Date: 18th Nov, 2006
Destination: Chateau Indage, Narayangaon
Cast: Marshal*, UV*, Viks* and moi.
Supporting role: Pulsar 180 twins, Pulsar 150 and Hero Honda Unicorn.
Do you know about the existence of a winery just 85 kms from Pune? Do you know that they have tours of the vineyard and the winery and sampling of wines for only Rs 250/-? Do you know that they run a wine bar and restaurant outside the winery?
Some of the questions that we has heard in the past and the reasons for us planning a trip to wine country. To clarify things, there is a winery in existence and they have a wine bar and a restaurant where u can enjoy the wine along with some good food but there is no tour of the winery and neither do you get sampling of wines.
The rain gods have been very generous this year with Pune experiencing showers till October (first time in my seven years here) which resulted in us not being able to plan out another trip till now. We did manage a couple of trips to Lonavla in the past months but they don’t count since we didn’t go “over the ghats”, so I didn’t write about it. Anyways this wasn’t a full fledged trip either but it’s one and so I thought that I should put down some words about it. I really hope that the next long trip will happen very soon.
The winery in question is ‘Chateau Indage’ and is just outside of Narayangaon about 80 kms from Pune on the Pune-Nasik highway. One of the primary reasons for making this trip was the fact that the Pune-Nasik highway is very good for biking. The roads are well laid and there are a lot of straights and high speed curves to enjoy the ride.
This was the first time that all our bikes were a part of the trip.
We started at 12:30 in the afternoon. The plan was to reach there for lunch. The roads are really nice and we easily did 100kmph on the way. It took us about two hours to reach there even though we rode fast and the traffic has to be blamed for that.
The restaurant has a nice rustic feel to it and it was a welcome sight with the vineyard in the background and long lines of grape vines as far as the eyes could see.
We had 3 different wines, one red and two white . They were very good and all of us enjoyed each of them with 'Chantilly chardonnay’ selected as the best among them. The food served was good too and the whole experience left us satisfied. Its very rare that we like the food at any restaurant since our taste buds have had an overdose of restaurant food, so us ’liking’ it means that it’s really good.
The trip back was eventful. I don’t know if it’s the effect of the wine or just a reason for it but just outside the city marshal and I got into a duel. We were doing above 90kmph on average and neither of us was ready to let it be. We were at each others tail pipe the whole time. The bikes are so well matched that it was up to a vehicle in front or the rider’s limit to slow things down. It was like two evenly matched gladiators fighting it out till the end. It went on for nearly 24 kms and we were far far ahead of the other two. Then the ghat started and I left him behind (he still has to get over the fear of leaning into a curve). We waited for nearly ten minutes before the other two caught up with us so you can imagine ;-)
But my RESPECT to marshal for the way he rode, he is normally a sane and safe rider but this time he gave a peek into his other side. He knows the bike well, is brave and has the appetite for speed and one-on-one. We never were rash (going fast isn’t rash driving) and we never forgot the fact that it was a public road so it was even more fun. I have to add here that the bikes were an important part of this and the 180’s were perfect all the time. It was up to us to extract the best out of it.
The whole trip included a lot of high speed blasts interspersed with crawling behind trucks.
The only problem was the traffic and the villages on the way where we’d have to ride slow. Also sometimes the way the trucks and cars tried overtaking others was quite scary. Its something to have a four wheeler coming your way, it’s totally different to see a truck barreling towards you with not a care in the world.
It was a lot of fun. That has to be the general opinion among all of us.
Short and sweet, is how I would like to describe it and after a long drought, it was as welcome as the first rains.
Route:
Pune- nasik phata(old pune Mumbai highway)-Chakan-Narayangaon-Chateau Indage
It’s about 4 kms from Narayangaon bus stand on the right side of the highway.
Distance: 85 kms from Pune
About the bikes:
It was too short a distance to judge the bikes. All of them took the bashing well though. Each of us rode above 100kmph for quite some distance but the bikes just kept on going. No worries, complaints from the bikes after the trip.
*names have been changed to protect privacy.
