One Kawasaki Z650 & 7 KTMs ride to Ranthambore, Rajasthan

The Z650 while not suited for touring performed without a hiccup but there were a few issues with the bike that I realized.

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Short intro to the ride.

I love long rides! Did one to Rajasthan almost 10 years ago on my Yamaha FZ16 and loved every second of it. Still have so many fond memories etched in my brain.

A few photos from that ride -

My old helmet and cheap ass gloves.

My old FZ16. The seat would feel like a rock within 60 km!

Different kinds of traffic

Empty roads of Rajasthan. I literally stopped near the divider and no one was around.

Jal Mahal

Unfortunately, while my mind loves such long rides my body loves junk food a LOT more so the mind is willing but the body is weak!

To make matters worse my current bike the Z650 is fantastic for short distances and the occasional overnight trip. But with no wind protection and small proportions for my hefty 100 kg frame, it was not a good fit for riding long distances. But all that hardly matters when the heart wins over the mind and insists on doing something.

My good friend Aditya is a Duke 790 rider and I often go on rides with him as he is the planner-in-chief for most of our rides so far. It's been just breakfast rides or overnight rides of around 250-350 kms distance which were manageable for me.

One night after a round of drinks (All good plans usually start off with a round of drinks) he decided to embark on a 2000+ km ride. I being a heart-over-mind kinda guy seemed all impressed by this idea despite fitness and experience being against me. After a few days of figuring out where to go, he decided to go to Ranthambore Tiger Sanctuary in Rajasthan. That was 1100 kms from Mumbai and I was thinking I am out as I can't do such distances anymore.

To make matters worse he was planning this ride for January which was peak work season so I told him flatly I wouldn't join. Aditya however kept pushing and went so far as to check my work schedule and found a gap where I could accommodate a ride if I didn't get any work on those days.

Knowing how fluid my work days are I told him let's see and didn't commit to anything. However, he worked tirelessly in the background finding people to join on the ride, setting up an itinerary, and finding locations for us to stay at.

Come the first week of January and somehow my dates were still free. He had already hammered out a workable plan on a budget. And he managed to find 6 other chapris err I mean KTM Riders to join us on the ride. I have to keep reminding myself that it's the riders that are chapris and not the bike.

I was torn whether to go on the ride or not as I could potentially miss out on work since it was peak season for me. However, my dad convinced me to go as he told me money comes and goes but opportunities like this rarely present themselves wrapped up in a neat package.

So that sealed the deal for me and I paid the hotel booking amount and blocked my dates. Ranthambore here I come!

Our planned route

After a little deliberation, we planned to take two days to travel 1100 kms to Ranthambore via Gujarat with a stopover for the night at Udaipur. An ambitious 800 km first-day ride. We figured it would be great if we could do maximum riding on the first day itself so that the rest of the trip could be a lot easier.

We decided to return via Indore and Nashik as that was actually the fastest route as per good old Google Maps.

We decided to do this trip on a budget. The only must-haves were hotels with safe parking for our bikes. Aside from the hotel in Ranthambore which we prebooked, we didn't book anything else as anything could happen to make the plans change.

Planning and preparation

Any long bike trip like this needs a lot of planning and preparation. With the route and number of days planned out, all that was left was to make sure my bike was up to the task.

Luckily my bike was due for its biannual service so I could make sure the bike at least wouldn't be the weak point on our trip given it would be the only Kawasaki amongst all KTM riders.

I overpacked for the trip and my 50 litre Guardian Gears bag was bursting at capacity. Luckily I had two Givi tank lock bags which came in handy thanks to how easy they are to mount and dismount. An 18-litre tank bag in front and a small 5-litre tank bag mounted on the tail rack that held chain lube, battery air pressure pump, and some tools. Attaching both the Givi bags took 1 minute total as you just push it on the lock and loop the strap on the oft chance the mount breaks. Truly the Givi tank lock system is an amazing setup and wish some Indian manufacturers could come up with a similar system at a more palatable price. Nobody in my family knows how much two small bags and a few plastic rings can cost and they never will!

