[mclaren1885]

No, no. This is not one of those romantic travelogues I have been doing for a while now.

14/11/08, 10:30pm.
Tadu: Are you sure you don't want to come?
Mcl: Yup, you know why.
Tadu: Think it over, it will be fun. Besides its been ages since we did a long drive.
Mcl: Stop tempting me.
Tadu: You should just come.
Mcl: When are you guys leaving?
Tadu: We are leaving home in 5 mins.
Mcl: Where should I come?
Tadu: We will come get you, be ready.

12:30pm:


We reach Tumkur road CCD. A couple of coffee's later we are off. Its 1:00 am now. We have a long journey ahead of us.

Brraj at the wheel, the elantra is cruising around 140kmph. Around 100 kms later, the 3 of us are feeling a little sleepy. Rajiv is wide awake and enjoying the drive. Not knowing what to do, we ask Satya (cmiuc) to talk about his life since he moved back to India in 2005 from the USofA. So gripping was his story that eventually we decided we could make a movie on it . We reach the Hubli-Dharwad bypass around 5:30ish. No one is sleepy, every is still hooked on to the story.

We decide to swap places, I get into the drivers seat while its time for brraj to relax now. He has been driving for around 500kms now. You expect him to be tired, to go back and relax, maybe get some sleep? Nope, he is still listening to Satya's story.

We stop at Belgaum for breakfast around 7:00 am. 40 minutes later, after countless number of plates of idli, vada, umpa we are back onto NH4.

Milestones pass by, the trip meter continues to do its duty, like a clock. Speeds go up, its daylight now. This is where the elantra rules, open highways, AC on, soon I see 140 turn to a consistent speed of 160-170 kmph. At these speeds, you expect all the passengers to be hanging onto dear life. Yet, here they were. All 3 snoring like little babies.

Then havoc starts! Bloody toll gates, one after the other. Sucking your blood. They expect you to have the exact change, they frown if you give them a 100 or a 500. In return they give you chocolates instead of tendering the exact change. At every stop we get eclairs, melody and what not.

We were to visit Tadu's friends place in Pune. Many many hours later since I took the wheel we reached Pune. Its 10:30 am now. Our first leg of the journey is over. It took us 10 & half hours to reach Pune from Hebbal flyover with 2 breaks, each around 40 mins.

Driving through Pune is a pain. So we decide not to get lost, though there is an i10 showing us the way. We have a beautiful voice accompanying us in the elantra. It was a welcome change, to an otherwise male dominated conversation in the car. This lady even knew her way around Pune, that made her special. Finally we were not going to get lost, like James May always does.

[mjothi]

Here comes the next adventure, ha.

Originally Posted by mclaren1885

Then havoc starts! Bloody toll gates, one after the other. Sucking your blood. They expect you to have the exact change, they frown if you give them a 100 or a 500. In return they give you chocolates instead of tendering the exact change. At every stop we get eclairs, melody and what not.

my god, even these guys started distributing sweets is it? We should kick those ATM giving only 500s and demand them to deliver in coins too !!!

[hvkumar]

Originally Posted by mjothi

Here comes the next adventure, ha.



my god, even these guys started distributing sweets is it? We should kick those ATM giving only 500s and demand them to deliver in coins too !!!

This is a regular racket at all toll gates in Maharashtra - they have a tie up with some vendor/distributor and it is a thriving business selling chocolates under the pretext of having "no change". One of the best marketing strategies in town. A fellow-bhpian Ram told me that he once offered them chocolates by way of toll fees (in lieu of cash), and they refused!! Apparent, it is a one-way traffic.

[Swifty2008]

Originally Posted by hvkumar

This is a regular racket at all toll gates in Maharashtra - they have a tie up with some vendor/distributor and it is a thriving business selling chocolates under the pretext of having "no change". One of the best marketing strategies in town. A fellow-bhpian Ram told me that he once offered them chocolates by way of toll fees (in lieu of cash), and they refused!! Apparent, it is a one-way traffic.

I'm a frequent user of the expressway. I get annoyed if I'm offerred chocolates for change. Twice I got into agruments with the tollplaza guys. Finally they gave me change. I always keep a lot of change in my ashtray.

[tadukuttan]

Actually, did not mind the Chocolates at all. Welcome break, and they were giving out all good ones. No "local" stuff.

And my part of the travelogue after mclaren is done.

