a nice trip to Kuntala falls September 29, 2009

Kuntala waterfalls…a rare sight situated in a village area near Nirmal, AP’s biggest waterfalls. The place is around 270KM away from Hyderabad. It was Thursday 09/17, when Ranjit Bhai invited for a 1000KM+ car drive. Unfortunately we didn’t get any good place with this long drive with single driver. So finally we decided to go for Kuntala waterfalls.

On the fresh Sunday morning me, Ranjit Bhai, Pritam who are my colleagues along with Ranjit’s friend Mr. Pintu and Mr Gopa woke up very early in the morning at 5 O’Clock. By 630 AM everyone was ready with all required stuff camera,

Baleno...our travelmate

video camera and iPod. Here we go…we started Ranjit Bhai’s room at 630am..our route was via miyapur->Medchal->Nirmal. It was Maruti Baleno…well maintained by Mr Ranjit the owner…moved on to Miyapur and then landed on NH7 at 8am. NH7, a wonderful highway to njoy the ride…earlier i drove my bike in my trip to Basara. Ranjit bhai was driving the car with his experience of US driving…what is called a proper driving. Well on the way we halted at a tea shop and had some tea. Then moved on to hunt for a place  to have the breakfast. Music on the car was at its best. At Dichpalli we halted for the breakfast. Moving on we entered on to the small street after Nirmal town with a lot of guidance. The small street was the way to the falls after 11kms. On the way we didnt get any hotel to have some food. With empty stomach…we entered the falls with 450 steps. It was sunny..upon our arrival we started getting ready to jump into water. Walking with bare foot on the burning rock was a real pain. Withing 5 mins all of us were in the water. The base was slippery with awesome cold water..perfect timepass. Thought the fall should have some more water and spread throughout the rock. Anyways the spot was good with less crowd. Even some people climbed on top of the fall. We spent around 1:30 hrs..playing here and there. It was completely tired while coming back…on the steps i lost my sense..completely blackout, senseless…it took 10 mins to get my sense back after drinking the water. This happened as i was completely in empty tummy. After reaching the top, i took some snacks. We then headed towards the Shriram Sagar Reservoir on our way back. It was a huge reservoir on Godavari, also this place having historical importance as Lord Rama visited this place. After taking some snaps and njoying the dam, we started heading back to Hyd. We had a dhaba style lunch in a punjabi dhaba at 4 PM. Through out the NH7..i was feeling a bit tired, no idea why..also we took a couple of drinks. Moving on we reached Medchal at 9 and withdrawn some money from the ATM nearby. Took a wonderful dinner at Sony dhaba..with tasty Prawn and butter chicken. It was completely relaxed after taking the nice dinner. Finally we reached at hyd at 1130..and soon after reaching i moved on to my room. This was a good outing as i njoyed the water fall after a long time since my trip to Jog falls. Special thanks to Ranjit and others for such a nice day out.

my companions

beauty of Kuntala

Shriram Sagar Reservoir

Sony Ericsson P1i….Pros and Cons August 25, 2009

I have a Sony Ericsson P1i phone which i bought last year april. After losing my fav Nokia N73 which was my most expensive mobile(spent 22K…really crazy ), i interested in touch screen mobile. My N73 was lost in pickpocketing. So i researched and bought the P1i mobile. It was more of a interest of carying a touch screen mobile phone which led me to go for this mobile. I liked its features of having qwerty key pad, 3.2 MP camera, 3G, WLAN, Videocall camera,  etc.