I also picked up an air/water seat hybrid but it's badly designed and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. The model was the BBG Wow 2 in 1 seat. The straps holding the seat to the straps are very badly designed and I doubt it will last more than a few months.

Lastly, I concentrated on fitness and dropped 5 kgs for the trip which definitely helped.

Day 1

After what seemed like an eternity, Jan 26th finally arrived and we were all set to meet up at Naigaon just outside of Mumbai to start our journey.

My Joy all ready for the ride

Our group consisted of me, Aditya, Pramod, and Ninaad who turned out to be our lead riders since they were by far the fastest riders in our group, Subhankar (who had a lovely top box which led to many beautiful memories on our trip), Porus, Furqan (who just happens to stay 1 km from my home) and Sanju (a new rider who had an equally lovely top box which ALSO led to many beautiful memories on our trip)

We decided to travel by night to avoid the heavy daytime traffic so we planned on leaving by 2 am itself!

Unfortunately, while most of us were on time someone from our group managed to lock himself out of his house while taking out the trash and he took some time to get a spare key and leave to meet us. We made sure we reminded him of his folly for the rest of the trip

Waiting for everyone to arrive

The line up

Finally, by 3 am, we set off and enjoyed the 6-lane Gujarat highway that we would be following till we crossed Vadodra. However, within a few kms we found out there was extensive road work going on, and with the heavy truck traffic we were traveling a lot slower than we would have liked. We were having mandatory stops at every other toll naka to rest for a bit but since it was cold and we were sleepy these stops were lasting a lot longer than planned.

We got delayed finding a place to eat breakfast. Every good restaurant we found on Google Maps turned out to be shut because it was 26th Jan. We finally stopped at a local khau gully and ate some really nice gujju snakes.

Till now, I was the lead rider and Aditya was the sweeper but that got changed by afternoon as Sanju being a new rider was falling behind and Pramod and Ninaad decided to take over lead duties and they zoomed off!

Lunch was supposed to be post-Vadodara but with a bit of roadwork including work on the upcoming Delhi Mumbai expressway, we couldn't maintain decent speeds. It's a shame we can't take our bikes on the Delhi Expressway when it comes out but hey hopefully most of the truck traffic takes that route which will allow us bikers to ride in relatively less traffic.

We decided to stop at a place recommended by our fellow rider Porus who's family stays in Baroda. Unfortunately, Pramod and Ninaad were so quick that they went 7 km ahead of the hotel! We were so far behind that when they were calling out signboards we couldn't spot them till we rode for almost 10 minutes! The hotel was lovely and we thoroughly enjoyed the lunch.

(From L-R, Subhankar, Me, Porus, Aditya, Pramod, Furqan, Ninaad and Sanhju)

Ready to ride

Once we turned off NH48 the roads were a lot narrower and the road surface wasn't great which meant even slower average speeds. However, the scenery was quite lovely and we stopped to take a few photos

The only two non Adventure bikes on the ride

After a while it became evening and the heavy traffic suddenly disappeared but so did the light! Since only two of us had mobile navigation we had to keep stopping to wait for everyone to catch up which slowed us down further. Another issue was there were patches with no network so Discord wasn't working and communication was becoming a problem.

It had become 9 pm and we were still 160 kms from Udaipur, our planned destination. We thought maybe we should push on but some of us were dead tired (Me included !). Our ride captain Aditya said let's not push as we hadn't slept much and the chances of making mistakes will increase if we push on without sleep. So we searched for a hotel in the town we were in (Modasa) and luckily we found a very decent hotel where we all slept like logs.

Our Hotel in Modasa in the morning

Day 2

We woke up nice and early and started loading our bikes. We were treated to a gorgeous sunrise.

