Bulls On Parade to Redstone

The Redstone Rockets

Another ride within 2 weeks. This ride was also an unusual one for us as we were not involved in the organising part. Our Prime Minister Mr. Nishant Jha was contacted by the owner of Zice Holidays to come along for a motorcycle ride to Camp Redstone, some 18 kms from Dehradun. It sounded like a new opportunity and we took it. Moreover, Mahatma Gandhi had taken care of the 3 days required for this ride. Later, it turned out that we were the only ones to go on motorcycles. None other opted for it. In the end, the following turned up.

1. Nishant Jha - Royal Enfield Electra

2. Tsering Topgyal - Royal Enfield Electra

3. Dhruv Malik - Bajaj Pulsar 220

4. Adit Sharda - Bajaj Pulsar 180 Improvised

5. BK Atreya - Hero Honda Karizma

6. Vihans Gupta - Yamaha FZ-16


7. Diptinder Singh - Royal Enfield Electra


2nd Oct 2009:
(Gurgaon - Meerut - Muzaffarnagar - Dehradun - Camp Redstone)

The ride did not start on an auspicious note for me. I was summoned to office the previous night at 1 Am. Finishing off everything, I had even missed my friend's(Neelesh Jain) birthday party's Jim Beam bourbon. But my misfortunes were not over yet. My Bullet got punctured as I was getting ready to leave from office. I rode it to the nearest Petrol Pump in that condition only to find out that the puncture wallas dont touch Bullets. I decided to leave the Bullet in the office parking and called up the birthday boy to pick me up. Yes, I was spilling some of my misfortune on him, I'm guilty of that. But I'm also very thankful to Neelesh Jain and Anirudha Verma who picked me up and then dropped me back to the office early next day at 6 AM.

Finally, the puncture was fixed at the shop close to the office and I was off at 6:45 AM, two and half hours behind schedule. I was staying in touch with Nishant by means of SMS. But leaving at 7 AM does have its impact on NH-58. Muradnagar, Modinagar and Khatauli were getting crowded. The others had escaped this, but I suffered.

As I crossed Meerut byepass, the others had reached Muzaffarnagar byepass. They all decided to wait for me at a dhaba. It took me 2 hours to reach them after crossing miserable traffic jams due to four-lane construction. All this time, the gang patiently waited. And I was really delighted to see them. Travelling alone is boring, especially on that highway. In fact, this was another lesson on brotherhood. No matter how much I encouraged the gang to travel on, they did wait for me in the end. So, a delay by a single rider will cause a delay to the whole group.

But the Rockets did put their time to good use. They had kept beer carried with them from Delhi chilled in a makeshift ice-box.

Then indulged in bakchodi with cops who advised them to go to Thailand. Tsering utilised his time by dozing off. That was when the catchphrase, "tabiyat kharaab hai" was launched. This phrase continued through the journey.

We kicked off together from the dhaba after heavy breakfast with only 100 kms left to go. Nearing Roorkee, we took the turn towards Dehradun. This time all the riders were fast paced. So I was left catching up every time. Now the hills started. Although the road was in good shape, the curves were sharp and overtaking was not that easy. Still, such terrain does heal your tiredness.

As we reached Dehradun, the weather had got hot. The solution was banta. Nishant was the only person knowing the landmark names to the camp. So, he guided us through Survey Chowk and Ordinance Factory. Our group did get notice as some locals directed us to the right path after Nishant had gone some distance ahead alone with no one following.

Then we reached the road that led to the camp and we were the only riders on the road. This was a superb sight as all bikes went in a straight line. Finally, we reached the cut to Camp Redstone and this was offroad. Maintaining a gap, we made a bee-line to the destination. I made a special effort to wear my bandero entering the camp and let out rev bursts. The bikes were parked some distance away from the campsite, but within view. The place looked neat with a central lounge place and tents to one side of it. All around were spaces for some physical exercise. It looked like we were in for an excellent time. It was 2 PM. We had lunch quickly and then went on touring the campsite.

Now, what most people would do after travelling is, take a bath and have a rest. But, bikers are a different breed. Some of us did take a bath, but in the natural swimming pool. The pool was nestled in between hills and offered a very nice place for beer sessions. I postponed on the bath till my bathing attire was complete.