Sony Ericsson P1i

However less features are useful boz of availibility to service provided in India. Well being this is a PDA phone, the radio quality and music player are relly good. This phone size is very handy, not so bulk to use. The LCD screen is 2.6 inch with a resolution of 240×320 displaying 262k colours.Its beautiful to say the very least and is quite readable in bright sunlight as well. Its processor 128MB of RAM alongwith 256MB of ROM are pretty good. This is being a big probwelm in N-series phone, loading of application are really slow. The Li-ion battery is good enough for your use, also consumes less…also takes less time(1hr) to get fully charged. Quickoffice has very good capability of viewing .doc, excel, PDF and PPT. And the best part of it is blackberry connectivity(which offcourse i never used). After 1-2 months i found my J key was not workign, which i ignored as i used the on-screen keyboard. After using it for 1 yr and 2 months, i got issues with the screen. My touch screen is now dead, its some time tapping the right side even you tapped on left side. Its very difficult to use the scroll all the time. Its started with affecting part of the screen, but now its the whole screen not working. There is no shortcuts to the access the favorites, all the time uses the scroll to navigate to the required application, which is completely bizarre. Need to consult the sony sricsson service centre for repairing. Lets c how it goes. This is being a lesson learned for using a touch screen mobile for me, not sure if this is big issue or not…but irritating to use the scroll all the time…also not all options cant select, only default option are getting selected when ever selected. Also the stylus is so bony, even a simple force would break it(i had once). Just wondering, if a complete touch screen phone faced the similar issue then the use of mobile would be a complete full stop!!!

Kaminey Review!!! August 18, 2009

August 15, 2009…i went to watch the special show at 8:00AM in Cine Planet, Kompally and the movie selected was Kaminey…the newly released movie. Friday night, my colleagues mentioned its a nice movie and also from TV/ad, it was clearly known to be bollywood’s favorite formula – twin brothers and a story on their life.

Vishal Bhardwaj directed Kaminey(Rascal) is completely bold, funny and  unpredictable. While i watched the movie, i was wondering, how the rating could be 4/5. But yes at the last i realized the theme. Well its a story of two identical twin brothers Charlie and Guddu (Shahid Kapoor). Charlie lisps, while Guddu stumbles. They follow their life in own way, never met each other for 3 years. Charlie gets into earning money in short-cut scheme, while Guddu enters into NGO. Charlie worked with 3 Bengali brother for fixing horse racing. Guddu a simple NGPworker has got his girlfriend Sweety(Priyanka Chopra) pregnant and got into a situation to get her marry. In Charlie’s business, one day he bi-mistakenly got in to a Cop jeep to escape from a encounter where he found a guitar full of cocaine worth of 10 crore. This made his life easy with his short-cut way of living. Guddu, on the other hand caught by Bhope Bhau(Gangster/politician) turns out to be Sweety’s brother. And here comes the halfway, where both lives cross. The story takes a dramatic turn at this stage, but minutes before that, ‘Dhan Te Nan’ makes the proceedings interesting. All most everyone targets to catch hold of the guitar as per their contract. Some funny scenes where cops asked Guddu(caught mistakenly) to give the police statement in song, as he was good in song to avoid the stumble. While Bhope caught Charlie. Everyone comes to their contracts. Both brother met, bcoz of the guitar..takes them to a situation of argument on their past. In this cat and mouse game, the baddies get mixed up between the twins. Who’s Guddu and who’s Charlie? Amid the shootouts and mayhem that follows, the two brothers rediscover love for each other. Finally story ends with Guddu and Sweety escaped from the encounter, the rest end their live due to their Kaminapan(Rascals) even Charlie who shot while decides t leave his Kaminapan(get-rich-quick scheme).

Overall the Picture was a good one, with Shahid kapoor’s excellency twin acting. Priyanka as usual acted superbly, and looks dashing(specially in bride costumes) . Story and the powerful writing from Vishal will certainly make the movie successful at the box-office. Other characters are also good too like ChandanRoy(Mikhail, Charlie’s close friend), Amol Gupte(Bhope) and Tenzing Nima(Taasi) and some others. 2nd half of the movie was good and interesting, while 1st half was tried to drag you into the story. Kaminey music was not that good, except ‘Dhan Te Nan’ . As well another area for kaminey for being a good movie is its cinematography. On the whole, i can rate the movie 3.5/5.

