[Domnic]

HI,
Well the drive was awesome... will post a complete review once rudra has the pics up... we started off at about 7:30 am.... 4 cars.... ranging 140 - 170kph .... Drove for about 70 km and stopped to view some amazing scenery and ofcourse a photoshoot.... then again headed off about 40kms till mulbagal..... saw so many tomatoes ... enough to make u hate them..... was about 10 am ... looked around for a good place to eat ... atlast decided to have brunch at KSTDC hotel.... had a good discussion about cars and life..... saw monkeys .... then left from the restaurent heading back to bangalore... on the way we stopped half way to sit and chat and discuss stuff.... ended up tuning amitoj's zen ..... was fun..... i somehow carried my complete tool kit as my cars engine was completed only at 6am...... amitoj had to say this " the car seems to feel lighter everytime we tweaked " Psycho and myself did a few things.... when psycho found that the accelerator cable was jamming half way.... and we decided to fix that too.... and the car was even more better.... infact he was leading the way back and we had a tough time catching up with the zen .... then on we decided to have lunch in the city at koshys on st marks road.... i had to leave as duty called... had some work to finish up... was supposed to meet the guys in 15 mins but it turned out to be more than 2 hrs.... a BIG SORRY that i had to leave so abruptly...

Well this was in short what we did... wait till the long one lol.....

Cheers
Dom

[revtech]

hey nice write up dom.
looks like you guys had a great time.bombay guys should do this some time.waiting for the pics...


Rev

[sivadas]

Feel bad, missed my first opportunity to meet you all. I am seeing everything now only(including PM).

[SCARLET]

nice trip you guys had there
sorry couldnt make it as i couldnt access TBHP on weekends
and by the time rudra smsd me i had already made plans

now that ICE is back will have track of all things and will join in for all the future meets.

[gkrishn]

Yup... was a fantastic drive. Decided to take on old madras road at the last min. The ride was pretty event full. Starting with a completely burnt up bike in old madras road, that toppled Volvo(???), that tanker rammed straight into the railway track, that over dose of tomatoes, freq 140 regularly, that monkey family on top of rudra's optra ... amitoj's car getting spiced up mid way and he disappearing on the way back... and finally that 2 hours of chicken, fish, eggs, beers and that caramel custard (this along with rudra's jordan exp and that 2 wierd locations on earth.. one in kenya and one some where in sikkim..) at koshy’s.

If not for that slight truck traffic, it was a fantastic drive...

In between we had two 30-40 mins photo sessions. Waiting for those pics...

GK

BTW, did i forgot those mechanicals at the trunk on dom's car?? Calling that as a toolkit is bit of a understatment...

[aggressive_anush]

Damn... i didnt know the drive was happening. Dont have net access on weekends :(
Rudra.. you were supposed to call me up and let me know. boohoo.
Anyways.. theres always next time.

[v1p3r]

Kicking myself even more now. 170kph??? Jeezus.

Originally Posted by Rudra Sen

Photos will happen anyway. What makes you to pull back?

One car's at the service station, so Baleno wasn't free the whole day. Also, I'm not really a morning person. Though, for this stuff, I gladly would have been!

There's always next time.

[deepakhon]

Good to know that you all had a wonderful time. I wish I can join you sometime, but that will happen only after August. I am in a very different mood right now; awaiting my son/daughter. :-)

[amitoj]

Ah what a drive it turned out to be.

