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A 2,300 km 4-day trip from Pune to Jhansi on my Interceptor 650

29th August 2023, 13:03 by Ananth Iyer

Apart from the uncomfortable seat, I do not have any complaints at all from the bike. It performed really well over this trip.

BHPian jomson13 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

I did a interstate run on the interceptor last week. The intent of this thread is to share my experience as well as how the bike performed.

This was an unplanned trip necessitated by a sudden need in the family, I had to get from Pune to Jhansi and had to be in Jhansi on Wednesday (9th August) by around 10am. This was communicated on Monday afternoon which meant that a road trip was the only way out.

Two options were considered, the BRV (if parents were coming along) or the Inty (if I was to go alone).

My parents are not big fans of road trips so option 2 it was.

Bike prep:

My bike consumes engine oil; I don't know why and I don't intend to open up the cylinder head just to check the condition of the rings / sleeve. The consumption rate is around 400ml every 1200 kms. I'm happy to just top up the oil level when it drops.

The last time I topped up, I had finished my bottle of Motul 7100 10w50.

On the eve of the ride, I went to the local spare parts store to pick up a bottle and was in for a rude shock - they only had the required grade in a huge can, so I had to pick up a bottle of the semi synthetic oil (3100 20w50) to get something which was close to the recommended grade.

Topped up the oil and lubed the chain and the bike was all set to go. It had recently undergone a fork seal replacement and also a fork oil upgrade – Maxima 5w oil was used. I was looking forward to test it over a long distance ride.

One upgrade which has been long pending and which made its absence felt on this ride was the seat upgrade. More on that later.

My bike already has a spare clutch cable installed on it, I just adjusted the current one a bit and made sure that I had the required tools needed to preform a cable swap if the need arose.

Planning:

The total distance to be covered was 1100 kms and I decided to split it over two days as 800kms and 300kms since I wanted to be in Jhansi by around 10am. This was going to be the longest single day ride that I had ever done, the previous one being the ride to the statue of unity (link to thread - https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/trave...wo-wheels.html (Statue of unity - On two wheels!))

Another reason for riding more on the first day is that the energy levels are much higher and its better to munch up the miles before the fatigue starts settling in.

The route shown on google maps was this : Pune - Nandur shingote - Lasalgaon - Chandwad - Malegaon - Dhule - Indore - Guna - Shivpuri - Jhansi

I checked in which some friends about the road and weather conditions and they suggested that I should not leave the highway at Nandur Shingote and continue straight onwards towards Nashik. This is longer (by around 50kms) but is a better road overall.

The revised route was as follows: Pune - Sinnar - Nashik - Chandwad - Malegaon - Dhule - Indore - Guna - Shivpuri - Jhansi

I decided to look for a place to stay once I reached Indore; depending on the time of the day and my fatigue levels.

Day 1

Started around 5:20, I prefer to start just before dawn, that way you are out of the city by the time the sun rises. Had a large cup of coffee from home and was off on my way. I had my rain gear on (Fitted the rain liner to the jacket, Decathlon rain pants and a generic bag cover for my luggage tied onto the back seat). The ride was uneventful and there was not too much rain on the way, it was just enough to keep the jacket from getting too stuffy.

I don't ride with the navigation turned on and this led me to miss the Nashik bypass and head straight into Nashik. Only when I hit a signal did I realize that something was amiss and checked google maps. This goof up caused me around 30 mins of delay.

The heavy dinner on the previous day and the large cup of coffee allowed me to skip breakfast. I did have some snacks with me which I kept digging into during my stops. I usually stop every hour or so for a 5 min break but today my stops were less frequent since the weather was very pleasant and the roads were pretty good.

Some pictures from the day:

This was my first stop for the day.

A huge onion market just outside of Malegaon.

Dhule, was getting quite hot now. Time to lose the rain gear.

Wanted to have some nice chaat but I could not find any restaurants on the bypass highway. Made do with some soya chaap instead

Day 1 total, stopped at a place called Pachor. Its around 60 kms from Guna.

Found a decently rated hotel (Hotel Prince Palace), which was extremely close to the highway. Had a simple dinner; there was no choice at all and retired for the night.

Day 2

Started at my usual time of 5:30 am. The weather had been holding up really well so far - cloudy and overcast with brief spells of rain. These were just enough to keep the temperature comfortable without causing visibility and drivability issues on the roads.

One thing that is worth mentioning here is the problem of cattle on the highway. Although I was warned about this, I was totally taken aback by the sheer numbers of cattle that are found loitering on the highway. They start appearing as early as dawn and stay back till dusk. I cannot understand why the highways are not fenced off to avoid untoward and totally un-necessary accidents involving cattle.
The destination was 320kms at the start of the day, this increased to 360 due to the fact that I missed the turn to get off the highway at Padora and continued straight onwards towards Shivpuri. Not only did this add distance to the trip but also time since the stretch of road (especially at the start) from Shivpuri to Jhansi is in really bad condition.

I did not realized when I crossed over from MP to UP. I was expecting to see some boards or some kind of toll gates but there were none. From the map I could see that the border was after a large water body; the only comparable one that I saw was a large shallow lake which had a nice bridge built over it. I have a picture near this location during the return leg.

Some parts of the road here were very good - it was freshly laid tar (without any median or shoulder markings). The road was so good that traffic from the opposite lane was using the newly laid road instead of sticking to their own side.

Didn't click too many pictures today since I wanted to make it before 10am. Inspite of the unwanted detours, I made it around 10:15am.

Due to the limited fuel tank capacity of the interceptor, I had to stop every 250-280 kms. The refuel would take in around 9-9.5 litres of petrol so I was getting a fuel efficiency of close to 30 kmpl.

No issues whatsoever with the bike, the seat upgrade (which I had put off for so long) was making its absence felt. I was looking forward towards getting something done in Jhansi.

The next two days were spent in Jhansi attending to family matters.

The return was planned for Saturday morning, the only preparation that I did was to get the bike washed and lubed the chain.

Very nice and fresh poha at one of the toll booths. Was very cheap too, this bowl costs all of 10 rupees!

I think these were soyabean fields on both sides

Entering into Jhansi

Return Leg, Day 1

I was set to start the return journey on a Saturday and this being the start of a long weekend, I was expecting quite a bit of car traffic on the highway. I was a bit late to start and it was almost 5:45 by the time I left. Weather was pretty good, it hadn't rained at all during the past week so I had packed my rain gear along with my luggage.

This is just after the big lake which I think is near the MP - UP border.

First stop for the day. I think I rode for around 2 hours or so before stopping. I had some company (some random biker dude on a green continental GT) and we made the morning ride interesting for each other.