Bhuvan…India’s 1st Satellite Mapping Tool from ISRO August 14, 2009

Bhuvan Vs Google Earth

Here comes BHUVAN a web based tool, unveiled by Indian Space Research Organisation(ISRO)….a definite competitor to the Google Earth and Wikimapia. Bhuvan means Earth in Sanskrit is developed by ISRO..is all set to compete with Google Earth in all aspect, maynot be a global hit(Bhuvan will focus only on the Indian sub-continent ) but its special design advantage will give a certain edge over the rest. Bhuvan a free online tool like Google Earth, uses a network of Indian satellites(also follows country’s first moon probe, Chandrayaan-1) to create a high-resolution, birds-eye view of India. It has the well designed to run smoothly on the low bandwidth internet connections that most Indian web users have to make do with. Bhuvan will be able to give you an image from only 10 meters away, which is a big advantage than Google Earth(zoomin efatures upto 200 meters). Bhuvan’s imaging capabilities are in Multi-sensor, Multi-platform and Multi-temporal domain. This is also step taken for India’s civil service to help with urban planning, traffic management and water and crop monitoring. Bhuvan biggest challenge would be: how to engage users amid the mass of digital detritus that has accumulated on the internet. The focus of Bhuvan will be essentially on information, but has a controversy regarding its possible use by terrorists. Bhuvan will use data recorded by the Indian satellites and will be updated annually – unlike other mapping sites, which take four years. Even though Bhuvan is touted as the Google Earth killer, its use may be at a different level and the two may not compete in the near future. Considering the security concerns, it is unlikely that Bhuvan will be made available on the web to all, like Google Earth, immediately.

Bhuvan's high resolution

I uses the Google Map, installed on my mobile Sony Ericsson P1i. I must say it is very much helpful, but found the map a bit old(what i got it these days that it is 4 yrs old). On my trip to Goa, i was amazed to see the map located me in US while i was in Karnataka. Similarly 3-4 times it happend, like sometime in Singapore, once in Italy, europe and south america, my goodness . I think once Bhuvan is get started, its will be very nice to use that as it has good resolution upto 10 meters, also helpful for indians. So all the best for Bhuvan and its team for a great job well done and its future. Watch and see the comments happening now…Indis’s answer to Google Earth, a competitor for Google Earth, Google Earth Killer, Bhuvan to beat Google Earth and bluf bluf bluf…..The application can be downloaded from http://bhuvan.nrsc.gov.in/

GM Volt from Blue…a 100KMPL Car August 13, 2009

Following to months of bad news, General Motors Co. once again proved its brand with its future product plans. GM Chevrolet Volt, an extended-range electric vehicle (E-REV) and has a very powerful all-electric 161-horsepower 45KW (100 KW peak) motor that is the only engine to power the car at all times. Volt is GM next plan and slated to come to market next year, could be rated for an estimated 230mpg/100kmpl in city driving, and it also promised to launch 25 new vehicles by 2011.

GM Volt...a 230mpg car

Volt’s anticipated launch date is November 2010 in US and 2011 in India. Its electric engine gets power from a very powerful high-voltage battery pack stores enough energy to drive the car up to 40 miles in standard driving conditions. The battery is recharged by plugging the car into 110 (or 220) volt outlet. It takes 6 hours (3 hours at 220) to get fully charged. Off course this is the way making more electric bill, but you can charge the car overnight when rates are lower. Being the Volt is not a hybrid, but still have gasoline/E85 combustion engine. Specialty of Volt, that the engine is the smaller one, and has only one task, it produces electricity for the motor when the stored power gets low. The engine is not connected to the wheels, it is only a generator. The brilliance of this feature is that you will have an overall driving range of 400 miles. This gas engine will not need gears or transmission, and run at a single rpm. It could also be considered an emergency generator. If you have to drive more than 40 miles, you needn’t worry because the generator will allow you to continue to drive. The electric motor also can generate a lot of instantaneous torque, making the car extremely responsive, and not require gears either. Maintenance will be low. The battery pack will use lithium-ion (li-ion) technology. The expected price of volt would range from $25,000 to $30,000 in US, Its price in India has not been estimated, however the range would be around Rs.15lakhs (my estimate ).  Below is Volt specification,

