Roadtrip Day 11: Ahmedabad to Kutch

The day I had my 2nd breakdown & my first ever experience of arid riding

I was up at around 6 AM, as I was determined to leave early. Multiple folks had told me the horror stories about Kutch heat & I wanted to make sure that I reach Kutch as early in the day as possible, to avoid driving in the heat.

By 7:30 AM I was ready to leave. Sameer & his wife Harshitha came down to see me off. We clicked some pics together.

I have configured the carburator of my bike to give more mileage. The downside is, there is now a bit of cold start problem in the bike. So I had to kick multiple times, & keep fiddling with the throttle for a good 4-5 min to ensure good idling. While doing the exercise, my kicker spring broke & the kick gets ‘hung’ once the bike start. I had seen this issue before as well. So I was not too pertubed. But somehow, Sameer seems very concerned. We decided to tie the kicker to stay upfront.

I assured Sameer that this is a minor problem & I will get it fixed before leaving Ahmedabad. I looked up on the map & started riding towards the nearest service center.

I knew my plan to reach Kutch early has now gone down the drain but it was not that big a concern. The bigger concern were the 2nd thoughts I was getting if my bike is ‘good enough’ for the ride. ‘Am I pushing this 12 year old bike a tad too much’, ‘Is this going to become a ride marred by breakdowns’ were some of the thoughts that we coming to my mind. I also realized I am getting a bit defensive in terms of bet to ride far & long. Subconsciously, the reason behind it could be these breakdowns.

One of the things I am trying to do actively as part of this ride, is to train my mind to be positive, by just being aware of negative thought patterns. I was glad that I had caught one. Once being aware of it, I had some positive thoughts flowing in. One of them was ‘It was good that it happened right in the city, else I would have been stuck on the highway’, ‘kicker spring is prone to being broken, similar to cables, its good that it broke now, I am anyway carrying spare cables, I should have carried kicker spring too’.

Some part of me got really adventurous. The thought that - “I can still ride the bike with the makeshift arrangement, why dont I just carry on with my plan of Kutch ride & get it repaired on the way .. somewhere” . But then the more sane mind took over. I decided that since I am in this for the long run, I would probably play a bit safe.

While on the way to the service center, Sameer called to say that I can stay in his house for some more time as it was 7:30 AM & service center wont open till 9. My plan was to reach service center, laze around till it opens, maybe do a bit of meditation. While attending to Sameer’s call, the bike engine stopped. This meant, removing the knot, freeing the kicker, starting & putting the knot back again. I thanked my conservative mind which had decided to get it repaired & looked at my bold mind with a - see I had told you - look :-). I also clicked the pic of the bike which was near Sabarmati station.

The stop gave an opportunity to my soul to speak up. Suddenly I realized that I had plan to visit Riverfront & have the ride experience on the road that runs next to Sabarmati river. I realized I can sneak in a ride before the service center visit. I changed the destination on the map & the next moment I was riding towards the Riverfront.

Riverfront ride was good, but it wasn’t as amazing as it felt when I rode on it in the night 2 days back. Maybe, my expectations were pinned a tad too high with that smallish/unexpected ride. The road wasn’t as narrow as what I felt earlier. Nonetheless, I would still call it a great ride & something folks should experience in Ahmedabad. Being a runner, I would have loved to get up early & would have run on the Riverfront. A lot of local folks were running on the stretch. It should feel like a city version of ‘pipeline road next to Kanakpura’ (Bangalore runners might get an idea of what I am talking about). I did not stop to click any pics as I was worried my bike would stop & starting it again is another hassle (my bike does not have a self start mechanism). I also became aware of this ‘fearful thought’ that I had. Again I was glad that I am catching my thoughts & observing them, which was one the goal of this solo trip.

After doing a circuit, I stopped by at Shambhu’s coffee next to it, to have a coffee & then lookup the service center nearby.

Unfortunately, the shop was not yet ready with beverage so I just did the 2nd part of looking up the service center. There is one Royal Enfield service center which showed up open on the map. It was around 5 kms from my location & I decided to ride till there. It is the one on Drive In Road, Memnagar.

