[JVH]

A perfect thread to answer all your queries

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/route-...-roadtrip.html

[JLN]

Originally Posted by abhaybakshi

Hi,

I will be travelling from Pune to Banglore with my wife and kid.

Plan is to spend a night in Hubli and then start early from Hubli next day.

Please help me with the en route hotels and alternate plan.
My only criteria is that I dont want to do 900+ kilometers in one go.

As per my plan,

1. Start from Pune at 8 AM
2. Breakfast and tea near Satara at 10 AM
3. Lunch at Kolhapur / Belgaum at around 12 PM
4. Refreshments at Chitradoorga at around 2 PM
5. Halt at Hubli at around 4 PM

Stay in a budget hotel (must be clean and neat). Thinking of hotel Ayodhya. Any idea how far is this from pune-bangalore highway?

Day 2
====
1. Start early at 6 AM
2. Breakfast before Davangiri
3. Reach Bangalore by 2 PM for lunch

Your views please.

Belgaum to Hubli will take you just 1 hour. Chitradurga will come 2-3 hours after Hubli. Pune to Belgaum will probably take you 6 hours (not the 4 hours you have indicated).

[hvkumar]

I think you are too conservative, you can make much faster speeds than you have indicated. Even if you think it difficult to reach Bangalore the same day, maybe you should push it to at least Davangere or Chitradurga.

You can check out the details of hotels en route in the following route guide.
http://hvkumar.googlegroups.com/web/...+Bangalore.xls

[Rudra Sen]

Note from the support team: abhaybakshi, we've merged your thread with this existing long running one. You'll get better and detailed information here. Thanks.

[jassi]

Originally Posted by abtom

Hi Jassi,



I plan to drive to Pune from Blore. Unfortunately, my start date is not fixed - could be any one of the days between 7 to 10/Oct. The most likely dates are 7/Oct or 9/Oct. The variables that will determine the exact date will be kids exams, son's basketball training and a likely business meeting at Mumbai. So I do not know if this message will be of any help to you!!

I will be driving my SX4. I've done the trip several times the last couple of years in my Qualis. I've done both full daytime trip as well as a combination of day and night driving. However, I plan this trip to be an all daytime ride - start from Ramamurthy Nagar (near Banaswadi) at about 5:00AM and reach Pune no later than 6:00 PM.

If you are looking for someone to share the ride in your car, I cannot be that person. But, if your car is looking for company on the road, my SX4 would be interested - if we can co-ordinate our trip

Hi abtom - i have been busy at office all week and so need tomorrow to ship my household items. As a result, I am now planning to start on Sunday early morning. My dad will be here tomorrow as well mostly to help ship items to pune and then join in bangy-pune drive on sunday.
Let me know what your plan is - if its sunday, I would definitely want the company as this is my first time on such a long trip.

Edit - incase you have already left on 7th and reached pune - what was the route you took? Is the whole journey doable in 13hrs (5am to 6pm)? How are the roads right now?

[jassi]

Picked - this up from start of thread - is this route plan still a good idea?

1) Start from BLR at 3AM
2) Breakfast at Ranibennur A1 Plaza at 7:30AM (about 300km from here)
Blr - Tumkur - Sira - Chitradurga - Davangere - Ranibennur, Watch out for Tumkur BP....Dont cross 100kmph after Chitradurga as there are often diversions...
3) Lunch at Belgaum (Ranibennur - haveri - Hubli - Belgaum)
4) Belgaum to Pune can be easily done within 4 hours nonstop....

[paragsachania]

If you start at 3am you can easily have lunch at Kolhapur/Karad/Satara itself and be in Pune by 3pm. Ideally, the best time to start is around 3/4am which allows you to cover longer distances quickly before the population wakes up along the highway!!!

[jassi]

^^ excellent thanks for that hint - hope my route above is correct.
I am not sure if google maps will work all the way, as I have google turn by turn voice navigation on my phone (nexus one)
Google maps also gives some other routes via nh13, but i guess the nh4 one mentioned above is preferred.

[paragsachania]

Originally Posted by jassi

^^ excellent thanks for that hint - hope my route above is correct.
I am not sure if google maps will work all the way, as I have google turn by turn voice navigation on my phone (nexus one)
Google maps also gives some other routes via nh13, but i guess the nh4 one mentioned above is preferred.

Forget Google maps. Once you hit NH4, you will realise that it is a straight well marked road all the way to your destination, Pune.

Even the undone section between Chitradurga - Haveri is not a great cause of worry as you just have to keep deviating from left to right lanes and vice-versa a few times and watch out for the unmarked speedbreaks.

Its easier than explained. Have s safe drive.

[prince_pervez]

Originally Posted by paragsachania

Forget Google maps. Once you hit NH4, you will realise that it is a straight well marked road all the way to your destination, Pune.

Saar, the same cannot be said about NICE to hit Tumkur @ 3-4 AM. It is still very confusing. Atleast it was, when I was there. I hope the situation has inproved on NICE.