Vehicle type:	5-door, front-wheel-drive sedan
Category:	Extended-Range Electric Vehicle (E-REV)
E-REV competitors:	none
Chassis:	independent McPherson struts front, compound crank twist axle rear, four-wheel disc brakes, electric power-assist steering
Seating capacity:	Four
Top speed (mph):	100
EV range, city (miles):	40 (based on EPA city cycle)
Wheelbase (in / mm):	105.7 / 2685
Length (in / mm):	177 / 4404
Width (in / mm):	70.8 / 1798
Height (in / mm):	56.3 / 1430
Cargo volume (cu ft / L):	10.6 / 301
Type:	lithium-ion
Energy (kWh)	16
Power (kW / hp):	111 / 150
Torque (lb-ft / Nm):	273 / 370
Tire and wheel size:	specially developed low rolling-resistance tires on 17-inch forged aluminum wheels

Taste of Rayalaseema…Rayalaseema Ruchulu!!! August 12, 2009

Rayalaseema a region in Andhra Pradesh, includes 4 districts Karnool, Ananatpur, Chittor and Cuddapah. Being this area identified with this name in early 20^th century, this has its own identification and contribution to arts, culture and literature are immense. Rayalaseema cuisine got its own and different flavor. Last Saturday, me and my friends planned to go for some different food. Ramesh who originally from AP, travelled to Hyderabad on a vacation. We 4 went to a place called “Rayalaseema Ruchulu” a restaurant @Masab Tank as planned, it provides the Rayalaseema famous foods.

Rayalaseema Ruchulu

This branch is located in a small street, less seating and seems to be the smallest branch of the RR chain. Anyways, we occupied a table @the AC section, got the menu..but all the item was in the local language. So we leave to Ramesh to decide the order…1. Naatu Codi Iguru(Country Chicken in spices), 2. Raagi Sankati(boiled, cooked millet flour), 3. Gongura Mamsam(motton cooked in Gongura leaves), 4. Jeedi Pappu Kodi(country chicken cooked with Cashew Nuts) and 5. Boiled rice. We started with Raagi Sankati and Naatu Kodi Iguru….ohh man the Naatu Kodi iguru was delicious, wow I njoyed that. Raagi Sankati was kind of OK. Jeedi Pappu Kodi was also tested good, but Gongura Mamsam was not upto the mark. Well most interesting thing was the service, the food was on our table in just 5 mins we ordered. Every order was on right on time, the ambiance was a bit dull…but food was definitely something different I had…I must say one should have this away from the regular Indian food..this is Andhra food..nice one. I was very much satisfied with the food…every items was also not that pricey. Over all It was a good time. After paying the bill, we moved out for other weekend plans. The restaurant does have other branches at Lakdi-ka-pul and Dilsukhnagar. The other good specialities Gutti Vankaya Kura, Natu Kodi Pulusu, Royyalu Iguru, Bommidaya Pulusu and talakaya mamsam Try this out…

Natukodi Iguru

  

Gongura Mamsam

     

raagi sankati

a rare bike trip to Basara Saraswati Temple!!! August 11, 2009

August 9, 2009… a Sunday night…as usual a relaxing time after dinner…it was past 12 in the night. Me and my roommate was watching the TV. Suddenly my roommate said “i will woke up in the Monday morning and will go to Basara on bike”. I was surprised, and thenhe explored the route map, decided to go alone. Then not sure why, but i also promised to drive along with. So that was final, it was around 1:30am…planned to start by 5:30am…packed a bag and went to sleep. Believe me i couldn’t get sleep throughout 4 hours…tried but as always my stupid mindwas running behind a lot of tensions.

