August 2009
04
Ride on the Mahabaleshwar-Poladpur
ghats till you spot the marshals’ car,
02
waiting to catch the contestants unaware at
a surprise location to check whether they
have maintained average speeds of 40 kph.
The contestant with average speed closest
to 40 kph will get 100 points followed
by 50 for second place and no points for
third place.
Warning: Watch out for heavy fog, wild
animals, land-slides, streams and huge
boulders on the road. Be fast and face
double the penalty
e stopped at the maintain a speed of 40 kph at all times, 01
03
W
M’shwar petrol-station poop or no poop. Rash was flagged off
with Rash and Amit’s first followed by Amit while I elected
bellies swinging out to go last.
04
and me (who was disqualified unfairly I was hoping that my fellow rivals
in the previous round, by the way, citing hadn’t accounted for their bike’s speedo
reasons that I was a slow eater. Well for errors and had cunningly kept my
the record I always have been and will mouth shut so as to not remind them.
01.
remain a slow eater) hoping that all I set off into the heavy fog keeping the
Amit was pissed at the paparazzi while I scratched my
head in bafflement as eshan announced the surprise
that eating would cause an emergency needle stuck at a speedo indicated 50
mission in the heavy fog and rain.
nature’s call and make them stop in the kph. The road to Poladpur was the most
middle of the ride to take a poop. It was challenging bit that we had encountered 02.
decided that our support car driver/ on our ride, so far. The conditions were
Rash was the first one to be flagged off, but the poor guy
photographer/marshal Eshan would treacherous as the day of our ride saw
took the wrong route.
get a head start of 15 minutes and three the heaviest precipitation of the season.
03.
of us would be flagged-off one-after- There was heavy fog reducing visibility
Amit got fooled by the under-reading speedo. “Does 40
the-other at an interval of 5 minutes. to just meters ahead of the bike. kph always feel this fast? Must be because of the ghats”.
Pradeb’s watch was synchronized and Streams were gushing over the road and
the support car sped off into the fog. huge boulders had washed up onto the
04.
The fog had cleared up and I was trying to claw back all
No one had any idea where it would tarmac. Rash even swears that he saw a
the time lost in the ghats.
stop. Its location had purposefully been huge cat leaping across the road.
kept secret so that we would have to
29
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83