Prasad's Excursions: June 2011

Saturday, June 04, 2011

Leh Ride preparations

There is a news from my side. Bike ride to Leh-Ladhakh region is on cards. As per the latest revision in the travel plan, the ride will begin on 11 June from Delhi. We plan to have three bikes. One Bullet Machismo 2003 model, one Standard Bullet 1986 model and one Bajaj Discover. The bullets were booked at Chennai Central this afternoon for transportation to Delhi . We expect them to be loaded in a suitable train on Sunday. The bikes will reach Delhi (station code - NDLS) by Wednesday. The discover will be sent to NDLS from Aurangabad on Monday, June 6. The discover is kept ready for transportation.

The bullets needed some repair work, which was done at Royal Enfield's factory owned service station in Thiruvanmiyur. The bikes were taken for repairs on 14 May after some ten day's of waiting. The service station returned the bikes, one on June 2 and one on June 3 after a lot of persuasion, cajoling and eventually after applying some pressure from the top. A few issues which were left unnoticed by REL service station were addressed till the morning of June 4, which is the date today. The rim replacements for Standard'86 was completed at 2.30 am this morning and at last both bikes came into our possession, together.

We, Shri Vidyadhar Tagade and myself went for an early morning ride to Mahabalipuram. Total riding of around 100 km was a blessing as we were running short of time. We still found front fork oil leakage on my bike, which we managed to get rectified at REL service station en route Chennai Central. The culprit turned out to be the loosely tightened screw. There was also an effort to tune the Standard'86's carburettor. Thus were over our pre-tour preparations of the bikes. Ideally we would have like to have the bikes repaired at least four days in advance before dispatch so that we could test them enough to have a good confidence level.

Never the less, the day has been fruitful otherwise. The two bikes have been handed over to Railway Parcel Office at Chennai Central. This matches perfectly with our plan. As per the original plan, we were looking for sending them to Chandigarh but found out today that the direct train runs only on Thursdays which wouldn't have suited our schedule. Upon knowing this, unanimously it was decided that the bikes would be sent to NDLS thus adding a few more kilometers to our desired odometer reading! We are only too happy to ride the extra distance.

Sending of the bikes would not be so hassle free without help from Shri Kannan Dhanushkodi and my friend Kumar, both natives of Tamilnadu. Among the two, Kannan will travel with us all along in a utility vehicle which will be hired from Chandigarh. The hiring arrangements are done in advance. But we might end up in getting a friend's Innova after actually reaching Chandigarh.

I have managed to take snaps of Machismo but I could not manage it for Standard'86 due to scarcity of time. Will upload them once we get the bikes in Delhi.