First of all, I would apologize for the bad pics as they were taken from my handy Nokia N72.
It’s time to go home and visit parents. Everyone is enjoying the celebration month as its Ganeshchathurthi. After being a regular traveler on Geetanjali and Jyaneshwari Express and used Air India numerous times something else was going through my mind. Yes, you guessed it right, Mumbai to Nagpur on my NOMAD. My roomie also belongs to the same hometown, hence convinced him for the ride. However, we had no plans to update the same at home to save ourselves from a nice thrashing.
First thing first, gave my NOMAD to the garage for a normal servicing and to get it prepared for rains. Its rains everywhere and RDs are known to show their tantrums with a foul spark plug. Moreover, approx 850 + 850 Kms of ride on a bike not meant for touring was not quite promising. But we made up our mind and take whatever comes in with blessing of Lord Ganesha.
Now was a time for a little shopping, a Cramster saddle bag and a Stanley 1/4th kit. The final day arrived and it was drizzling. We decided to leave from Mumbai in evening to reach and have a night stay at Pune. We did not want to take any chances with the night riding. Have done it before but with a convoy. But riding alone may turn out to be a nightmare which we wanted to avoid.
Map was drawn and looked very appealing… 
Went to the garage, did some last minute checks and couple of test rounds, fixed up the Cramster and by the time we were ready to move out it was already 6 pm. Took wishes from all at the garage and off we shoot…
By the time we reached to Khopoli-Lonaval Ghat it was dark but still decided to took a small break at our regular point (Where the old NH4 and XpressWay meets). There was too much fog to defy visibility with added dash of drizzle so we made a quick move. The headlight appeared to be a bit dim but ignored it as it was foggy and RD stock lights are known to produce a HALO ring rather than doing their job.
Reached to friends place, had dinner and slept earlier as tomorrow was going to be a long day for us 3, me, my roomie and NOMAD.
With the first break of light we were ready to move out. Left our friend uninformed as he was still fast asleep. It was raining and we were already prepared for the rain God. So without giving a second thought we moved ahead.
Once on the Pune-Nagar road, it was all mud and splash with rain coming over but we still kept moving until the NOMAD started to misfire. We stalled at a petrol pump where we found a nice shade to check out the spark plugs. Replaced them with the new pair of NGK Iridium which I kept handy knowing tantrums of RD and we moved ahead.
They seemed to widen the roads all the way as NOMAD was coming but as usual the Govt. and Contractors delayed the work. But the beast was unleashed and so we continued further. View of the windmills with mist and water droplets was amazing. As I said earlier, sorry for the bad pics as I had only my Nokia N72 handy. Moreover, we were equally tensed and excited about the completion of trip (Bad weather added to this).
We continued further under the water roof laid by the rain Gods while people around were giving that strange look including those truckies who would not nudge to the blow of a horn.
We had breakfast at AhmedNagar and moved ahead without a stop ahead of Aurangabad and then came the unforeseen. At a remote Ghat section, NOMAD started to retard slowly. At first we thought it being normal due to climbs and the load it was carrying (me and rommie with gift and a week’s clothing filled cramster). But at the last climb of the road, NOMAD stalled. Didn’t took much time to figure out that the neutral light has lost its glow and checked the headlight which refused to lit (my NOMAD being on points). We got the Cramster down and a Panel opened to check the fuse which was intact. Now came the trickiest part, RD’s electrical. Since all the tape wounded connections were replaced by the male/female sockets it was a bit easy to find that one of the sockets to recharge battery through rectifier was loose. This was caused due the cramster strap tied around the shock leading to a complete battery drain (NOMAD has a dry battery). We already left Aurangabad far behind and there was no sense in pushing the bike back into Ghat section so we moved ahead (Health Tip: Morning walk is good for health but pushing an RD might give you heart attack).
A village at par brought smile to our face and pace in our walk. Lucky for us that we found a spare parts shop and a battery recharging point at the entry of village. The battery charging person and a mech were helpful enough to come and observe 2 idiots covered in mud and rain with shorts on and a strange looking bike.
A person shouted, come... come... see a modified RX100. Mech was amused to see how beautifully 2 RX engines are fused together to give more power and Yezdi like Exhaust (When people ask me of Rd being modified Rx, I generally tell them a nice story of having 2 RX fused together to have more power and milage).
Well, so we were getting this dry battery recharged; only bet was that we will get it back after 6 PM (WHY??? because the electicity in village comes back at 6 PM). And the time was WHAT??? 10 AM.
Way to go, the smile vanished with a big same question on our face… NOW WHAT??? For the first time in my 8 years of relation with NOMAD, I abused NOMAD of being so unreliable. But to our luck again, MSEB had some pity on us to shower us and villagers with electricity (apart from normal load shedding) giving us a chance to recharge the battery to fullest. Had tea and some munchies, reconnected the battery and checked all connections thoroughly this time and moved ahead thanking to nice villagers and the shop keeper.
The roads are straight now with mostly trucks and Volvo buses around. Gone are the days when a passing truck gives you shiver, Volvo took credit from those truckies.
The third and final trouble came in when NOMAD started misfiring again. This time it was too frustrated and I started shouting out all kind of slangs I could. Thanks to my roomie who has patience far like a Lama who told me that we are going to make it. I know we will but I wanna make it possible on NOMAD and not on some truck trailer with 3 of us. Again was a time to check the fowl plugs which were found to be working fine. A lame but good thinking by my roomie (I was too frustrated to think anything else) that if there’s a petrol flow working fine (we had the pet-cock leakage fixed with M-Seal as it was unavailable before starting on this ride). And to my surprise there was hardly any drop of petrol in tank. NOMAD gulped the gas like one of those V powered petrolheads? No way, it gave me 30KMPL on Harihareshwar ride (Someone at our Pune nightstay might be enjoying his ride with our hard earned petrol). But as the luck was favoring us with blessing from God Ganesha, the NOMAD came to halt right ahead of a petrol pump. And to add a spice to this pit stop, there was again no electricity and pump had no power backup. But maybe because we were going for a good deed (Ganpati Sthapana) at our home, the electricity came back and we filled NOMAD to the top with Vitamin G and moved ahead on our so called luck filled unlucky journey to add another day in a relation of me with my NOMAD.
The last 2 pics here are of same petrol pump, one frustrated with the hard luck we had while reaching Nagpur and the other for the victory we had coming back from Nagpur without any further problems.
PS: Not much of pics taken due to rain and clouds of mixed fortune that hovered upon us during this trip.
Few more pics while returning:
Yes! We are back Mumbai... 
That's a simple & short write-up summarizing the problems. I loved the 2nd pic with the cramsters loaded on to RD & see how perfectly it fits? Beautiful isn't it? But why do you have a left mirror & not a right mirror? I liked the engine guard very much & try getting a under chassis cover to prevent the mud hitting the bottom of the crank casing.
nice write-up. No season is a good season to ride up to Nagpur. Too hot in summers, too cold in winters and rains is mostly avoided due to bad roads and muck all around. I truely salute your bravery. Though i guess the first map route shown does not match with your write up.
cheers!!
