The Touring Diary

So this is "that" time of the year............ Why not do it again? Two years back in 2008 there was an pleasant nervousness/restlessness growing inside with the anticipation of it, the same feelings are back again. Why? Coming days it is going to be a trip to heaven on earth once more. Got permissions from hi-command (mum dad) for this trip. Will be booking tickets for traveling to Delhi. Slowly preparing the bikes and other stuff. Looking forward to it again with a slightly different route which we couldn't take the last time. And this time with will be riding with a new rider; he is my very own little brother :)  Why the above text is struck out? That is because my little bro will not be joining me in this trip as suddenly he had to travel to US for his organization for a month or so. So now I am left alone thinking whether to cancel the trip or just go solo. After all those preps and planning from a long time, it was really disheartening to cancel the trip. Hen...

No it's not a movie tag line. It is a new beginning for my comet as I've just got it back from service station after revamping almost everything. After the Himalayas trip my bike was obviously up for a revamp as there were scratches all over te bike thanks to the carelessness of the transports companies (Aakash Packers/Gati services). Hence this December I decided to do it. I left it with my service guy and left for my hometown. My earlier plan was just to repaint the red parts of the bike and leave everything as is. But when I came back my service guy and I decided to revamp it completely. The bike was dismantled to the smallest nut and screw and given for painting. Here are the pictures of my bike back up along with the updates that I did: Things done: - All the nuts/screws/other parts zinc-ed - The red parts of the bike repainted in red. This red is from the Suzuki GSXR600 red paint scheme. First I thought I'll repaint it in blue or white but then decided against it and...

A short trip to Savandurga with my office folks. The initial plan was to go out for a day with the team and after some discussions we came up with Savandurga which wasn't very far away from Bangalore and we can come back by lunch time. Savandurga is around 60Kms from Bangalore towards Magadi. Some facts about Savandurga: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savandurga I opted to come on my bike as I have that motion sickness problem and can't sit in a bus/car for long duration. We started from our office at around 5 o clock and took the magadi road. There are couple of other routes also to reach this place but we took this as the bus driver knew only this one. Took a left after Magadi (not sure after how many kms), I wasn't sure of the route to reach there and was following the bus. I was able to see the monolith and thought of stopping and capturing a photo or two. After taking a couple of shots I continued and I missed a left turn which the bus had taken for reaching at the foot ...

Well not a trip log this time. Just some time pass along with my brother, nishu, this Diwali. I had got a new Camera (Canon 450D) and decided to put it to use capturing the fireworks illuminated Diwali nights. It was a mixed clicks by Nishu and I hence watermarked with our last name :) Not much to write here hence just sharing some of the pics: All of them Hand held Camera: Canon 450D with kit lens Exif: F10, Shutterspeed: 1 second, ISO:800 More pics from the camera here : Diwali 2009 Flickr

As the title suggests it feels good to be touring again after about 7 months of gap. Well it wasn't actually a tour but just a quick dash to near by place in Bangalore and back. But let me tell how it all got planned and materialized. But first little photo introduction: That's Lionel Yours Truly Going into flashback some time in July: I had been chatting updating Lionel about the comet upgrades since quite a while now. I've been telling him that I've got aftermarket levers from US for the bike and planning to put braided lines for the brakes. Lionel is the guy, stays in Pune, from whom I bought the Comet in 2007 Jan and since then we have been in contact. Initially we came in contact due to the bike purchase deal but now we are Friends having similar passion i.e. touring on bikes. Actually he is the person seeing his rides I got motivated to explore this area of touring on bikes. And I am so thankful to him for that. All this while Lionel didn't have a bike and mea...