Such a long journey

The greatest plans are made in the spur of the moment (except wars, of course). And so was this.

3 PM, 4th April
Me and Mohnish just realise that our stay in Bangalore may be longer that we had initially expected. I, as usual, started cribbing about lack of transport around Bangalore. I, in other words hate being away from my bike for too long.
I suggested, rather half-heartedly, that we should go get my bike from Pune. Monday being an optional holiday, we could take our own time in doing the 800 kms. The plan sounded ridiculous as none of us had ridden for that long. Plus, we had to make a move tomorrow. From Pune. And we were . Much to my surprise, Mohnish latched on to the concept! We had no idea about the roads or the time it'll take for us to achieve the feat.

We had a one line plan -"get the bike from Pune to Bangalore till Sunday". Booked the tickets for the next day (tickets courtesy the company - it supports weekly travel to the home city :-) ).

11 AM, 5th April
It gave me goosebumps looking down from the plane window thinking we'll be treading the same ground (albeit slower, much much slower) in a couple of hours. Landed at 12 in the noon the next day and planned to move at 2.

We packed my saddlebag, stacked it on my ThunderBird and out for the journey. But first things first - fuel up. Filled the tank to the brim at Wanowrie petrol pump and set about. well, sort of ...

I revved up the bike to begin our trip. The plan was to halt at Kolhapur, 225 km away. We stopped much earlier. 400m. Thats all we could manage when the bike broke down. Remeber the one line plan? Well, it did not include checking if the bike was travel ready. I opened up the battey compartment to check for the fuse (every Enfield owner worth his salt knows how to do minor repairs on his bike). My heart sank when I saw he sight that awaited us. I had forgotten that the battery needed replacement. It was leaking like a faucet.

We called up the garage only to be told we can not get help for atleast an hour. We contacted a local mechanic and waited for him to take a look. And waited some more. The mechanic arrived an hour later, turned the key, pushed the ignition switch and voila! the bike started. I, being scientifically inclined killed the engine and repeated the process again. Thrice. The bike was humming like it sweet honey bee. After the mechanic assured that he'll be on 24 hours assistance in case anything happens again en route, we started the journey again. And this time, it was on.

... end of part 1