Ride to Shivneri

Date : 18 July 10
Bike : Thunderbird twinspark (with me), Discover 125 (with Chinmay)
Distance :
Home (kothrud stand) to Shivneri : 104 km
Shivneri to home : 102 km (different / better route)
Road condition :
Pune to Chakan (NH50) (@ 40km) - Good
Chakan to Narayangaon (NH50) (@50km) - Good (but does not have divider)
Narayangaon to Shivneri (@15km) : Not so good (but there is alternate good road - which we missed while going)

Shivneri - One of 7 gates - I think this is first one

Difficulty level for Shivneri : Easy - has got stairs, even old people can go easily
Lesson learned : You need good helmet on Nasik highway

I am enjoying holidays from 16 July to 9 Aug. Rather than joining new company immediately, I thought utilizing these holidays for fun will be great idea.

First of all thanks to Harshad Sharma who helps me in planning rides.
This time my ride was not exactly solo - I had company of Chinmay Kanitkar.

We started for Shivneri @ 6.30am from Bremen chowk. Road till Chakan is quite good (but not so good as NH4). Khed ghat is beauty! - we got to see a small lake/ dam and a lot of jungle around. We took break after crossing Khed ghat and took some photos - the view is amazing.

Again before reaching Peth you will get one small ghat. I did not understood when it started - just when it ended reading the sign for "ghat end" I understood I was in ghat section :).

Taken near some ghat ...

Caution : There is no divider after Rajgurunagar, traffic rules are not respected in this region. Please make sure than you are driving safe, bus drivers / regular transportation vans almost do not care about lane rules.

After Narayangaon we followed signs for Shivneri - the road is in bad condition. Most of the road has not got layer of tar. It is mostly kachcha road. While coming back somehow we found alternative road which is quite good.

Shivneri fort is another picnic spot like Sinhagad, you can easily get safe parking there. Government has probably invested good much amount on this fort. Stairs are in good condition.  I could see a lot of cement work done recently to preserve the old construction. I do think that government could have done better job by using old construction materials but... OK at least they have dome something.
We did not see any hotel for getting lunch @ Shivneri, but there are many locals selling tea / lime juice and chhaj. Water is easily available on the fort. There are lot many things to see, few notable ones are
 - Shivai devi temple
 - Shiv janmasthan
 - Kadelot tok
 - Badami talav
 - There are 7 gates which are worth watching - each one has got separate name

Shivai Devi temple

Birthplace of Shivaji Maharaj

Amberkhana

Shivaba and Jijau

Birthplace of maharaj from long distance (see left)

Kadelot!

Badami talav - not sure

Road - taken from Shivneri

Fields as seen from Shivneri

View around the fort is beautiful :)

Near Narayangaon if you are interested you can see few huge telescopes.

We returned home @ 5pm.
One special caution : Use helmet on Nasik highway, my helmet glass is in bad condition - there were lot of insects / Kidas and what not coming thought helmet on my face.

Happy Riding!!
Ashish

Goodbye Delcam

With dreams of exciting future and with sad mind for missing friends/ colleagues, bye bye to Delcam (Pune).

When I look back - these ~2.5 years spent at Delcam are the most exiting days in my professional life. Though there are many reasons for which I liked Delcam, one of the prime reason was the lovely company of my colleagues. Almost everyone at Delcam is unique and great in his/ her own way.
In these 2.5 years there were numerous debates on our lunch table and numerous parties which have made permanent and beautiful footprints in my memory.

I was pleased to work with these highly talented developers in Delcam.

I would try to scribble some short memories about everyone who was part of our lunch table group

Girish 
Giru, Girya, **** and more **** are the few names I used to call him. He troubled me a lot in the beginning. He used to give me miss-calls. My poor brain took almost 2-3 weeks to understand Girish is the one troubling me :). Thanks a lot Girish for all coding related help you did in the initial tough months. You made me smile many a times and I will miss our chat conversations full of *** - I hope you will also miss it :)

Chetan
Dude, Geek Verma, Be**da Chetan are the few other names for him. My tapri partner, exceptionally intelligent and equally helpful dude. He developed DST - orkut like internal  forum for us, we enjoyed using DST and it was really innovative thing. He added fun to work by developing betting site for IPL and similar activities. Most of the times your philosophy used to go few kilo-meter above my head, but I enjoyed listening to your ideas.

Suhas
Su, Curvy (Walase) Patil are few other names. HaPpY go lucky dude in Delcam. I never saw him much worried about anything. I will miss your PJs and jokes. Do upload your videos playing guitar on youtube.

Amol 
aka Amul :) You provided me up to date knowledge about the headlines of all leading Marathi and English news papers :). Amol is exceptionally sincere guy, I think he took hardly 3-4 leaves in past 2 years. He writes tons of code everyday. Dude please please please - start enjoying life. I will miss our debates on almost every topic. I appreciate your memory - how do you manage to remember minute details you have read in articles!