[speedzak]

I thought this had something to do with that amazing night long party we had at U-Turn!
Too bad, bangy boys couldn't stay back.

It was a great adventure by the bangy gang to drive till Mumbai and back. Now, tell us what this LEGAL part is all about.

[mclaren1885]

Soon we get frantic calls from some members asking us to arrive at MMRDA grounds before 5pm. We left the hotel only by 4pm. Doesn't look like we are going to make it any time before 7:30pm.

We decide to test our faith in the lady who claimed she knew the route to MMRDA grounds, without getting lost. Tadu takes over the wheel eagerly awaiting this.


Beautiful scenery on the Expressway I must tell you.


We were itching to see this car go bonkers, sadly it wasn't meant to be.


The elantra is made for such roads, high speed cruising with AC on, 5 people on board, and still it can give a lot of cars from the next segment a complex as it whizzes past.


Top speed as shown by the GPS unit. Incredibly the speedo error on the elantra after 150 is around 3kmph.


Needless to say, this drive was one of the most exciting drives we have ever had. From Talegaon toll gate to the next toll gate took us exactly 24.xx minutes. I don't remember the distance, maybe the Pune/Bombay guys can chip in with that.

Too bad we didn't have the other 2 elantra's and the baleno for this drive. Each of us were trying to kick the other for not bringing our cars while Tadu was smiling deep down.

The video is being uploaded as we speak, being 60mins long I guess its going to take time to upload/edit etc.

[mclaren1885]

Originally Posted by speedzak

I thought this had something to do with that amazing night long party we had at U-Turn!
Too bad, bangy boys couldn't stay back.

It was a great adventure by the bangy gang to drive till Mumbai and back. Now, tell us what this LEGAL part is all about.

Patience oh sheikh of teasers. Patience!

[leadf00t]

Originally Posted by speedzak

I thought this had something to do with that amazing night long party we had at U-Turn!

Ah Zak tell me about the bloody U turn we had to take near the chembur station,after loosing trail of N_C. every god damned chemburiya was giving stares.
First Tadu in his elantra , followed by F50 in his swift and then me in my lancer all trying to take a U turn in the small stupid crowded lane. It was a pain.

Nice travellogue Mclaren.. nice meeting all you bangy guys.

[hvkumar]

Originally Posted by mclaren1885

Needless to say, this drive was one of the most exciting drives we have ever had. From Talegaon toll gate to the next toll gate took us exactly 24.xx minutes. I don't remember the distance, maybe the Pune/Bombay guys can chip in with that.

52 kms from the first toll gate to the second toll gate - 24 minutes is a very fast drive - averaging 130 kmph, and that too down the ghats for at least 15 kms.

[leadf00t]

Originally Posted by mclaren1885

Needless to say, this drive was one of the most exciting drives we have ever had. From Talegaon toll gate to the next toll gate took us exactly 24.xx minutes. I don't remember the distance, maybe the Pune/Bombay guys can chip in with that.

i think the distance between the 2 toll gates is roughly 48 - 49 kms.
wow
Holy Cow. thats an avg speed of 120+ km. ok now i believe tadu doing 220+kmph in the elantra Crdi

Originally Posted by hvkumar

52 kms from the first toll gate to the second toll gate - 24 minutes is a very fast drive - averaging 130 kmph, and that too down the ghats for at least 15 kms.

@ hvkumar , Sir, is the road distance between the mum-Pune and Pune - mum Stretch significantly different. I used to get different readings between the 2 tolls from 48 to 50 hence i approximated it 48 -49. Not many times do the two sides of the road split.

Note from the Team-BHP Support Staff : Please use the "edit" button if posting within 15 minutes of the first post, instead of creating another back-to-back post

Also use "Multi Quote" option for quoting Multiple posts.

[hvkumar]

Originally Posted by leadf00t

@ hvkumar , Sir, is the road distance between the mum-Pune and Pune - mum Stretch significantly different. I used to get different readings between the 2 tolls from 48 to 50 hence i approximated it 48 -49. Not many times do the two sides of the road split.

No, distance is the same both ways since the north and south roads run parallel to each other at all times.

[mclaren1885]

By now we have no clue where Amey and Shrivz are. We are off the expressway, into what looks like some part of the city. We can see hordes of buildings everywhere. Suddenly, in all this mad rush we realize we are low on fuel. So we decide to tank up at a BP petrol pump and catch up on some coffee at CCD right next to the pump. Half an hour later Amey & Shrivz arrive in the swift.

