[paragsachania]

Originally Posted by misguidedmisile

One final question is, how do I make sure I catch the Nice Road exit after Nelamangala, and don't continue towards Bangalore City.

Its easy. Pay the NTBL toll for the Nelemangala Expressway. After this the NICE road exit comes around 6 kms later.

You will first cross Himalaya Drug company on your right first. Soon after this you will cross IOCL station the left.

After this start shifting lane and move to the left most lane. You will cross a signage above you indicating exit for Mysore/Hosur/Chennai etc.

Get gown from this exit (Now you will be on service lane) and you will immediately spot an entry ramp for NICE on the left. Climb over this and you are on NICE.

[ampere]

Originally Posted by misguidedmisile

One final question is, how do I make sure I catch the Nice Road exit after Nelamangala, and don't continue towards Bangalore City. I know its been discussed earlier, either in this thread, or the 'Bypassing NICE road' thread, but i couldn't locate the page. Please advise or if possible, provide me the link to the Page where this info exists.

Not sure if you have already driven past. But to add to Parag, after you pay the Nelamangala toll, make sure you are on the left side of the road. Because the NICE road exit is a small one and the board indicating the exit is bang at the place where the exit it. So you wont even be indicated of the approaching exit. Thanks to this many end up missing this one.

And the board does NOT say exit to NICE road. It would say exit for Hosur, Mysore etc.

[misguidedmisile]

Originally Posted by ampere

Not sure if you have already driven past. But to add to Parag, after you pay the Nelamangala toll, make sure you are on the left side of the road. Because the NICE road exit is a small one and the board indicating the exit is bang at the place where the exit it. So you wont even be indicated of the approaching exit. Thanks to this many end up missing this one.

And the board does NOT say exit to NICE road. It would say exit for Hosur, Mysore etc.

Thanks! that helps! No, I haven't yet driven past, leaving this Sunday (29th).

[condor]

Originally Posted by ampere

Because the NICE road exit is a small one and the board indicating the exit is bang at the place where the exit it.

* NICE road is the first & only road that goes above the road you are coming.
* The road you are coming & NICE road are perpendicular to each other.
* NICE road starts at the Highway.

It will cross the highway at right an As soon as you see that, move to the left & take the exit.

[paragsachania]

Originally Posted by condor

* NICE road is the first & only road that goes above the road you are coming.
* The road you are coming & NICE road are perpendicular to each other.
* NICE road starts at the Highway.

It will cross the highway at right an As soon as you see that, move to the left & take the exit.

Adding to your list

* There is only one signage that you will see on the highway that indicates locations such as CHENNAI, MYSORE etc and soon after this you exit from the highway for NICE.

[misguidedmisile]

Morning Folks!

Wanted to thank Parag and Ampere for helping with the route and the halts. Drove Pune - Chennai last Sunday. Started from Pune at 4AM and crossed Bangalore at about 330PM. The NICE Road exit from NH4 was easy as mentioned here on the forum. Reached Chennai by 845PM and home by 920PM. Total distance being - 1194 kms.

Drove over an unmarked speed breaker, about 2 kms after the COCO HP at Shoolagiri. No one really saw it coming. Don't know if it's actually a speed breaker, or if the road work is left incomplete. Being Sunday, traffic was lesser than usual. Only, the last hour before entering Chennai was maddening with heavy traffic, and rain not helping in anyway!

Thanks,
Varun

[goandude]

Did Bangalore Pune Mumbai Bangalore over last week. Roads are generally good to great. Some work between Pune and Satara which doesn't seem to be progressing at all.
Driving at about 110-120 in a heavily loaded Innova with 2 passengers when on a smooth Rt handed bend on the road between Haveri and Rannebennur I saw that there was broken stones (like they use in making concrete) on the road so straightened the wheel foot off the a pedal. When approaching close by I saw that it was actually sharp chipped off stones covering almost the entire Rt lane. End result was this
Made me poorer by 7500/-.
Changing the tyre of the Innova was quite a pain but fortunately there was friendly tyre wallah close by

[rpunwani]

We did Mumbai - Pune - Mysore and Bangalore - Pune - Mumbai in May/June 2014. Had planned the journey after reading the entire Team-BHP thread; thanks to all of you
The roads are in very good condition with widening work being carried out along with bridge building between Pune & Satara. Coupled with longer than usual waits at Toll Booths, the drive between Pune & Satara is a bit stressful. Watch out for crazy 2-wheelers and slow movers in the right lane. The traffic south of Satara is better. I cannot understand why NH4 has speed breakers in Karnataka?
We managed to do Pune - Chitradurga - Mysore (a distance of 877 kms) in 15 hrs from 0600 hrs to 2100 hrs. The roads were very good for most of the journey whether National Highway or State Highway.
On the return leg, we did Pune - Bangalore home to home (a distance of 840 kms) in 14 hrs from 0600 to 2000 hrs. This included exiting Bangalore at 0600 hrs and entering Pune at 1830 hrs.
We did not exceed 110 km/hr and drove on cruise control for 70% of the journey.
Entire NH4 is 2/3 lanes each side, with dual carriageway exclusions being Dharwar/Hubli bypass, which is a 2 lane road & no dual carriageway and some city roads in Mumbai, Bangalore & Pune

[dass]

Originally Posted by goandude

Changing the tyre of the Innova was quite a pain but fortunately there was friendly tyre wallah close by

May be I am over reacting, but do you think the Tyre shop fellow had some hand in placing the stones over there? May be he expected a puncture and not a Tyre cut.

