Bathinda

Chance visit to Bathinda a few days back for family work, caught me in total surprise. The time taken, the roads, the landscape - everything has changed. Journey time has been cut half to 2.5 hours from 5 hours, new roads and bypasses for major cities and all this running right through the fields. With 90% of the journey covered with cruise control - one can well imagine the current road and traffic conditions on Chandigarh - Bathinda stretch. Mighty impressed !

before Bhawanigarh enroute Bathinda

Having done many around the town/near rides; it has been a while that I have felt that strong itch to ride a particular stretch. Couldn't even wait for the weekend, so did the needful yesterday.

Me and buddy set out on road by 0630 - nice and cool, the idea being to cover maximum stretch early in day to minimise heat effect. Before 1330 we were back in the grid and mission wonderfully accomplished. A pleasure it is to ride on this section. Nuisances of cities as Patiala, Sangrur, Barnala have been completely bypassed and you cruise without breaking a sweat. Flyovers, overbridges, service lanes - you name it, its all there. At 100-110/kmph, we cruised into Bathinda in no time before making a U-turn from Bibi Wala Chowk, commencing return.

Pure ecstasy it was, despite the weather. These machines demand such roads and the current traffic conditions - they were thrown in complimentary. Thank You. Mild turns, long turns, climb up, roll down, straight stretches - it was fantastic. The roads reminded me of the Panipat - Bawal stretch, but felt more comfortable on this one, since its in the home state.

With such roads and such a machine - I believe justice has been done. More to follow !