traffic police face a hard time managing the traffic. In Haridwar we took our first snack break. It was a small roadside establishment near Chotiwala restaurant in Haridwar. At that time we were feeling a bit tired after crossing that horrendous road after toll and the heavy traffic of Haridwar. We spent atleast half an hour there.



After getting a much needed break we started again and went past the traffic of Haridwar and rode scattered from one another. And then with just 3 hour of sleep at night, I started feeling fuzzy and sleepy. On a straight road I fell asleep for a second or two and then I decided to stop and took a thumsup and only after getting refreshed I got back on road. We took another stop at Lacchiwala Reserved forest. It was more like a picnic spot and a water park with no water rides, just a pond filled to swim and have fun.



Wasting not much time there and with some eating we came back on our original route and we got passed beautiful city of Dehradun. There were lots of nicely built homes along side the roads. Dehradun and Massoorie are also famous for some of the best boarding schools in the country, and also the prestigious IMA(Indian Military Academy). For the last time in Dehradun we stopped to fix the bags again and this time we got it correct and the after Dehradun suddenly slight curves and little climbs started and then we realized we've finally reached the hills. Once in hills all the tiredness gets over and new energy come into you and you start enjoying the thing for which you've come so far and that's what we were feeling.


Continues below ....

Day 1 continues....


Suddenly the climbs started becoming steep and curves started getting sharper and sharper. We were riding tail to nose to one another and ohh boy we were enjoying it to the fullest and then we were welcomed by the board, welcome to the queen of hills Massoorie. We were in the mountains, we were very excited, one side of the road was a ascent of a mountain and other side was steep descent of a valley and we four were riding in between to our joy.























Finally we reached the library Chowk in Massourie and straight away we started looking for a hotel. We wanted it for 2 nights and our condition was good hygienic room yet a cheap option . After searching for half an hour, we finally managed to sneak in a decent deal. We got freshen up and I got rid of my riding gear, it was such a relief. Also the Sun already wished us good bye. We were also starving badly as it had been hours since we had a breakfast in Haldiram and we skipped lunch that day. So, we went to the Mall and it had mesmerizing view of Dehradun on one side. Dehradun was twinkling like jewelry and the view was breathtaking. We had fun on the way when we were searching for Aggarwal restaurant and finally after walking for appx 2 or so kms we found it and had our dinner there.














After dinner and usual time pass session we called it a day, a day which offered us a great experience, a day which made us tired but tiredness to our own happiness, a day when we climbed up to the queen of hills.

Hi Saurabh,

Waiting for Day2 of your log, you had a good trip up there... post the next piece also.

Thanks Ankit, I'll post more soon

Hi Saurabh,

Waiting for Day2 of your log, you had a good trip up there... post the next piece also.

So, how much time did it take to reach Massoorie? and where did you put up there?

Well, we were not in a hurry and took some breaks, It took us 10-11 hrs including breaks. We stayed in Hotel Kehkasha near library chowk and tarrif was 1900 a night for a two bedded room.

Did you guys visit Kempty Falls?

Yes we went to Kempty Fall as well and that was the last milestone of our trip

@ankitjuneja1 ... I am going to post Day 2 today as I finally got sometime to complete this today