Monday morning, got up around 5:10AM..and started at 6 in my new CBZ xtreme. Total was around 220km. We started from Madhapur, Hyderabad. Took the Medchal highway via Miyapur. Reached the NH7..way to medchal, Nizamabad… i should say the highway is amazing to drive. We took a couple of break for tea and breakfast. 75km was regular speed on the speedometer while on NH…also i reached 105km/hr at once while intend to touch 100km for the first time on my bike. After 150km we missed the 4 lane NH7…got into 2 lane NH7 without divider…here we slowed down a bit, after Nizamabad a state highway took us to Basara.

famous basara Saraswati Temple

Finally we reached at temple @10:30AM. Basara Saraswatitemple..India’s one of 2 famous ancient temple dedicated to Goddess Saraswati…the other being in Jammu & Kashmir. Local pilgrims comes to Basara to perform “Akshara abhyasam” for the children to start their education with the blessings of the Goddess of Knowledge. We had Snan(bath) and Dubki(go under water for taking the whole body in water, done it 7 time as per the rituals) in Godavari river, then went for Darshan(god sighting). It was 12:00pm, everything was over….time to head back to Hyderabad. I was feeling a bit tired due to lack of sleep last night. Moving on, started travelling back soon. Halted a desi dhaba(recommended by Happy to have the food on a cot, a general place for all the travellers on a 24/7 service)…took the lunch. After 30mins, moved on. At last @4:30 PM we reached at our room. On both ways we drove half each. It was a bit tired journey for me…we took rest after taking a nice team prepared by Happy(off course my companion and my roommate)…at 6:00PM i went to office. This was the 2nd time within 1 month i slept after 37hrs at 3:00AM..while Happy was sleeping like a buffalo…i also join the buffalo team.

My experience was more of the bike ride, it was awesome..excellent biking experience of 440KM in 10.5 hours…as well visit to a famous temple. Also i realized the acualt mileage on highway with power mode(speed of 70kmph+), it was around 44kmpl. Completely this is the riding passion…which will guide you for this long drives. I personally njoyed it, but had a lot of ache(bcoz of 28hrs without sleep)…my eyes was completely turned red after reaching at room. Finally the ride was good, CBZ xtreme rocks.

Places to visit near Hyderabad… August 7, 2009

Many times my roomie used to irritate me in discussing on nearby places in Hyderabad for a bike trip. Even i am interested too for ling drive experience as well as a good place to watch. While my friend is ready to travel 300-400km for visiting a normal tourist places. But if one is travelling this far and beyond, there should a destination of a best class, exceptional, special and brilliant. While travelling for <150km, you can njoy the ride as well as a average/usual place. I have gathered a good no.s of places nearby Hyderabad for 1-2 day trip on bike.

Sanghi Temple: The temple is nearly 35km from Hyd, located in Sanghi nagar. This beautiful temple complex atop the hillock Paramanand Giri beckons the faithful devotees who seek gods infinite blessings.

Keesargutta:Keesaragutta is a famous temple dedicated to Lord Shiva. It is located 40kms from Hyderabad. All over and around the rocky granite dome of Keesara, there are meter – high stone Lingas.

Mount Opera: This is a multi-theme park/resort, located around 40km from Hyderabad. The hotel is attached to Multitheme park,Health Spa Water World, Indoor, Outdoor games, Skating, Hillock, Adventure Sports.Indoor, Outdoor games, Skating, Hillock, Adventure Sports.

Ramoji Film City: This is the world’s largest integrated film studio, located 45km from Hyderabad. Visitors can go for a Japanese garden, artificial waterfalls, an airport terminal, hospital set, railway station, churches, mosques and temples, shopping plazas, palace interiors, chateaus, rural complexes, urban dwellings, and a winding highway. Shops include Parade, a prop-shop, where costumes of actors can be ordered and Shangrila, a nursery that sells exotic plants.

Bhongir and Yadgirigutta:Bhongir town located in the of Nalgonda district of the state and 48 km from Hyderabad. Bhongir is famous for its fort. Yadgirigutta is a popular temple of Narasimha Swamy situated on a hillock and located another 12 km from Bhongir.

Mahboobnagar: Mehabubnagar is situated at a distance 95km from Hyderabad. This includes the places like Gadwal Fort, Sarlasagar, Nagarjuna-Srisailam Sanctuary, Pillalamarri Banyan Tree, Wanaparthi Temple, Manikonda Temple, Alampur Temple, Nava Brahma Temple, Malleswaram Temple, Sri Rangapur Temple and Somasila Temple.

