[phamilyman]

Folks,

As many of you know, I got my Honda CBR250R, RMLC on Nov 1. The first big ride was planned to be on Nov 22 2015.

The plan was simple - ride as far as possible within 300-350km of Gurgaon on Sunday only. The first thought was to ride to Renuka Lake but with the 1k km service only 700km away, I decided to find a closer destination and avoid any warranty surprises. The initial destination was Jamwa Ramgarh tal, around 220km away from Gurgaon.

But. There was a twist. The lake had supposedly dried up in the intervening years. One link alluded to that.

After much asking around on the internet, or even on the HVK group, finally I got hard confirmation of the lake being dry from our good old deky! He then charts up a day ride route for me:
Gurgaon-Alwar-Abhaneri-Bhangarh-Siliserh-Alwar-Gurgaon.

As suggested in the manual - I was still keeping the bike within running in for the first 200km i.e to Abhaneri. One problem that happened is that my ergonomics still need adjustment - I have severe numbness in the index and central finger and the base of the right thumb, after riding just 15-20km. Despite a late (7:30am) start, it was still quite chilly and I was having to stop every 30-40km to keep circulation in the right hand.

that aside, the bike was flawless - picking up as much speed as required, just as I hoped it would have been. iPhone was also misbehaving - for reasons I could not fathom - the damned thing was simply not able to play google maps directions onto my (motorola) headset, while I could call just fine. This was outright annoying.

Anyhow, after much confusion, I reached Abhaneri in 3 hours from Gurgaon. It has a Harshat mata temple and a nice Chand Baoli (step well). Good for bikers with time to burn - not worth a separate trip from delhi for families. There is no signboards for abhaneri - you head to bandikui, bypass the city and then a couple of km down you get the signboard for abhaneri.
Before Bhiwadi, turns out Alok Nath profitted from the

AIB video

too, LOL!



Wheelieing tractor being driven calmly!


Turnoff for Abhaneri!


Harshat mata temple.
Background

Pictures




Chand Baori:

[phamilyman]

Bhangarh was in many ways a damp squib. Crawling with tourists - it had hardly any of the creepy feeling that you might expect from India's "most haunted place"
To get here from abhaneri, I avoided the 15km shortcut via the villages (via Bandikui-Huda) and rode via Dausa, given how bad the interior roads can be, esp since its at the edge of the sariska tiger reserve.

Wise decision - I reached in just under an hour despite lack of signage on when to turn right from the dausa jaipur road. Landmark: On the dausa bypass, you will get one BIG flyover as you get closer to the city. Go under that, and take the first right. You will see a small signboard with a lot of villages written (some left, some right) - one of them is bhangarh. Take right and ride 27km. Then you need to turn left from village gola ka bas for the last 3km, which is a totally broken track.

An informal farce-ish checkpost will try and sell you parking tickets - pay the actual price on the ticket (10 for bikes, 20 for cars). Jerks tried to charge double. There's limited car parking on the narrow road, but there's lots of space there for bikes.

I didn't find anything haunted in there - its a second tier capital city with three level of walls much of which is well preserved but abandoned.

Here are the pictures:

Hanuman temple at the gate, from inside.

Pano on entry.

Ruins inside the ramparts.



Nature 1, Bhangarh Zero:

Main "fort" inside the inner wall (there are three layers of walls, all well preserved!).

View from the fort.



Someswar temple

Gopinath temple.


Ajabgarh fort on the way - no road, you must climb up on the hill. I had no time.

Desolate roads on the way.



My steed!


Route: You can go from Bhangarh to Alwar via ajabgarh/thanghazi/sariska bypass. The newly opened sariska bypass / thanaghazi ring road (via Mundavra) opens up on the left just after thanaghazi town and is ABSOLUTELY THE MOST STUNNING ROAD on the whole journey. Desolate rolling terrain and butter smooth roads for 20km - heaven! Aside from that,the rest of the route was spent in clenching my teeth as I tolerated the crappy roads (3 hours for 95km to Alwar inspite of the 20km of thanaghazi ringroad) . My suggestion would be to instead take the Tehla route to Rajgarh and from there you have butter smooth roads to Alwar PLUS that road bypasses alwar town unlike the thanaghazi route. Considering buses took the Tehla route, I would suggest that - you have overall less crappy km to drive, even though overall distance would be longer.

[Sks_Biker]

About time! Nice to see you back on the road

[abhinav.s]

Good log and pics! Welcome back to biking. Was following your Which Bike thread for sometime until you zeroed in on the CBR. Glad to see that it is serving your needs albeit with a few niggles as noted in your ownership.

[phamilyman]

Originally Posted by Sks_Biker

About time! Nice to see you back on the road

Thanks man.

Originally Posted by abhinav.s

Good log and pics! Welcome back to biking. Was following your Which Bike thread for sometime until you zeroed in on the CBR. Glad to see that it is serving your needs albeit with a few niggles as noted in your ownership.

Thanks man.

It does the exact thing that I want - the niggles are mostly minor except the damned mileage. Overall, if I had to do it again, I would go for it again in a heartbeat!

[Rachit.K.Dogra]

Nice log there Hitanshu. We need to catch up.
2 CBRs in the same color would look nice.

And again hearty congratulations on the bike. I actually like the CBR250 quite a lot myself too.

CHEERS!!

Rachit

[Wanderers]

Hi,

I visited Sariska, Bhangarh & Siliserh in January this year. However had no idea about Abhaneri and it looks like a good option.
I will cover Abhaneri on my next visit to Sariska and this time I would prefer to stay at RTDC Siliserh, just for its location. Beautiful place.

Thanks