[rv3]

Drove the Pune-Bangalore sector on 27th Dec. Started at 6am in the morning and reached home at 7:30pm. 13:30 hrs door to door with 3 long stops of about 30-45 minutes each.

The Hinjewadi to Kolhapur section had a bit of traffic. More so due to the road work going on. There are at least 9 places where bridge construction work is in progress which slows you down. I could clock about 80-90 with some truck traffic.

After 100Kms the construction work ceases and we started picking up speed. Reached Kolhapur at 10am and stopped for breakfast at McDonalds. There is also a new KFC opened next to McD but it operates 11am to 11pm and was closed. The McD also served the breakfast menu only with muffins, hash brows and coffee.

Left Kolhapur at 10:45am and next stop was at Kamat Restaurant, about 1.5 kilometer before Dharwad-Hubli toll road. Nice idly/vada combo and some veg pulav made the hunger cease.

Reached Davangere at 2pm and the road was very good with sparse traffic. Made good use of the conditions and touched 120kph and the average was around 100kph, which is excellent. Took a bio break near Sira and Reached Tumkur around 5pm. The traffic picked up at Tumkur but was not heavy, considering Friday evening.

Paid about Rs. 850+ in toll but the journey was worth the money. With about 48 litres of diesel burnt to cover 920 Kms, the mileage was not to be complained about.

[Vid6639]

Rudra and myself drove down yesterday from Mumbai to Bangalore. Looks like yesterday was the day half of Mumbai decided to leave for Goa, Pune and Mahabaleshwar.

We got long queues on Mum-Pune expressway toll, traffic jam almost at standstill on Pune bypass and very slow highway traffic coupled with bad roads almost till Kolhapur. After that it was much better. In summary:

1. Pune to Satara : Very poor road surface and 2 wheeler traffic coupled with traffic.
2. Satara to Kolhapur : Roads are good but you do see 2 wheeler traffic.
3. Just after Kolhapur once you enter KA to Hubli Dharwad: Absolutely awesome roads with minimal traffic. Some stretches with black top are brilliant and 6 lanes.
4. Hubli - Dharwad bypass : single lane for 30-40kms.
5. Hubli - Haveri : 4 lane decent roads
6. Haveri bypass : single lane through haveri. Road construction ongoing
7. Haveri to Chitradurga : 4 lane decent road although surface is wearing out and undulating. Also look out for speed breakers in 2-3 places.
8. Chitradurga - Tumkur - New 6 lane super awesome highway. Amazing road surface but left lane has some debris so no truck uses it. Effectively a 4 lane since left lane is not used by trucks and they overtake each other using right most lane forcing one to go left.
9. Tumkur to Nelmangala: 4 lane but surface is deteriorating and patch work is just ok ok.
10. NICE road Tumkur to E-city: After Chitradurga to Tumkur new road you realise the NICE road surface is no longer great. It was very uneven with lots of patch work.

Places to eat:
We just followed the advice on this thread earlier and stopped for lunch at Sai International before Kolhapur. Food was very good. Fresh food and simple preparation with less oil/masala. Perfect highway food. Outside food court serves snacks and inside AC restaurant serves non veg also.

We did not find any good stop after this except the McD and bunch of usual Kamat's. Eateries are better in MH than KA. We ended sipping dinner since after Davangere there was hardly any good place.

Also surprising was the 3 small rest stops we took at small dhabas for tea/coffee. All places served terrible tea and coffee. We took coffee in MH side and it was like sweet milk. Tea was like water. Expected good "kadak" highway chai and was very disappointed.

[palitrana]

Thanks a lot guys for the up to date update!

I myself am taking this trip from Mumbai to Bangalore on the 1st and this helps a lot in planning, specially when I am the solo driver.

I had an additional query. After reaching Bangalore outskirts from the Highway, what is the best route to take to Jayanagar, mindful of the fact that I would be reaching in the evening peak hours. If I take Nice ring road, which turn off should i be taking?

[binand]

Originally Posted by palitrana

After reaching Bangalore outskirts from the Highway, what is the best route to take to Jayanagar, mindful of the fact that I would be reaching in the evening peak hours. If I take Nice ring road, which turn off should i be taking?

Probably Magadi Road interchange, but I think you are better off continuing on Tumkur Road (NH4) into the city and reaching Jayanagar via some route. Experts on that side of Bangalore may have better advice for you.

[mvp]

Originally Posted by binand

Probably Magadi Road interchange, but I think you are better off continuing on Tumkur Road (NH4) into the city and reaching Jayanagar via some route. Experts on that side of Bangalore may have better advice for you.

Take NICE road and exit at PES college.