But there seems to be a problem. We are lost again. They can't figure out if we are ahead of them or they went past us. Some calls later, the lady says "please proceed on the designated route". We decide, if we wait here trying to figure out where each of us are it will only cause more delay. So we decide to move on, and there we find the peted white swift parked on the road side. We have no clue how they missed us.

We make a quick dash through all the crowd in the city and reach the grounds around 6:10 pm. Finally we made it. We get out of the car, to spot this.


We head to the entrance, only to find out that our in-house anti-sensor board chairman was waiting for us with passes. There is something strange about the way he looks from far (I wonder if it is really him, Ishaan bald?). Its quite astonishing that he didn't greet us with his usual mother/sister greetings. Maybe he was hallucinating? Or was it Ishaan's judwa bhai?

We then went into the show, met up with lots of bhpians. It was lovely to see them all.

We decided to make a quick dash into the enclosed area, check out some of the cars, click a few pics and get out.

So we did.

One of my all times fav cars, the M3 has always been.


Some random pics:

X5.


63 AMG.




For the Fiat fan club!


Here is another chick, ooopps I mean pic. Damn, its a pic of a chick.


PS: Pictures haven't come out that great. Lights all around made it a nightmare to shoot pics, with glares everywhere. Wish I had more time during the day to shoot these beauties.

[mclaren1885]

We then moved to the "must TD these cars some day" section.

I hope this lives up to the legendary R-34.


Can i take this to the track?


The silent lion.




The stagnant bull.




We hardly spent 20 mins inside watching these cars. My eyes were open to spot TBHPians. Isn't that why we had driven so far? To meet you all. We get to see these cars everyday in Bangalore. Its not the cars that we have driven this far for.

We then hit the JBL private room, had a couple of breezers, caught up with more BHPians. Its a carnival too see so many like minded folks out there. Our sensor board chairman and sheikh wakko take forever to decide where to go. Many many hours later, we still await while they do a head count (for the zillionth time), asking us to raise our hands and what not. It was not since my school days I have done that.

Finally they decide on some place I can't remember and we are off..... We had RC cars running rings in our stomachs.

[mclaren1885]

We were asked to follow a certain RS. RS stands for rally sport, so you expect it to kick up some dust, in this case burn some rubber. But we didn't know NC stood for normally slow . Just kidding NC. As NC showed us the best way to extract unbelievable FE from the Elantra in the city we reached our destination, not before we blocked half of the traffic in that area because a certain NC decided to make a quick disappearing act leaving us all to make an almost impossible U-turn (btw the title has nothing to do with this). Then we walked to get to that place, on entering it was full. So we decided to head to elsewhere for drinks and dinner.

While we were at it, Ishaan and Mr.X (can't remember who) I am told had gone to entertain themselves in ways, I cannot describe here. Luckily, for those grumbling stomachs some of us had, they came out in about 5mins? So another 2 mins walk later we decided to wait road side while NC went and checked if there was place for all of us.

We then sat around, ordered our drinks, starters, and everyone got busy chatting in small groups. Some members were accompanied by security guards.


While others were trying to do fashion photography. A hairy one at that.


Jiggy bhai started to narrate to us how powerful his car was, that he had taken it to the rollers 22 times. Impressive! Then the topic changed to how dynoing a car had nothing to do with tires at all. It was a fun convo, until Jiggs got a reminder from home saying if he doesn't come back on time his B16 OHC would turn into a pumpkin . He was one of the first to leave.

The rest of us hung around for another half an hour or so. Then chaos started as one Mr. I shall complicate everything started to tally the drinks each of us had and started taking down how much each of us had to pay. By now people were getting impatient waiting for Ishaan, they all wanted to see him ring the ghanta. For all your perverts, we mean the the bell like you have in Pizza Hut's. After hearing the rining sound of the ghanta's we all decided to split and head back home while Zak, NC, Amey, Shrivz, Ajay & his partner decided to carry on partying else where.

We bid goodbye to all the folks who had gathered there. It was nice meeting you all, putting faces to these screen names. Only if we could have stayed back a little longer.

PS: leadfoot, sorry I had to use some of your pics from the dinner meet as I forgot to carry my cam.