A Plan.....

Cycling on "zero-gradient", city roads has ceased to interest me. There has to be some fun in riding. And the fun element is the long ascents and the ensuing descends. Staying in Thane, I cannot aspire to ride in the vicinity of ice-capped peaks of the Himalayas.

Hence, a solution : we have lot many of the ghats connecting Konkan with the towns on the Deccan Plateau within our reach. Why not leverage on the proximity and launch a concerted attempt at doing one such ghat road every weekend? As it is, there has been an unprecedented slump in trekking activity.

The plan is simple : take your bike to the base village (for example Khopoli if you are doing the Khandala ghat) by motorised vehicle, ride up to the town/village on the घाट माथा and descend down to the base village to take the same route back home. Most of the ghats in Maharashtra can be done over the space of a weekend. In some cases, you will have to leave Thane on Saturday night and do the overnight travel to the base village/town while in many others, we can enjoy the luxury of starting on Sunday mornings.

Immediate ghats that I can think of : Kasara, Malshej, Khandala, Tamhini, Ambenali, Varandha, Amba and Amboli. Logistics is definitely an issue and a bigger one is finding a partner on this adventure.

The search starts.