[paragsachania]

Originally Posted by Vid6639

Looks like yesterday was the day half of Mumbai decided to leave for Goa, Pune and Mahabaleshwar.

Thanks Vid for the updates. I should be on this road again next weekend. In fact, the beginning of the weekend towards Pune and end of the Weekend towards Mumbai - Traffic is always the heaviest. Considering the size of Pune as a city now, the outgoing traffic from Mumbai and Pune combined can ruin your peaceful drive on a highway if heading down south at least till Kolhapur.

1. Pune to Satara : Very poor road surface and 2 wheeler traffic coupled with traffic.

Sadly, things won't change even after 6 lanes becoming functional in coming years. Thanks to the thick density of population in this belt. Its after a lot of drives that I now make it a point to cross this section either before 8AM or after 9PM.

2. Satara to Kolhapur : Roads are good but you do see 2 wheeler traffic.

The good thing about this stretch is that there is no 6 lane work happening. Additionally the tarmac is all concrete till you are nearing Kolhapur Bypass. So the ride also is better (opposed to the undulated sections before this)

3. Just after Kolhapur once you enter KA to Hubli Dharwad: Absolutely awesome roads with minimal traffic. Some stretches with black top are brilliant and 6 lanes.

Its like suddenly, entering a new country. No population, no traffic, better roads. So you have 2 sections that are 6 laned now. All those Bridges and Ghat sections (Tawandi and Vantamuri) and officially the Belgaum-Dharwad section all over.

4. Hubli - Dharwad bypass : single lane for 30-40kms.

Earlier somewhere on this thread, I saw updates that they are making it 4 lane but last drive in October (and many before that), I realised that the digging has nothing to do with expanding the 30 kms long bypass which is a nightmare to pass at nights with Private Volvos pouncing on you.

6. Haveri bypass : single lane through haveri. Road construction ongoing

I think you meant Harihar bypass didn't you? The bypass actually forks into two (when approaching from both ends). While the Mumbai bound Traffic can drive without much of a detour on the north bound corridor, its the Bangalore bound traffic that needs to take a detour at the fork and join back almost 4 kms later.

Also look out for speed breakers in 2-3 places.

Actually there is one after Haveri (but for Mumbai bound traffic only) and another one exactly the place where Harihar bypass forks out.

We did not find any good stop after this except the McD and bunch of usual Kamat's. Eateries are better in MH than KA. We ended sipping dinner since after Davangere there was hardly any good place.

Yes, this has been the grouse since ages now. No decent place to stop barring a few which are separated at least 70-80 kms apart. However, there is a new CCD at Shiggaon that may be a good option between Ranebennur and Kamat at Hubli which otherwise had nothing literally.

Also surprising was the 3 small rest stops we took at small dhabas for tea/coffee. All places served terrible tea and coffee. We took coffee in MH side and it was like sweet milk. Tea was like water. Expected good "kadak" highway chai and was very disappointed.

I recall an incident when we had sugar syrup at the end of Hubli Bypass. No good option for good Tea at all.

[palitrana]

Originally Posted by mvp

Take NICE road and exit at PES college.

Pardon me , but speaking in Google maps lingo - Is it Mysore Road, Kanakpura road or Bannerghata Main road?

[hondadude]

Originally Posted by palitrana

Pardon me , but speaking in Google maps lingo - Is it Mysore Road, Kanakpura road or Bannerghata Main road?

PES exit (called Bangalore exit and comes before Kanakpura exit if you are coming from Tumkur road side) is good for Banashankari III stage and areas around that.

For Jayanagar, Kanakpura exit would be better.

[mvp]

Originally Posted by palitrana

Pardon me , but speaking in Google maps lingo - Is it Mysore Road, Kanakpura road or Bannerghata Main road?

Originally Posted by hondadude

PES exit (called Bangalore exit and comes before Kanakpura exit if you are coming from Tumkur road side) is good for Banashankari III stage and areas around that.

For Jayanagar, Kanakpura exit would be better.

Look into this link

https://maps.google.com/

Or, use below key words and look for directions

Tumkur
NICE Ring Road, Bangalore, Karnataka, India
PES Institute of Technology, Bangalore, Karnataka
Jayanagar 4 Block, Jayanagar, Bangalore, Karnataka

[ampere]

Originally Posted by paragsachania

I think you meant Harihar bypass didn't you? The bypass actually forks into two (when approaching from both ends). While the Mumbai bound Traffic can drive without much of a detour on the north bound corridor, its the Bangalore bound traffic that needs to take a detour at the fork and join back almost 4 kms later.

The problem with Harihar is I think they could not get land for the Bangalore side of the 4-lane arm. Hence that part of the road goes through the town. Its quite surprising that for such a big project like GQ they could not get this done. Don't know what the real problem was.

