Haha, old thread reviewed. Well, sorry for leaving it incomplete - thanks to a schedule which don't let me do the same. Well, let me add some more pics by now and of course the remaining part of the story goes this way:
18th April:
A boring classroom with a sleepy Vipul who never disappoints the faculties by keeping awaken in their class and disturbing everybody(actually all are sleeping with eyes open) studying
. Yes, I attended the college that day and was waiting for the college to go off and then leave for home(one meeting too after that). Fine.. Yes!! Its the lunch break and I am now happy with phone in hand and earphones in ears that I got a song from a friend, listened it and got motivated that 'I NEED A BREAK, RIGHT NOW'!!
Just asked a couple of friends and disappointed, no one ready to go and then came the true friend(at least for that time) who was willing to go and by next day itself.
Reached home, worked overtime and finished some work for tomorrow too and then came the trickiest part:
MONEY: Hehe, I am under punishment - no credit card, no extra cash, no car. A poor guy with 1000 Rs in pocket and a motorcycle in hand. Well, this was not enough. Called the friend and it was finalized - Bajaj Discover and two guys and an estimated expense will be 500-600 per person max!!
19th April:
It was 7:30 am that we started from Meerut, distance to be covered was 179 kms one side hence making it 358 kms on total. The route we took was: Meerut - Bijnor - Najibabad - Kotdwar - Lansdowne.
Since we made a 'bunk' trip hence we needed to be extremely quick with least stops and good speed hence we took first stop after covering around 65 kms at the barrage at Bijnor, those days there was less water in Ganga and hence the river bed was near dry, here is the pic:
Road condition is not bad but is not good too between Meerut and Bijnor. You can carry 60-70 kph safe and comfortable going above it is not advised, though at some parts one can do even 100 too.
Soon we crossed Bijnor and moved towards Najibabad, freshly laid tarmac and less crowd makes this farms and villages surrounded dual carriageway a good road to drive on. In fact this is the section where you can easily clock a 100 kph and even maintain it for sometime without the worry of some unexpected pothole coming your way.
It is on crossing the Najibabad that things turn even better with even lesser traffic and the road which actually looks great being surrounded by the forests of Rajaji National Park till Kotdwar, let these two pics speak of it:
Cross the Kotdwar and you enter the hills, in the end of Kotdwar is some very famous Hanuman Temple called Siddhabali. After you cross Kotdwar you get a very well laid dual cariageway in hills for around 15 kilometers till a place called Dugadda and for 5 kilometers more till the diversion point. Till this point you will definitely enjoy the hilly drive and in fact can do even 60-70 kph at some points. After the diversion point comes the single lane road to Lansdowne which is actually not a very well laid piece of tarmac but is good enough that even Honda City(I mentioned this car because it has very low GC) can tackle without any problem and maintaining 30-40 kph is no issue on this road. But yes, this road has got many beautiful spots like this one:
Did the same trip on my P220 thrice after this one and will be sharing the pics of that in a short time. Till then here is one:
@Vipul : Any idea how are the road conditions from Delhi (maybe from Meerut) to Lansdowne now a days, if you or a friend of yours has visited recently.
The most recent trip we done was around 15 days back(once again a bunk trip) and the road condition was:
- Delhi to Meerut: Fine, better make an early start to save yourself from rush on this stretch of NH, in fact if you start around 6 am then you will be saved from very dense Meerut traffic too.
- Meerut to Bijnor: Road is good, there were some bad stretches which were under repair when we made the last trip, hence you can expect a 'good' road till Bijnor. Its the area near the Ganga Barrage that you can find some potholes(I guess they are also repaired though).
- Bijnor to Najibabad: Road is good and traffic density is also low, its just that number of villages is more and some traffic sense is actually missing in people.
- Najibabad to Kotdwar: Fantastic piece of tarmac with slight potholes at some places(not even worth touching the brakes) the road passes through dense forests of Rajaji National park.
- Kotdwar to Lansdowne: Dual carriageway section is very well laid while the single lane part is slightly potholed, rest everythign is okay.
In other words, any car can go there, so no need to worry about the road and start preparing for the trip.
Also, what would be the best route? Is this OK - Delhi - Ghaziabad - Meerut - Bijnor - Najibabad - Kotdwar - Lansdowne.
This is the only route with a length of around 240 kms.
Yes, the other route is go to Haridwar and then return to Najibabad - Kotdwar - Lansdowne. It will be around 301 kms.
If You wish to take even longer route, then you can go to Rishikesh - Srinagar Garhwal - Pauri Garhwal - Lansdowne. It will be around 400 kms.
Now I have suggested the routes and you can decide which one to take
vipul nice start. at what speeds was the video clip taken ?
I guess it was between 30 to 80 kph the video was recorded. On P220 I even touched 95 kph at one point.