Pics and Report: Bicycle ride to Kanheri Caves (SGNP) with Mumbai BHPians ...Part 2/2
We saw a couple getting their snaps professionally clicked. If you see closely, you would see a topless gentleman sitting behind us in the group pic. Anyways, this is not the place to share the jokes about them.
The entry-point to Kanheri caves is very near from there...may be less than a kilometer. The tricky part is that its a fairly steep climb. But then you buy geared cycles because then you can shift to the lowest gear and climb up relatively easily. At least that's what I (and a few others) thought.
We started the climb, shifted to lower gears, stood up from the saddle and what not. BUT the Kanheri caves climb finally had most of us.
The sheepish smile on Sid and KD's face says it all.
I believe only Akashay managed to climb without getting off his bike. Narendra also managed to ride farther than the rest. The rest of us just dragged our bikes to the top.
We found a spot near the entrance and parked. Most of us wanted to visit the caves.
We decided to have food first. Vanilla khakra, energy bars, juice packs, chilled bananas and what not. Me and Kiran had good veg sandwiches prepared by Rajwant. There were lots of monkeys around and we had to be careful.
Parked bikes
Kiran's Yellow RR 5.2.
Akshay's Scott.. parked like a boss.
KD's off-roader Firefox and Narendra's racer Firefox. Rohit's rental white Decathalon lying on the ground completely exhausted.
A few happy faces after the breakfast.
Sid's bike-computer.
Me, Akshay and Narendra opted out of a visit to the caves and instead found a rock to seat and gaze around.
Adi's Estilo parked. Not too many vehicles at that hour.
A monkey bothering a couple of cyclists. Or may be the other way around.
The cave-visitors took longer than we expected. In the mean time, look who decided to join us.
None other than the FFE man - Supebee aka Raghav. Apparently his cellphone's battery died during the night and that's why he couldn't get up in the morning.
We got a demo of how the chain is falling off from Narendra's bike when he tries to shift to the bigger chain-wheel. Akshay had a look and advised him to show it to the Firefox guys.
10:30am: Finally the cave-visitors returned. More fun discussions.
Around 10:45am. we started the ride back to the SGNP gate. Me and Narendra witnessed Akshay zoom past us at unimaginable speed on the Kanheri downward slope! The return ride was pretty comfortable for all. Raghav and Raj traded places for some distance, so even Raghav got to ride the bike for some time. In half an hour we reached back to the gate.
11:15am: The sun was almost above us and the heat was slowly getting unbearable. The original plan was to ride back on bicycles, but we decided against it and decided to carry the bikes in the cars instead. Mine and Kiran's bike in Rohit's Duster. Sid's bike in Raghav's Swift. KD's and Akshay's bikes in KD's i10.
sawnilrules (Nilesh) called up and asked us to wait at the gate. Quickly said hi to him.
That's KD's i10.
I was in the Estilo's backseat. That's Adi.
Caught up with Raghav.
That's Sid riding shotgun with Raghav.
Reached home a bit after 12 noon. The ride was great fun.
Special thanks to Aditya, Arun, Rohit and Raghav. It means a lot to us that you decided to give us company and provided the much-needed support.
Thanks everyone who participated (including the ones in-spirit on the whatsapp group). You guys rock!