The other thing I realised later was that there bridge there is on Tungabhadra. While driving in August I was amazed at the amount of water in there. I also thought most water for Tungabhadra is contributed by Bhadra river. But during my last drive through western ghats I realised how wrong I was. Tunga has quite some water in it as well and Gajnur was just full (or so I thought, when the guy there said, its low!). And Hairhar in Aug was just so full !

[hondadude]

Originally Posted by mvp

Look into this link

https://maps.google.com/

Or, use below key words and look for directions

Tumkur
NICE Ring Road, Bangalore, Karnataka, India
PES Institute of Technology, Bangalore, Karnataka
Jayanagar 4 Block, Jayanagar, Bangalore, Karnataka

mvp, Have you taken PES exit to go to Jayangar? If so, please share on why you believe it is more convenient for Jayanagar as opposed to Kanakpura road. All of us can use google. Palitrana is asking a question in this forum so that he can get a practical advice from someone who has used these routes.

[mazda4life]

Originally Posted by hondadude

For Jayanagar, Kanakpura exit would be better.

I agree as well, for Jayanagar , it's better to take Kanakapura exit . It's better when compared to PES exit.

[ndalal02]

Hi,

Did Bangalore - Pune - Bangalore over the Christmas holidays. The road conditions are pretty much what everyone has recently described.

Started from Bangalore at 2.30 AM on 20th Dec and reach Wakdewadi (Shivaji nagar) at around 1.15 PM.
Return leg started at 4.30 AM on 1st Jan and reach Bellandur, Sarjapur Road at around 3.30 PM.
Both runs includes a half an hour break for coffee.

My timings were around 11 hours door to door of which 1.5 hours was spent in the city traffic. The timings from Majestic to Katraj was around 10 hours.

The return leg timing would be touch more since I did the Pune Kolhapur stretch in the dark and couldnt get any speeds beyond 100kmph due road diversions, no reflectors or markings on the road and very poor quality of the roads.
Pune - Bangalore has couple of disadvantages:
Ghat section between Pune - Satara which does not exist for Bangalore - Pune since they have a tunnel there.
Plus at Harihar there is no bypass on the return leg.

The timings could be further reduced but for the 15 odd toll plaza and improved road conditions between Hubli Dharwad and Pune - Kolhapur.

Thanks,
Nirav.

[harikr]

Mod Note : Please do NOT use more than 2 smileys per post. We advise you to read the Forum rules before proceeding any further.

Hello All,

Traveled from Bangalore to Pune on 26th Jan in my Ford Classic. As i got recently shifted to Pune, I wanted to bring my car from Kerala. I had to make our driver to bring it till bangalore (i wanted to drive from kerala, but my family just stood against it.

From there me and my wife planned to bring it. OT Went to Bangalore from Pune by KSRTC Airavat Club Class, one of the best services available in this route). Roamed around in Bangalore on saturday and started to Pune on Sunday early morning. Started from my cousin's place at C.V.Raman Nagar by 5:45 am. Initial plan was to take the outer ring road, but took my cousin's advice to go through the city itself as there will be less traffic since its early morning and sunday.

As he rightly told, there was absolutely no traffic through the route and could hit the highway in absolutely no time. Road conditions are exactly as mentioned in the previous posts. Tumkur to Chitradurga was absolute bliss, 6 lane well marked roads with good surface. Could easily hit 120-140kmph on this stretch. On an average the speed was 100-120kmph. Planned to do the breakfast at the Kamat's near Davangere, but it was closed.

Then had to do it at a small road side restaurant. The Kamat's looked permanently closed, so please don't plan for that because if its closed, you may not find another good one in the near vicinity. After finishing breakfast at around 10 am (a break of almost an hour), drove non stop till Kolhapur, where we stopped for lunch at the KFC/McD by the highway side, at 2 pm. Lunch break was for hardly 45 min. After Kolhapur, we got some 2 wheeler traffic and after Satara, the traffic started to increase exponentially and got 2-3 blocks near to Pune. Reached Katraj by 5:30pm. After that I did a mistake of going into the city to go to Pimpri (keeping in mind the early morning experience at Bangalore stupid. That took us a hefty 2 hours to reach Pimpri. There are a lot of construction works going on in this route for fly overs, BRTS etc. So if anyone wants to go to PCMC area, just continue on the highway till Wakad and take the Aditya Birla Hospital Road. ( I am sure all the regular travelers are aware of and follow this route).

[fastcar]

Hi,
Planning to drive this month end - Mumbai to Bangalore and while on my return will be accompained with my family and my doggy. Driving alone.
Any doggy friendly hotels near to Belgaum - for a night's break.