And after that we went for a game of volleyball. It had been ages since anyone of us had played the sport. We began very professionally, making captains, having a toss and selecting a team. Tsering, Vihans and Adit formed one team. Nishant, Dhruv, BK and me formed the second. That was as far as the professionalism went. Soon, we were fighting about points, ball falling over the line, person fetching the ball, etc. The transition from man to child had taken seconds and the fun was tremendous. BK specialy displayed how ease he was with the game by standing at ease at his point and hardly moving. For the record, Tsering's team won.

Sweating profusely after the game, we opted for a bath in the pool. We still had beers left from our stock and it was the perfect relaxing method. An ultra-luxe life. But before that, was the airgun shooting. Tsering was the master here as he struck the target. After that we went to the pool.

Refreshed after the bath, we discussed on the next activity. The camp counsellor told us that the following day would be dedicated to us, a fact proven when we saw the itinerary on the community board. The 10 AM activity stated "Rappelling for Bikers" and "Flying Fox for Bikers" at 3 PM.

It was getting dark now, and we passed the time by playing carrom board. There was a choice of playing chess too, but we find that game too tiring.(Yes, we can travel 500+ kms in a single day but find a simple game of chess exhausting).

Sensing that we were amongst household family members(it can be unsettling), we took off for the riverside nearby. I prepared rum rockets in coke bottles and Nishant took the beer. The place was absolutely beautiful in the moonlight. Such a right atmosphere for open bakchodi. Time was forgotten. We got up only after our stock was exhausted.

When we reached back to our tents, all the other guests had gone to sleep. Now, we were short of one bed as we had three tents and each had two beds. But, Tsering is an innovative guy. He went into a random tent, found the couple inside sleeping on the same bed, threw the clothes on the second bed on the floor, lifted up the second mattress and set it on a vacant site outside in the open. We came to know about it next morning only.


3rd Oct 2009:

(Camp site)

I expected to wake up really late in the afternoon. But surprisingly, I was up at 6:30 AM. BK had woken up at6 AM only. By the time the rest woke up, Adit, BK and I were all ready for the day ahead. As the rest got ready, Nishant and I amused ourselves over bicycles, another age-old forgotten activity. This became obvious after our legs started to ache in a couple of rounds. We were supposed to trek to a nearby cave at 7 AM, but got late.

At 11 Am, we set off for Rappelling. This took place on the other side of the riverside over a 40ft high cliff. Nishant is scared of heights(inspite of having travelled to Leh-Ladakh) and opted out. For the rest of us, it was a joyous affair.

But Nishant did make up for it by diving into the clear water of the river. He was emerging as the cleanest biker yet. Vihans and Tsering too dove in.

An accident occurred here when one person of another group was climbing rocks nearby. One of the rocks came loose and hit the person below in his stomach. Luckily, he was not seriously injured. Earlier yesterday, another person of their group had got his wrist twisted. Reminds you of not going gung-ho in such places.

On returning to the camp, we decided to head to the cave. But, on our motorcycles. Nishant and Vihans opted to rest out. The route is supposed to be a trek, but you can take a motorcycle, although the path is quite steep. On top of it, there's loose dirt so you will encounter wheel-spin. After getting stuck over a tricky stretch, we asked some local women nearby gathering sticks about the cave's location. They said, we had come too far up and if we went further, would encounter bears who are known to attack. We turned back and reached the correct spot.

The cave was a small opening with its floor filled with water. The opening was hardly enough to crawl in comfortably. But Tsering owing to his childhood habit of sneaking in, went inside the cave comfortably.

Later, Dhruv and Adit also joined in. We learnt that the path upwards led to an explosive factory. A Mahindra jeep was seen carrying explosives down from the factory. The driver handled the vehicle expertly with amazing speed to show.

We returned back to the campsite eager to start the next activity, which was lunch. But, we were left waiting for a good part of the hour with hungry rumbles inside our stomachs as the rotis were being prepared. Tsering had other plans and so just ate the palak-paneer and went to Mussoorie for the night. We asked the camp executive to arrange some beer. He charged in black, but we agreed.

Meanwhile, we started another game of volleyball as we had enjoyed yesterday's game so much. This time we were equally divided. Vihans, Adit and BK against Dhruv, Nishant and me. This time the play got dirty as there was much more scrambling for the ball. For the record, Vihans' team won two sets, while we won the third.

By now, it was getting cloudy. The camp guides came out to organise Flying Fox for us. Only Dhruv and I were left as the others had hurried off to the pool for another bath with the beer.

As soon as Dhruv and I had completed flying, it started raining. We hurried off to our tent but not to escape from the rain. But to change into bathing suits and join the others.