The idea was to have a quick breakfast and then head out. Unfortunately, it wasn't a buffet breakfast and we had to order what we wanted to eat which took time. So by the time we left it was past 9 am. Lucky for us the sun was out and we weren't freezing as much. The roads to Udaipur were beautiful and we were glad we didn't head there in the night as we would have missed all the beautiful landscapes we passed to get to Rajasthan. The vegetation changed drastically when we reached Rajasthan and the road to Udaipur was a fantastic 6-lane highway which was FAR better than anything we had traveled by so far. This time no one was holding back and we were really gunning it and enjoying the curves and scenery at err strictly legal speeds (honest!). We still kept up with the breaks to ensure we all were caught up as there was a substantial gap between the lead rider and the sweeper who ensured nobody was left behind.

With excellent roads and making good time we had to turn off on another highway which was 4 lanes and super smooth. With such beautiful scenery, we had to stop for a quick photo session. The roads were so good so far we were laughing at the estimated time to reach our destination.

My Joy! All 3 bags on the bike

Sanju, Subhankar and Aditya

Subhankar

Porus

Lead rider Ninaad and Pramod

Furqan

Ride captain Aditya

The next highway was 6 lanes but our enthusiasm dipped seeing just how much traffic was on this highway and the road surface was very bumpy. Since we HAD to reach Ranthambore tonight by any means we raced on (at strictly legal speeds of course!) Even our slower riders the previous day were pushing hard and we were still making good time notwithstanding the traffic and we were sure we would reach our destination well in time. That's where we were so wrong!

After a leisurely lunch and another turn off, we found ourselves on a beautiful 4-lane highway with sparse traffic. We thought we were incredibly lucky till I heard splattering like raindrops falling. The sky was clear so I was confused about what sound I was hearing. Suddenly my visor got cloudy and I couldn't see well. I stopped to figure out what was going on and I finally saw them. Millions of tiny insects died all over my windshield, helmet, Gopro, and bike. It was a genocide! It took me some time to clean out all that gunk but unfortunately, these insects would be out in the billions! We would kill tens of thousands of them and stop to wipe off the bodies of their dead comrades. Then continue riding and kill a million more! :(

Genocide!

Aditya demonstrated why we had to keep stopping

This really slowed us down as although the roads were simply beautiful the constant stopping to clean our visors killed the momentum we had.

Right throughout the trip we had a lot of attention from locals when they saw a slew of bikes with riders in full gear so we were no strangers to attention. Almost all interactions were wonderful with the usual questions like where are we from, where are we headed, how much our bikes cost, mileage etc, etc. Unfortunately, the only bad incident took place when we had all stopped to wipe our helmets. Three people stopped and insisted on selfies. It took us a few seconds to realize these guys were sloshed. Those who could take off but three of us were left with these guys and they were getting a bit aggressive when I consented to a selfie but refused to take off my helmet as they demanded. While one of them was more aggressive than the others the other two realized I was getting scared and pulled the aggressive guy away which allowed me to start my bike and leave. Luckily they didn't bother us post that. After that there was roadwork at our turn off from the highway and the the sun had gone which made our last leg of the journey a lot slower.

We had bookings at the hotel so we had to push ourselves but the going was getting tough. We kept stopping as there were a lot of turn offs so we had to wait for everyone to regroup before making the turn-off. What was worse there was some local festival and these villagers were having fun right on the road. With blinding lights switched on we couldn't see that they were on the road till we almost crashed into them. Luckily Discord was working and Pramod and Ninaad would announce when there were these local hazards. We were all very tired at this point and we stopped one last time before the last 45-minute leg of the journey. We placed an order for food at our hotel and the promise of a hot bath and hot food gave us the energy to push on & finally by 11 pm we reached our hotel safe and sound. The weather was so cold that the moment I left the hot shower I started to freeze! I ate a little food but then I ran to cover myself under the warm blankets and drift off immediately to sleep after a hard day of riding.

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