The making of Konkan Biking Trip!

Woke up lazily on a fine day in the first week of December, Year 2008.. the light from the window said its a beautiful morning outside. Somehow managed to get off from the bed and headed on to look for the newspaper (Sakaal) lying outside the main door. Mom was ready with a adrak vaali chai, a hot tea made by mom is enough to kick start my routine in chilling winter days. Opening the newspaper and a cup of tea in one hand I was reading through the pages, finding nothing much interesting as always. Once again cursing the political news and columns dominating major part in the newspaper. As I turned on the pages I was glad to see one of my favorite supplement Muktpeeth, a weekend supplement in the newspaper. The youth articles in the supplement were always interesting to read. As I was reading through, a beautiful pic showing the beauty of a beach, on the last page easily grasped my attention. The pic was a part of a detailed article written by few young boys who were sharing their experience of traveling through Konkan (a beautiful scenic area along the coastal line of Maharashtra famous for its beaches) on Bikes. The article was fascinating and as I was reading through the fact that I had vacations coming up soon made me think seriously on following the plan mentioned in the article. I then turned on to the map alongside the article. The route highlighted was from Pune - Alibaug - Diveaagar - Harihareshwar - Ratnagiri - Pune, almost the entire Konkan was covered up. The total distance came out to bearound 1300 kms, which made me think over the practical feasibility of plan. Then keeping up the enthusiasm,I decided to share the plan with some of my adventure freak colleagues from N.C.C. I went to college and showed the plan to Chetan (a travel crazy friend of mine), he took the article to his home for reading it. The next day I put up my plan to travel from Pune to Alibaug, have a one night stay and return. To my extreme surprise Chetan had already decided to follow the entire 1300 km route as it was shown in the map in article.. My first reaction was 'I am OUT of the plan', I mean dude 1300 kms on bike???? Who's parents are gonna allow???? Budget??? How many days???? Feasibility?????blah blah blah... There was a strict no from my side! Then both of us decided to share the plan with some more colleagues from our group. Piyush was the first on Chetan's mind as he is from Goa which lies on the southern tip of Konkan. When we informed Piyush about the plan he too agreed for the entire trip. I was again thinking are you guys serious???? As the plan was passed on to others, we had some mixed reactions with some friends already quitting citing reasons of prior commitments. Atlast its vacation after 6 long months, obviously the first priority of my hosteler friends was spending time with family. So a point was put up that they would spend a week at hometown and then return to Pune from where we were to start our journey. Now was the time for each of us to clear individual hurdles. For me it was the Budget and getting permission from Mom.. It took me almost a week to convince Mom, only after I could give examples of my friends who had got the permission she agreed half.. I was trying my best to convince her with all possible tactics, some of them fake.. ;-) Only God knew the truth ;-)
Alright somehow we could get rid of some of the hurdles and our parents agreed with *terms and conditions applied! The final count ready for the plan was 6.. Chetan, Parag, Piyush, Sachin, Harshal and me... The three bikes we decided to use were Discover, Passion and a Unicorn.. with two on one bike!!! So the day decided for starting the journey was 28 Dec 2007!
A crazy plan, 7 days, 6 freaks, 3 bikes and 1300 kms to GO!!!! Woooohoooooo... :-D