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Originally Posted by pranavGTI Dr.AD, certainly you are an inspiration
Solo drive is one of my 2023 wish list. I am hoping for it in the second half of this year. |
Thank you and wish you all the best for your solo drive plan!
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Originally Posted by haisaikat Wonderful pictures Doc, once again and as always . |
Thank you!
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This samruddhi highway seems to ace them all.
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True. I have not driven on all the roads you mentioned, but I have driven on some other expressways in India. Yes those are all good. But I do not recall any other road where you could do straight 500km (soon 700km once the entire road is completed) without having to brake or having to even stop at a toll booth. This would be a 700km of nonstop high speed drive without any obstruction at all, and legal speeds of 120km/h. That is really special in our country.
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Originally Posted by livetodrive Nice loop covered Dr. AD. If I visit Pench tiger reserve in summer, I would like to take a quick U turn on Samruddhi expressway too. Or, better would wait for your valuable suggestion. Basically would like to avoid NH4. |
Thanks! For Pench, you do not have to go to NH4 at all. Did you mean NH44 (Hyderabad-Nagpur highway)? Yes, you have to take NH44 and Pench is right on that highway just after Nagpur. NH44 is a very good road all the way till Pench. No issues at all. It is a good fast four-lane road. And no, you can not avoid that (and no reason to avoid that at all) to go to Pench.
Yes you can surely drive on Samruddhi and take a U-turn just to check out that road. But you may to have travel some 60km or so for a U-turn. There is no U-turn at all on the highway. You will have to figure out which exit to take and then come back and enter the expressway again in the opposite direction. You will have to do some research on this. I guess Wardha is the first exit and that would be about 60km from the entry on Samruddhi Mahamarg. But I am not sure. Maybe there are other exits before that. I did not pay attention to those early exits from Nagpur.
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Originally Posted by vnabhi Lovely TL, Dr. AD. Enjoyed reading it to the hilt! I admire your inclination to try out new highways and make spur-of-the-moment changes to your travel plan, just to enjoy great sceneries. |
Thank you very much!
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I am amazed at the FE you got on your Bimmer, despite the great speeds. Keep munching miles. I hope you have got your bumper scratches fixed by now.
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Thanks. Yes the bimmer returns great FE if I drive at constant speeds, even at high speeds. For example, from Pune to Bhigwan, in that early morning drive with good speeds but constant speeds, I got 22km/l! The 2.0 diesel engine is a gem.
Nope, I did not fix the bumper scratches. The scratches are on the underside of the bumper (where I got hit) and are not easily visible. Further, I am not so obsessed about the scratches and other cosmetic things now after driving this car for more than 80,000km in all sorts of conditions. I maintain the car in mechanically (and functionally) in top shape, and do all service and maintenance in time (often in advance), but do not worry about minor scratches and dings. Maybe in a few months, after I gather a few more bumper scratches (inevitable when driving on bad roads) I will get the whole bumper repainted once and remove all scratches together.
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And yes, even I was misled to that wrong turn to Ellora from the Dhule highway, but as i was in my Ecosport, I did not face much issues. And the bad stretch was only for half a km or so.
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Oh, ok. Yes, I saw most of the traffic (including all tourist taxis) were taking this short cut, and I assumed this to be the main road looking at the flow of the traffic. Yes, the bad patch is only half a km. But it is so bad in that half km that it is enough to cause damage to a low slung sedan. I was very careful there, but still could not avoid one single hit at some deep pothole and that is where I got scratches under the front bumper.
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Originally Posted by VWguy Great non-optimal travelogue you wrote. Non-optimal word must be feeling proud itself. |
Thank you!
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According to you, how long should it take to reach Nagpur, if I start from Pune at 4am?
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I assume you will drive from Pune to Aurangabad and from there to Nagpur. Pune to Aurangabad should take 4 to 5 hours if you start at 4am. And then once you enter Samruddhi Mahamarg, it will take another 4.5 hours to reach Nagpur. In-between, you will have to cross Aurangabad city and that can take some time depending on traffic. Overall, I would say 10 hours is a good estimate. Check the thread on Samruddhi Mahamarg where lot of people have posted their driving times from Pune to Nagpur.
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Originally Posted by chaitanyakrish Great post and nice idea to include Samruddhi Mahamarg in the itinerary. |
Thank you very much!
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How did the Tyre pressure varied on the full concrete road ? Does it heated up more ? Please share any observations.
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It was no big deal for tyres. I started with 33psi in front and 36psi in rear (my typical highway pressures), and as in any other highway drive, the pressures were around 37-38 psi front and 39-40psi in the rear during the drive. Nothing unusual.
Honestly, the tyre pressures are not a big deal. My tyres have speed rating of W, which means 270 km/h. For those tyres, the speeds I was driving at are no big deal.
If your tyres are in good health, and good speed rating (V, W, Y or Z), and inflated properly, then such highway runs are nothing to worry about. In fact, not that I would recommend on public roads, but these tyres are absolutely safe and fine even at much higher speeds than what I did. So it is all fine.
In fact, this road is no special for tyres. I have been driving on fast interstate highways (and many of those are concrete roads anyways) for long, and on those roads, one has to constantly brake and accelerate due to slow traffic and other obstacles. Compared to that, the constant high speed run on Samruddhi is much easier on the tyres as well as on the car in general.
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Originally Posted by Sedate_Drive Great Clicks and a wonderful post.
Thanks much for sharing |
Thank you!