When I reached the service center at 9 AM, it was partially open. By 9:30, they started the work & made the bike ready by 10. The billing took like 15 min & then I was in for surprise. The labor cost for spring replacement was Rs 700. The spring cost was Rs 18. I was frustrated & tried having a word with the service manager who threw up his hand saying that their system has this ‘package cost’ stored as a value & it is not their mistake. I realized I am losing time for my onward journey, decided to give in, pay & get onto my journey. It was 10:45 AM by then.

I had to make a decision between Bhuj & Dholavira as my destination. Dholavira was slightly farther compared to Bhuj but seemed more offbeat. So I decided to ride towards Dholavira. It was 300+ km & I knew I am little late for the journey. But as usual, I decided to take my chances.

My 5 ltr can has started to leak & I decided to pick up another can as a replacement which I did on the way. The google map gave me some ‘hard time’ with some roads being dug, I had to go the wrong route, some private roads being shown as public etc, when I was trying to get out of town to the Kutch highway. ‘Maybe, today is a bad day for me’ is the thought that crossed my mind. I acknolwedged & decided to keep riding.

The initial part of the road had pretty heavy traffic but once I was out of the city, the traffic eased significantly. As usual, Gujrat roads surprised me. I was on a state highway which was 4 lane with divider between. The nice part was the railway line that ran next to the road for a considerable time.

Post 12, the heat has started to become pretty intense. This time, I was quick to wear my sunglasses (I wore it pretty late in my ride from Surat to Ahmedabad). I noticed some 4 wheelers being driven pretty slowly & suddenly the thought that fast drive may lead to tires getting burst due to heat, crossed my mind. I stopped & touched my bike tires. They did not feel that hot.

I realized that the frequent breakdowns seem to have made me more conservative. I realized that is the part & parcel of unfortunate incidences. I continued with my ride.

Now that it was peak heat, I decided to take as many breaks as possible to reduce my sun exposure. I stopped by at Iskon Food Mall. The food at the location was decent. The waiter kept insisting on their theplas & although I turned down the suggestion to have thepla thali, he came back saying that I can just have thelpa for Rs 10, to which I agreed. Theplas were good, better than khaman & bhajiyas that I ordered.

I had a pic with the waiter with the restaurant in the background. You can see folks looking at us.

The place had some ducks in the water & I was pleasantly surprised to see the setup, specially in such intense heat.

I usually skip my lunch during the ride days, primarily to save time. There is one more advantage of doing so, which I realized that day. Because of the ‘comparatively heavy’ meal, I started to feel drowsy. At some point, the road bifurcated & I had to stay on the main road, which was turning right. I went straight but stopped right on time to check my map. At the time, I realized that someone in the car stopped beside me & telling to the take the road that is going right. That was a couple whom I had met in the restaurant for lunch. I had told them that I was heading to Dholavira. I liked the gesture that they put extra effort to guide me. I thanked them & went to the right road.

It was around 3 PM in Halvad & I stopped again primarily because of my drowsiness. I also realized that Dholavira which was around 200+ kms is farther compared to Bhuj, which was around 180 odd kms. I decided to change course towards Bhuj. I called up the Hotel In & Out dormitory owner & checked availability. After a few calls, he picked & confirmed that they had bed available. I then started to ride towards the hotel.

Another hour into the ride, I started noticing windmills, backwater, salt extraction setup (that is my guess). The truck movement seem to have increased significantly too. But this experience was first of its kind for me.

I am guessing this location was somewhere around the backwater in the maps screenshot below before Shikharpur

There were prominet signboard for left turn at Bhachau for Bhuj. The road went a little bad but became fine later. Overall, the road stayed pretty good for the entire stretch. Closer to Bhuj, I noticed a big campus of BKT (Balakrishna something something). Later I came to know, BKT manufacture tires.

I reached Hotel In n Out . Its location was not marked correctly so I had to call Rajendra bhai who eventually guided me to its right location 50m away. The dorm was nice & bathrooms were clean. I checked in.

Later, I met Amit bhai from Jamnagar who was at the bed next to me. Amit bhai told me about Saurashtra area (Jamnagar, Dwarka, Somnath, Junagadh) & tourist attractions around it. Junagadh piqued my interest the most with the land known for sadhus, ashrams & a lot of mysticism related stuff. Apparently there is a baba over there whose age is not known to people & he is there for a time longer than 200 years or so.

I also inquired about White Rann & I was being told about the Dorodo village. I was advised to go the place in afternoon/evening & watch sunset from there as during the day, it will be very hot.

It was 11 PM & I went to sleep.