Woke up this morning at 530 am, took a stroll around the lodge, amazing views of the forest and mountainside and fields. It was barely light.
Decided I’ll have breakfast by 7, and head out, long day ahead. After walking till 7am, and taking many pictures, the caretaker told me I have a flat on my bike. Dang ! After 2000 kms, miles away from civilization , and on the only day I woke at 530am !
The nearest mechanic was 8 kms away. Asked if he could bring the guy here to fix my flat, and was told he doesn’t have a bike. We could call him, but there was no cellphone reception. His brilliant idea was that we could go into the fields a km away, and wave the phone, and sometimes we get lucky with the signal – 1 bar or so.
I didn’t have a better idea, so we went out into the fields and did just that. It felt stupid and funny, but nobody was looking anyway. No luck, no signal.
He finally fished out a hand powered bicycle pump and started pumping. The hope was that it was a small puncture, and the idea was that if we can fill enough air, to get the bike to the mechanic, it would do the job. I had already used my disposable emergency air can for a non-emergency – just to top up the air on the higwhay. Lesson well learnt !
Well we pumped air one by one, tiring work, trying to use a bicycle pump to fill a motorcycle tyre. Anyway, we got enough in it to ride to the mechanic. I took him and the pump along. The roads were more slushy now from all the rain, and there was considerable loss of traction the entire route. Reached the mechanic, and after him fiddling around for 15 minutes, apparently his wrench did not fit. The tyre needed to be removed.
So, we started hand pumping air again, to get us to the next mechanic, 12 kms further away. So we started for that place. What do you know – it started raining again. I couldn’t help but laugh at my luck. Finally reached there, found the mechanic, who had he right tools for the job. Running a 6×6 ft shack, he had a million tools, all over the walls.a His first comment was – this is a very old model (eh! It’s a 2012, barely 3 years old model, and I intend to keep it till 2112 at least ! ). I just smirked, I needed my tyre fixed so I had to go along with his stupid comment. Else I’d have told him – “just do your damn job, and let me worry about how old the bike is”.
Removing the tyre isn’t easy. Undo the luggage carriers first, pull out the pin, a few bolts etc. But he took out the tyre in no time, took the tube out – god knows when bullets will start coming with tubeless tyres, it feels so ancient. Did all his business and put the tyre back in.
My only worry is, he couldn’t find the culprit nail which usually gets lodged in the tyre. Optimism dictates it got in and got out. Paranoia states that it’s still in there somewhere, and will poke into my wheel again at a bad place at a bad time. I thought I should get the thing checked once I reach the city 60 kms away.
I paid him 60 bucks ($1) for the one hour job including tightening all the nut bolts. I also let him take a spin on the 500 cc bull (and nobody is allowed to touch my bike on a normal day).
I raced back 20 kms to the camp. Hadnd’t been so bad, I lost about 2 hours end to end. Considering I woke up so early today, I made up for it already. Paid the guy who accompanied me a tip as well, and had breakfast waiting for me. Finished topping up on breakfast, went to my room, packed up completely, stepped out the door, and guess ? It started pouring, like it hasn’t poured before on this trip ! Unmounted my luggage, and sat down in my sit out at the back, to enjoy the rain. If only I could stay here another night !
Soon the downpour reduced, and i decided to head out. It’s not like I won’t encounter rain again while riding anyway, so might as well. By the time I got out, it was, well 1130am again, like all other days. Have a long way to go today onwards – 500 kms a day – a back breaking punishment for not sticking to the schedule. I have to retrace 60 kms back to Angul, and then figure out exactly how many kms away is Bangalore, it will be past lunch time today before my day starts.
Reached Angul, having already completed 100 kms – 40 for the flat tyre and 60 until Angul. Had lunch there and looked at the maps, I had only 1500 kms to go not 2000 !
Thought u would do 500 odd kms today, and that would place me back at Vizag. But that would also mean it would add up to 600 kms. Decided to go for it anyway – 510 km journey starting at 2 pm on the bike. I was quite nervous, but decided to go anyway.
My aim was to reach the main national highway as soon as possible and complete the 500 kms by 11 pm.
Most of the roads I was on were small highways. Lovely tarmac, smooth, no vehicular traffic. The problem was all the villages. People roaming the highways like its their backyard. Millions of cattle returning after their daily graze thing was over.
So I set up a regime for myself. 100 kms every 2 hours, mandatory 5 mins break every hour. That would come to 10 hours at leisure for 500 kms. Didn’t work that way. The first 2 hours I did 90kms, the next 2 hours only 70. I had to get ofd these roads. Took a few detours to try and reach the main highway as soon as possible.
Reached the edge of the main highway – NH5. A town called brahmapur. With all the honking on small roads, my horn sound became bizarre. I couldn’t go like this on the highway. Withdrew cash, tanked up on fuel, and started searching for a garage. Found one just before the highway. He was about to close and I had to request him to do a little adjustment to the horn. The moment I parked there, someone else brought to. my notice that I have a FLAT TYRE ! damn ! 830 pm, flat tyre, 270 more kms to go, and now I have to look for a mechanic. This was the 2nd puncture today.
All the feelings of immortality went away. I was pointed to the only mechanic in town who would be open at this hour. Drove there, and he flatly refused to fix the tyre as it was late and there were 3 more bikes in queue. I literally pleaded and told him I’ll wait my turn. Took about 20 minutes of persisting and convincing till he agreed. Finally at 930 he started fixing my bike. There was hope again.
What do you know – his spanner didn’t fit ! The only other garage who had the particular spanner was the guy who had sent me here, and he had closed by now. I was getting very frustrated, but this guy said he will fix it without removing the tyre. Did that somehow. Also found a one inch nail stuck in the tyre. Now this could either me the one which caused the flat this morning which the other guy couldn’t find, or could be a new one I caught on in those villages.
I was very apprehensive about taking the bike 300 kms on a pretty dead highway. What if it got flat again, what if this guy didn’t fix it properly. I decided to take the chance. Decided to check on the air pressure at every fuek bunk on the way. I would stop at a town as soon as I felt that the tyre was losing air.
Hit the highway, and those 300 kms felt like 3000. I stopped very often for stretches, sometimes doing them on the bike, making funny poses, to save time wasted on breaks.
Thankfully, nothing else happened, I reached Vizag at 2am, parked the bike, put the dnd light on, and now going to sleep finally. Drained – its been 630 or so kms – as is evident from the abrupt close of this post.