Nikhil
Ever happy and enjoying dude. We two were almost always the first ones to run for lunch :). I am sure you can try modelling besides coding :) Even SRK will be amazed looking at the number of possible styles you can give for photos :)

Kapil
Unfortunately I did not get to work much with you. You are great singer. Thank you for starting good activities like session on design patterns.

Heta and Kartika
I can not write about you two separately :) You two do most of the things together (Including birtday parties!). Even on lunch table you two have jokes which others don't understand :)
Kartika, Till date I never got to see that Bollywood dance video. Sadly with me one vote for CPK (City Pride Kothrud) is gone :( 
Heta, Ms cool, enjoy your work and let others enjoy theirs is probably your mantra of work. Till date I have  not got your home-made  pav-bhaji :(

Neha
You type really very very fast. First thing I remember is our initial debates! It was fun having debates with talented girl like you. Neha is also very good singer. It feels wonderful to remember that I had state topper and limca book record winner colleague :).  Thank you for motivating us for eye-donation.

Gayathri
aka Gaya3, I did not know for long time you are also great artist, your paintings are amazing! Hope you keep updating your art blog. Probably only God knows how many dishes you are able to cook - all of them so great in taste.

PunyaToya
aka Punya, Meaning Holy (Punya) Water (Toya), your parents gave you perfect name. I always felt very comfortable to share good and bad memories with you. It was fun learning few Oriya words from you :), I think everybody enjoyed trying those Aau (Ou) based pronunciations. You and Neha gave great treats at home, thanks a ton to both of you for all those treats.

I can not complete this post without mention of DevRaj
Devraj
Artist!! Unfortunately you were not part of our lunch group. Working with you was great experience. I think everyone should learn "how to work" from you. I always admired your passion and dedication for perfection. Thanks for designing this blog's header - I am going to ask you more! Best thing is I get the quality work absolutely free!!


Friends I will miss you all. I hope I will get good colleagues in future also :). I hope you also liked working with me. I know you people have already forgiven me if I had hurt anyone.

Wish you all "All the best" for whatever you do in future.

My first long ride experience :)

I took thunderbird on 22 nd April 10, since the day I took this bike - I wanted to go on long ride :). I drove 200 km in first 3 days and there came shock 'I had to wait for first servicing for ~15 days', there was no other choice but to cancel the long ride plan :(
I got the first servicing done on 11 th this month. None of my friends were ready to travel on week days :(. I had to go to Nrusinhawadi for first long ride (it is temple of Shri Nrusinha Saraswati), finally after some thought  I decided to go alone.

I left home on 12 th May 6.30am, for safety I took one extra clutch cable with me.

I must mention here that NH4 is pleasure to ride. The road is mostly in very good condition. I think this was the first time for me to ride through tunnel - Katraj tunnel is 1.38 km long and I could not believe that 35W light which comes (by default) with thunderbird is hardly of any use there :(. I was worried about crossing Khambatki ghat, but actually when I reached there I did not notice when I entered Khambatki ghat section and when it was over (I mostly used 3rd and 4rth gear - rarely 2nd was required). View from Khambatki is really good :).

About 12.15pm I reached Sangli - finding hotel was not that difficult, Ratna International looked quite OK to me. Food was really superb and very cheap. Room rents are OK but rooms are not great. I took some rest and in evening I went to Nrusinhawadi, the road to Nrusinhawadi is again quite good - mostly it goes through farms. The parking boy gave me permission to park thunderbird in car parking :).

Next day I left for Nrusinhawadi (2nd visit) @ 4.25 am, reached there around 4.50am the kakad arti (early morning prayer) has just started. One suggestion : now there are good hotels in Nrusinhawadi (I did not know this earlier) - try to avoid Sangli hotels (if you want good service then try hotel Ambassador in Sangli).

I started back for Pune around 8am. Because of sunburns on hands, it was quite difficult for me to drive after Satara (11.30 am). There is hotel by name Mahendra executive in Satara - I tried all orders "Veg Biryani / Dosa / Curd rice" for every option waiter told me please try Idli sambar in our hotel. Finally without asking me he bought Idli sambar???. I left that place and started journey back to Pune. I forgot to remove goggles before entering Khambatki tunnel :D (@ 838 mtr) it was real adventure for me till I finished that tunnel :).

Thunderbird gave me unbelievable mileage of @55-60 kmpl on hiway :). I did not face any oil-leak problem in this 600 km ride. Now waiting for next ride.

I had done one Konkan ride with friends few years back (that was on Bajaj boxer) and one to Shirawal (on Bajaj Caliber), but riding on thunderbird is totally different joy altogether. I missed friends in this journey :(, next time it would be great experience if I get company of friends :).

Happy thumping :)