[goandude]

Originally Posted by dass

May be I am over reacting, but do you think the Tyre shop fellow had some hand in placing the stones over there? May be he expected a puncture and not a Tyre cut.

No way. The load of stones had probably fallen from a truck. There were way too much for a person/s to place there. Moreover why stones? he could have placed nails.

[sandeep3in]

Friends, need to know the time taken to cover Bangalore to Pune by road.

Someone who has traveled recently can post their experience on the state of the road and the approx time it takes.

Also please let me know if we can prefer night travel on the route , planning to leave Bangalore by 5:00 PM.

Suggestion welcome as am traveling for the first time on this route.

[pratika]

Originally Posted by sandeep3in

Friends, need to know the time taken to cover Bangalore to Pune by road.

Someone who has traveled recently can post their experience on the state of the road and the approx time it takes.

Also please let me know if we can prefer night travel on the route , planning to leave Bangalore by 5:00 PM.

Suggestion welcome as am traveling for the first time on this route.

Bangalore-Pune (~800 kms) should take about 10-12 hrs depending on how many stops you take.

Roads from Bangalore-Satara (~700 kms) are in good good shape. Of this 700 kms, I'd say Bangalore-Kolhapur roads are the best (~600 kms). But when in Karnataka, do watch out for some nasty speed breakers on the National Highway. There is a stretch of 30 kms near Hubli where road is 2-lane undivided, other than that it is all divided road with 2/3 lanes each way. Tumkur-Chitradurga is an especially nice stretch.

2 months back I left Bangalore city at 3 pm towards Mumbai. Unfortunately near Haveri, locals were staging a rasto roko costing us 1.5 hrs of stalled traffic. But other than that night travel wasnt a problem. We reached Mumbai early morning.

One thing you should watch out for is limited fuel stations post Tumkur. Usually I fill up at Bangalore then just before Hubli. This is good enough to get me to Mumbai. In case you are going from Pune-Bangalore, you can fill up at Appachiwadi which shows up immediately on entering Karnataka. There is a BPCL COCO pump there. If you miss this one, another good one is near Hire Bangewadi (after Belgaum) but this one is not COCO.

Toll from Bangalore-Mumbai should set you back by ~Rs. 1200.

[ranjitp1]

Originally Posted by sandeep3in

Friends, need to know the time taken to cover Bangalore to Pune by road.

Someone who has traveled recently can post their experience on the state of the road and the approx time it takes.

Also please let me know if we can prefer night travel on the route , planning to leave Bangalore by 5:00 PM.

Suggestion welcome as am traveling for the first time on this route.

No problems with the route for night travel,just that you should be ready for night time driving with the continuous glare of oncoming traffic.

Budget for 10-12hrs of drive time.

[rpunwani]

Dear sandeep3in,

Be careful of the road condition after the rains. Night driving will reduce your ability to gauge the road condition.

If you can leave Bangalore by 4 am, you should be able to get to Pune by 7 pm. I did Bangalore - Pune in first week of June, left at 6 am and reached Pune at 8 pm after breakfast, lunch & tea halts.

[paragsachania]

Originally Posted by sandeep3in

Also please let me know if we can prefer night travel on the route , planning to leave Bangalore by 5:00 PM.

I am back driving from Belgaum on yesterday and my onward Journey was all through the night.

More than just two cents from my side:

• By leaving at 5AM, plan your dinner break at Kamat, Ranebennur which is around 300 kms from Bangalore
• Irrespective of your vehicle's range, tank up at BPCL COCO after Dharwad and you are assured to be taken care all the way to destination
• It was raining last weekend and expect rains over the next few days too
• Patches between Chitradurga-Davanagere-Haveri-Bankapura have got new layer of asphalt but with no lane markers - With Darkness and rains, keep your speeds in limit as it is not that easy to focus on your lane with no reflectors or markings
• Carry enough news papers and water and if raining quite regularly, wipe clean the Tail and head lights and they make life easy for you to drive at nights under low visibility
• You would ideally enter MH around 2AM and traffic would be sparse around this time - Drive carefully to avoid braking at the last moment, especially between Satara and Pune where 6 lane work has created couple of diversions (Not usually well marked as well)
• Pay attention wherever you notice multiple signage indicating "Go Slow"/"Accident Zone" as rumbler strips have been placed at couple of locations between Bankapura-Hubli

Originally Posted by ranjitp1

with the continuous glare of oncoming traffic.

Spot on! We were discussing as on how badly even the runway like road between Chitradurga and Tumkur has been designed with low medians and absolutely no barriers to block oncoming glare. At times, you can easily get confused (along a curve) whether the oncoming traffic is heading right into your lane!

Originally Posted by pratika

One thing you should watch out for is limited fuel stations post Tumkur. Usually I fill up at Bangalore then just before Hubli.

There are BPCL, HCPL and IOCL COCOs (Both sides) soon after Dharwad bypass and they remain open 24 hours and this location is ideal as its halfway between Mumbai/Pune -Bangalore.