Swimming in the natural pool with a beer in hand and the rain singing in your ears. AAAHHH, thats heaven. There was another song in the air and that was in Nishant's voice as he had reached ecstasy. And he chose the most apt songs like, "abhi na jao chhod kar". He even chose to be the hairdresser for Vihans and made him a mohawk. We could have caught a cold, but just didn't care. Dhruv was the only guy who didn't get wet and stuck under his umbrella.

After the rain stopped, we also did and came to the lounge area. We diverted our interest towards the carromboard with beer for company. We faced some criticism from some of the guests on using abusive language. This caused some discomfort and we headed to the amphitheatre for unrestricted bakchodi. Nishant and Vihans kept everyone entertained with their long list of songs and dance. We danced to all kinds of songs, bhangra, item numbers, gazhals, sad songs, etc. Then when we got tired, we headed to the riverside with the last lot of beer. It was a full moon night and the place was absolutely fantastic. The beer was chilled in the river water. After all the beer was exhausted, we returned for our last sleep at Camp Redstone.


4th Oct 2009:
(Camp Redstone - Mussoorie - Dehradun - Saharanpur - Yamunanagar - Karnal - Delhi - Gurgaon)

This was our return day. We had planned our return route via NH-1 as entry into Delhi through NH-58 is a dreadful one. It was 9 AM and Tsering still had not returned from Mussoorie. Dhruv was able to connect with him once where we learnt that he had just woken up. We thought of grouping up at Mussoorie only as we had ample time in our hands. HAAAAHHH. If only things turned out to be that easy. We picked up Tsering's gear too. Tsering, you owe us for this one.

After breakfast and bidding goodbye to the camp managers, we set off for Mussoorie, 40 kms away. The roads were nice, but the traffic was a bit of a dampener. There was a huge crowd of vacationers returning to Delhi and Haryana from Mussoorie. It is these kind of sights that keep us away from popular places. It was still cloudy and it started raining heavily when we reached Mall road at Mussoorie. We have had a nice relationship with rains in the recent past with 4 of our last 6 rides involving wet riding.

Vihans and Adit didn't have a raincoat. So they bought one there. Meanwhile, we had hot coffee and Maggi to pass the time. Dhruv, being the young blood, asked for cold drink. After waiting for an hour and seeing no slowdown, we started our return journey. It was 2 PM now. We were making good progress until the tunnel after Dehradun. There was a huge jam with every vehicle trying to overtake the other. This resulted in a long queue. Its a pity to see how those who follow traffic rules get stuck way behind others who dont have any business riding up ahead.

There was little trouble for our motorcycles as we sneaked through the long venemous snake of traffic and left it behind us. But as soon as the hills were ending, the rain became heavier and we had to stop for shelter this time. After the rain slowed down somewhat after half an hour, we headed out to get wet again. The rain was playing hide and seek. Just one of those times that God shows his sense of humour. We stopped for a very late lunch at 5 PM, 40 kms after crossing Dehradun. Saharanpur was still 50 kms away and it was getting dark. By now, the rain had reached our innermost corners. But it had stopped raining now.

Finishing a totally vegetarian lunch with too much elaichi and rasgullas for sweet, we set off. The road diverted towards Saharanpur at Chhutmalpur. Traffic was bad with racing buses. It was 7 PM when we reached Saharanpur only to find Valmiki Yatra stopping all the traffic. Nishant and Vihans again bided this time by dancing to the tune of the yatra much to our entertainment as well as the onlookers.
The 30km odd stretch to Yamunanagar was slightly rough. Again that dreadful clunk experience where the shockers cover their entire length and bend your front license plate. But the road between Yamunanagar and Karnal was brilliant. Village roads with an almost full moon, surrounding farmfields, little traffic, all combines to an ecstatic experience. We had recovered from our miserable wet experience of the afternoon. Enroute, Vihans stopped at a theka in one of the villages. Nishant and I were not willing to pit-stop, but it turned out that that was exactly what we needed.

All charged now, we touched NH-1 at Karnal and zipped through. Stopped for dinner at a small dhaba after Panipat where the food was not good. Deliberately, we had avoided Murthal for the sake of change and the experience was not good. We entered Delhi around 2 AM facing little trouble and then wished goodbye to Vihans, Adit, BK and Dhruv. Nishant and I parted after reaching Gurgaon saying Cheers for the wonderful time.

With the October ride complete early, there's a long wait now for the November Anniversary Ride of Bulls On Parade.