heres the detailed thing (Dom, i couldnt wait to tell the complete story so am posting it first..hehe):
Well, when i reached the rendezvous point, Rudra with his black 1.8 Optra, Dom with his red 1.5 City and Gkrishn with his black Corsa Sail were already there. Soon Psycho also joined us though minus his conti. But his Enfield was also a great sight!
So after exchanging a few pleasantries, Psycho left his motorcycle (cant call it a "bike") at Rudra's and got into his Optra. Started off with Rudra leading the way, followed by Dom, Gkrishn and me bringing up the rear.
Weather was good, nice cool and pleasant. As soon as we hit Old Madras Road, we were in the middle of a traffic jam! But we managed to get out of that jam in about 15 - 20 mins max i think. There was a bike lying in the middle of the road, completely smashed and burning. Soon after that, we left the city limits and started cruising.
The way we were driving showed that we were there for the journey and not the destination. Most of the times we drove between 90 - 120 but whenever an occasional empty stretch of road came, we did enjoy it to the max... although at 140+ my car seemed to huff and pant while the others seemed to practice deep breathing. But there were no rash or blind overtakes by anyone at any point of time.
About half an hour later,we stopped at a roadside tea stall for tea.... there were "toileat" and "watar" facility also there, though none of us availed of it. We chatted about cars etc (wot else could have been the topic??) and about 10 mins later, we hit the road again.
The sight of the accident at the railway crossing was terrible. There was a volvo (probably a fake one) that had gone off the road to its right side and hit a pole, i think. Front was smashed. And there was an HP Gas tanker that had gone on to the railway tracks (!!!) after the accident. Hoping that no one was seriously injured, we moved on.
Next stop happened for a photo shoot. Rudra chose the location and you will be able to see the results in a while. All i can say is, "Rudra, i am waiting for my new desktop wallpaper."
Next stop was for breakfast so we landed at a "dhaba" at mulbagal. The owner/cook/caretaker/wotever of the dhaba came out scratching his belly and reported that only rice items were available. We decided to try our luck elsewhere but only after checking out the wholesale market across the road. We were hoping for fruits but the whole place was full of tomatoes... crate upon crate of them!! Attack of the Killer Tomatoes anyone?
So we decided to head back for breakfast. Stopped at KSTDC owned Hotel Mayura or Maurya or something like that. They had only poori sabzi so we ordered that, with a slight apprehension coz the place seemed as if no one had eaten there anything for the past many years. But to the cook's credit, pooris were quite nice... hot, soft and fluffy! Seeing 4 cars parked there, a few other travellers also dropped in... they were also served the same stuff! I think we should have been given coffee on the house for bringing in more customers. And the conversation turned to cars again... i got quite a few good ideas about things to do with my zen, which i have engraved in my head... to be followed up in the near future.
Oh and how can i forget the good time the monkeys had there... mostly on Rudra's and GKrishn's car! One of them had so much fun that it even left a small token of appreciation on Rudra's car!
So with our tanks (i mean tummies) full, we headed towards bangalore, with the intention of stopping somewhere and generally chatting. Soon we were all parked next to a brick factory, under the cool shade of trees and generally chatting. Thats when psycho came up with the idea of tinkering with my zen... So up went the hood and Psycho asked me for a screwdriver. As i went to the back of my car, he called me back saying no need. He was looking into Dom's car's boot. There was a whole garage inside it!!! So Psycho and Dom went to work on my car and two minutes later, i was told to take it for a spin. I did. The car felt as if someone had taken half its weight off its shoulders!! I came back and Psycho said thats not how u take a car for a spin (though his exact words were a lot gentler). So this time he takes the wheel and i hop into the passenger side. He made my car do wheelspin for 3 - 4 seconds when he dumped the clutch! I never knew my car could shoot that fast!!! Meanwhile Dom and GKrishn checked out Rudra's music setup. And Gkrishn also checked out Rudra's camera equipment. I'd give more details about that but it involves a lot of numbers.
While Rudra and GKrishn were clicking, Psycho and Dom were opening up my car's accelerator. Another tweaking and another spin but this time Dom at the wheel. Suddenly my car was no longer sluggish. It was as if someone had given it a kick in the a$$ !
Soon it was time to move so we hit the road again. Halfway to hoskote i realised i needed to tank up my car as well! So i gave rudra a missed call as soon as i got signal and conveyed the situation. I was told to go to the front of the line, which was a good move coz had i run out of petrol before reaching a pump, being at the end of the line would have been slightly uncomfortable! Anyways, so i went to the front... and i got so involved in looking for a petrol bunk and enjoying my rejuvinated car that i couldnt see rest of the guys in my rvm. I think they dropped back so that i could look for a pump peacefully, which i did. Soon i found a petrol pump, got some fuel and we were on the move again.
Next stop was Koshy's though Dom couldnt come with us as he had work to do. More talk of cars and bikes and places to see and safaris to take happened over chilled beer and delicious food. I was so stuffed that i was tempted to sleep in the car for a while before heading back home!

So, around 4:30 PM we all decided to call it a day as far as the meet was concerned, with firm intentions of doing this as often as possible.

Cheers
Amitoj

[SCARLET]

nice amitoj, reading that made me feel i was part of the outing,
may we have another one soon enough , so that i can also join in the fun.
It was nice to see that your ZEN got transformed so quickly.
All you guys freaked out and had a blast this weekend,

[rahulmd]

Hey Amitoj, Nice write up. Waiting for Rudra's pics now.

Btw, what did Psycho and Dom do to your car??? Im really curious :-)

Regards,
Rahul

[c10]

Nice writeups Dom and Amitoj....

Missing it even more now after reading the writeups...

waiting for the pictures....

c10

[satish_appasani]

You Bangloreans are very lucky. I feel jelous. The biggest meet we had in Hyd was with 4 guys.

[Psycho]

Originally Posted by rahulmd

Btw, what did Psycho and Dom do to your car??? Im really curious :-)

Well in Amitoj's words "We gave it a kick in the a$$". What say Dom???

Anyways, missed having my own car there and hope to have it in the next time around.

Rudra hope that next time we can set up a route plan as per the lines of Outlook travellers weekend getaways and try and close all of those close to Bangalore.

[aadix]

Originally Posted by satish_appasani

You Bangloreans are very lucky. I feel jelous. The biggest meet we had in Hyd was with 4 guys.

not to worry satish
expect a big suprise in the first week of june.