The Shivalik Circuit: First Short RE Ride

Finally after lots of swinging thought i decided to get my own Royal Enfield, 29th Nov'2011 early morning i reached my home town, travelling in  bus from Delhi. I decided to finish the purchase work as soon as possible. I had already enquired about the availability of "Teal Green" color. Got into a crowded bus from Nahan and started my journey to Chandigarh. Met Guddu at Chandigarh and finished all formalities at the RE store at Sector 27, returning back to Nahan on NH72 was amazing experience. I was careful to keep speed below 40kmpl. but that was some injustice to machine. i changed my mind and set speed bar to 60kmpl. I never experienced such an easy and comfortable travel from Chandigarh to Nahan on 2 wheeler. I was so fresh. No tiredness. Infact i was not satisfied with this 80Km journey so i included Trilokpur Temple in the journey. Though it added only 10km but visiting temple mean a lot to me. Now i was waiting for weekend so that i can go on a little more long drive.

Friday evening finished my office work very early {All IT guys do that every friday :) }. and planned to go to Parwanoo. I had not visited my sister from a long time, also i knew her son Ketan would also be happy to see the machine, as he was constant motivating person to get C500. There two ways to reach parwanoo. one way is I can travel to chandigarh and than take shimla highway, which is all time best way to travel, but to make it adventurous i chose another way this road goes all into Shivalik mountain ranges, with all curves and what not. I knew that this road is getting renovated and some construction work is going on, but i still preferred that.

Chosen path snapshot taken from google maps

At 8:30 i was on my bike. Enjoying the nature i was riding up in Himalayas with earphones playing soulful numbers of Mohit Chauhan. powerful engine was crossing all mountains smoothly which made me realize the actual power of the machine. On this route i was bound, can never cross 60kmpl in this region. Reached Saranha in minutes. Sarahan is a small town with lovely people. Before my schooling i was brought up in this town, i still have some faded images of my childhood. i wanted to stop here and meet my friend but desire to ride couldn't let me do so. I stopped at roadside and captured nature in my camera and continued my ride. Upto Sarahan road was damaged and i was having hope that a spot will come where some PWD people will be seen and then i would be able to see transformed road after that. It was few more kilometres after Sarahan and i observed they are working for widening the road, there was no point of transformation .. all road was dusty and big big machines were working for betterment of road. so this time it is not just putting another layer of charcoal on the road, its is little more. i observed road widening is in progress which will result in double width of road. at some places huge side wall were cut down to make remove sharp curves . at some places road was dig to lower the surface and some places they have raised the level. Hope things go well and new better passage comes up. This road is time/fule saver for people visiting shimla from DehraDoon side. Travelling all the smart villages i reached Kumharhatti. I mentioned smart because i have observed Panchayat putting up hoardings saying "This village is open defecation free". Good thing.

Picture Taken at Sarahan Valley

After KumharHatti it was all NH 22, which is counted among busiest roads in India. this portion was awesome to travel road goes along with the historic shimla-kalka railway line. i never thought to stop and take pictures. in 15 minutes on this highway and i was at my sister's home. Ketan liked the bike and we had lot of chat over chai-biscuit. Visited another friend Kanika at Parwano. as per plan i had planned to continue journey at about 5PM. but later i called up my cousin Ankur at Shimla. Got to know that he is also going to Nahan. He told that he will start from shimla very soon and reach Parwanoo and we can go together. i was in no hurry so i stayed at there itslelf talking to Jeeju and didi. Oh i forget to mention about Uncle, He was Jeeju's friend visited their house at about 6 in evening, and after that we all were listeners, It was amazing to listen him, he shared lot of good experiences with us. Later didi told me that he is HAS officer. It was nice to meet him. We had dinner at didi's home. Ketan informed us a shortcut to connect to newly coming up Parwanoo-Kalka bye-pass road. and believe me this road was wonderful. i ignored seeing the speedometer because it would have restricted me from speeding up on the nice road. within minutes we reached chandigarh, a left turn and we were on NH 73 and later on to NH72. Though we were all packed in sweater and jacket but whenever we crossed rivers we felt freezing cold in the legs. from Parwanoo to Nahan it took around 1.5 hours. I was sure i have not speeded up to extremes, therefore this distance can be covered in less time. Odometer is showing 450Km done so its time for first service for Bike.