[jassi]

^^ hmm i will be starting from koramangala, so I guess I will have to be careful on NICE-tumkur.
thanks parag for the insight on the NH4 part :-)

[paragsachania]

Originally Posted by prince_pervez

Saar, the same cannot be said about NICE to hit Tumkur @ 3-4 AM. It is still very confusing. Atleast it was, when I was there. I hope the situation has inproved on NICE.

NICE is nicer now as compared to what it was a few years back as the much talked about Gottigere section too is well marked with directions.

But after hitting NH4, I am sure there should be no confusion. I remember earlier people used to drive into NH206 in Tumkur but now even that confusion is cleared, thanks to the completion of bridges/bypasses

[abtom]

Originally Posted by jassi

Hi abtom - i have been busy at office all week and so need tomorrow to ship my household items. As a result, I am now planning to start on Sunday early morning. My dad will be here tomorrow as well mostly to help ship items to pune and then join in bangy-pune drive on sunday.
Let me know what your plan is - if its sunday, I would definitely want the company as this is my first time on such a long trip.

Edit - incase you have already left on 7th and reached pune - what was the route you took? Is the whole journey doable in 13hrs (5am to 6pm)? How are the roads right now?

Sorry, I did the trip on the 7th itself! We left Blore at about 5:20AM. I took the regular route - Outer Ring Road, connected to NH4 at the ring road junction past yeswanthpur, nelamangala, tumkur, sira, chitradurga, davangere, rannebennur, haveri, hubli, dharwad, belgaum, kolhapur, satara, pune. The road condition is a mixture or good, excellent and reasonable throughout - mostly excellent. I pulled off the highway near davangere at about 9:10 AM for a pre-packed breakfast - average speed until this point was about 75 kmph which meant I was driving between 80-130kmph depending on the conditions. I stopped for lunch at MacDonald's at Kolhapur at about 1:30PM. This joint is just off the road on the left. An alternative (recommended on team-bhp) lunch stop is Hotel Sankam at Belgaum. I exited the highway in Pune at Baner/Shivajinagar exit at about 5:30PM and my average speed at this point was about 70kmph. So it was about 12 hours for me. Other than the two long breaks for breakfast and lunch I stopped at one railway crossing at Rannebennur (about 10 minutes) about 2-3 short bio-breaks and once for refuelling.

The bad sections were between chitradurga and haveri. It's not a continous bad stretch but short 50-100 metres of bad roads due to potholes or construction work. You will easily spot them and so you can slow down in time. What's worse than the potholes are the road humps - again in this same stretch. Some of them are visible and some not so; if memory serves me right none of them were painted. Stay at a sedate speed (mostly 80kmph) during this stretch and you should be okay.

At one point in the bad stretch (i think before rannebennur) where is a possibility of going on the wrong road - this is because at the bad patch there is a fork and the NH4 is on you right. The left fork looks aligned straight ahead but is NOT the highway.

The other pretty astounding thing I noticed in this stretch is what was the highway was being used for! The local farmers had cordoned off almost half the road on either direction to spread out their corn (i think) crop for drying or some such processing. This extended for several kms. I even saw the trucks with sacks, the sacks were being unloaded and the corn being spread out. On a side note, I am still trying to figure out how to reason out the rationale and the justice in this - giving credit for the local context that I am unaware of.

Other than the above the roads are very good.

After Kolhapur, be a little more careful on account of a few things - the two wheelers believe they have the right of way on any lane! Another thing to watch out for is the right most lanes push out a little for a short length to create a lane for folks to take a u-turn or to turn into the opposite direction. Do not use these lanes for overtaking since you will suddenly land up on the highway divider if you are high speed. The problem is that there are no markings to indicate these lanes are for u-turns and so there is a tendency to try to overtake.

Need some further help - I'll PM you way to contact me!!

Drive safe! Enjoy the country - its lovely, fresh and green on account of recent rains!!

[COUGAR]

I am planning to leave Pune for Bangalore tomorrow/Monday with a fully loaded Gypsy. Plan to make a 4 am start ex-Pune.
Rough drive plan:
Pune - 0km - 0400
Kolhapur - 245 kms - 0730
Belgaum - 360 kms - 0915

I havent been south of Belgaum in 3 years and not sure of the exact road conditions on NH4 but I am hoping its all 4 laned now.

if i cross tumkur by 5 pm I will push ahead to reach blr by same evening.

Not planning on pushing it since I avoid night driving. So plan to halt at 7pm wherever that may be. I need to reach a place called Lalbagh and I have always gotten myself lost in the last stretch in Bangalore, having to depend on bulleteer friends to guide me in!

Can someone guide me on the best way to reach Lalbagh when coming from the NH4 side. I know the route upto that Kamats place on the outskirts of Bangalore: everything after that is a bit hazy!

PS: Anyone looking to hitch a ride is welcome to join in...

[hvkumar]

COUGAR, I think the simplest route would be to take the NICE Road 12 kms after crossing Nelamangala, and exit it onto Mysore Road. One turn off to Lalbag near City Market/Kalasipalayam.

Check out the GM:
Unknown road to Unknown road - Google Maps