Panshet and Back

(A very fine portrait by Ithape - Put it in my FB Profile immediately)

Last Sunday - 01July 12, was our ride to Panshet. The planning began after our ride the week before through Bahuli - Kudje. On my return from Nilkanteshwar I had checked out the route via Panshet which was good enough for cycling. I told Anil and we fixed it for Sunday. I called up Aniket Sutar who passed the word around and we had Ethape, Raj, Bhavin and Fartale joining in besides Ethape Junior.
 The ETD was fixed as 0600hrs from Rajaram Bridge. Anil and self took off at 0545hrs and were at the bridge at the fixed time with Ethape and jr reaching there at the same time.Bhavin, Fartale and Aniket followed. Ethape had been to Panshet on cycle earlier and had hitchhiked back in a tempo.








We started at around 0620 after the mandatory clicking of snaps. The first part was comfortable cycling in the cool early morning. We stopped for another photo session at the Khadakwasla lake.

(L-R:Ithape Jr, Fartale,Raj, Bhavin, Ithape , Self n Anil)

The next stop was after crossing Khanapur. Here Ethape 'n son and Anil was with us. The others did not fetch up for quite a while when on inquiring it came to light that Bhavin's cycle had a puncture at Donje phata. And no one had a puncture kit but me! So after cursing Bhavin for not calling when we were closer we looked around for ways to send the kit back to Aniket and Bhavin. Meanwhile we clicked snaps.

The first few cars  and two wheelers looked at us suspiciously and took off much to the amusement of bystanders, while others were were going unto Khanapur only. Finally one of them suggested to send it with the milkman- they were all waiting for him to come on his mobike. Fortunately the milkman turned to be a gentleman and agreed to deliver it to our stranded comrades. Meanwhile Raj and Fartale fetched upThereafter we waited for another 30 min before Aniket confirmed that the repair wasn't successful and they were returning to base. The delay had cost us almost an hour and it was past 0800hrs.
We proceeded ahead and were fortunate that the sun was feeling shy today. The weather was cool and the road allowed comfortable cycling.Most of the time the gradients were not too long and not very steep so I could give my Dahon a push and actually enjoying the climb for a change. But the king of the climb was without doubt Anil Bhide.  We reached the Panshet Dam and went straight to the base of the dam for the usual - Photographing ourselves and our cycles.

 We then settled down to have breakfast at the small restaurant  at the base. Everyone but me and Anil ordered Misal, we two had poha. The poha had an overdose of spiciness by my standard. We followed it up with Kanda bhaji.

While I looked around for way to quench the fire in my mouth - finally succeeding with a soft drink. We started  back to Pune at around 1030 hrs.

Shortly after we found another group also heading back to Pune. At Donje phata we found that it was the Lifecycle group coming from Neelkanteshwar, practicing for their Manali - Leh trip. Lifecycle owner was there as was Captain. We took the Sinhagad Road route back via Rajaram Bridge. Reached back around 1200hrs after a thoroughly enjoyable ride. The details of the ride are given out on the Endomondo map below.