Medak: A distict in Andhrapradesh, famous for its Asia’s 2ndbiggest Church. This is located around 100km from Hyderabad. Also other places are like Medak Fort, Kondapur, Popikondalu and Pocharam forest and wildlife sanctury.

Nalgonda:Located around 110km from Hyderabad. The popular religious sites in Nalgonda include Matampalli, Wadapally, Yadagirigutta, Kolanupaka, Pangal, Sunkishala, Gajulabanda, Yeleswaram, Phanigiri, and several more. The Sunkishala and Somalingeswaraswamy temples are notable sites, sacred to Hindus.

Bidar: Bidar disrtict known for its forts, mosques, mausoleums and tombs, located 120km from Hyderabad. Bidar fort, Tombs of Bahmani Rulers, Tombs of the Barid Shahis, Chaubara, Takhti-i-kirmani, Madrassa of Mahamud Gawan, Guru Nanak Jhira and rock temple at Narasimha Zara.

Warangal: Warangal was the ancient capital of the Kakatiyas, this is located 130km from Hyderabad. Many places to tour in Warangal are Warangal Fort, Thousand Pillar Temple, Bhadrakali Temple, Jain Mandir, etc.

Nagarjuna Sagar: This is about 160km from Hyderabad, the tallest and biggest stonework dam in the world, Nagarjuna Sagar creates the third largest man-made lake in the world. Good to watch during rainy season. Ethipothala lake and Nagarjunakonda are two other places to visit.

Pakhal Lake: Located around 180km from Hyderabad. One can plan for this place to visit Pakhal lake, Pakhal Sanchury and Ramappa Temple. The lake is a man made lake by the erstwhile kaktiyas.

Srisailam: It is a holy town and Mandal, situated in Nallamala hills and located 232 km from Hyderabad, on the banks of River Krishna. Srisailam is one among the various Jyothirlingam of India. Srisailam Dam on Krishna river is also watchable.

Vanasthalipuram: One can have para-sailing in the Nadrigul Air Field, Vanasthalipuram. Para-sailing will be guided by a professional crew at a height of 500ft for a good 8 to 10 minutes. It is about 30km from Hyderabad.

I have visited a couple of these, planning to go for most of these places with my friend . Hope this would help you too!!!

Scary Flu…Swine Flu!!! August 5, 2009

Chaos, Panic, Fear and Anger….these are the word attacehd to the SWINE FLU. Yes Swine flu is an infection caused by a virus. People do not normally get swine flu, but human infections can and do happen. The virus is contagious and can spread from human to human. Symptoms of swine flu in people are similar to the symptoms of regular human flu and include fever, cough, runny nose, sneezing, sore throat, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue. As the counts in india is keep moving on and on, its been a worry, panic among all. Again surprise to see the health ministry is not coming up with any awareness as the virus is spreading.

In my office, close to me…a guy who infected with Swine Flu. Once it was confirmed, HR team called up all our project team members to go for a medical check-up. Everyone was tested nagative. Most interesting thing was, when i went to Cyber Towers(our other office) everyone was so panic….stayed away…talks started that this guy from Cyber Pearl(my office, where swine flu case acknowledged). The same day our office was cleaned, and every windows opened, all caution was taken. Whoever met me, asked are you OK?

There are antiviral medicines like Tamiflu and Relenza drugs recommended. Below are some  recomendation to prevent the Swine Flu infection,

• Covering your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tissue in the trash after you use it.
• Washing your hands often with soap and water, especially after you cough or sneeze. You can also use alcohol-based hand cleaners.
• Avoiding touching your eyes, nose or mouth. Germs spread this way.
• Trying to avoid close contact with sick people.
• Staying home from work or school if you are sick.

The recent news of a 14yr old Rida Sheikh’s death is really unfortunate, this was a complete fault of the Hospital. India’s 1st swine flu death, in 600 cases. One case from Ahmedabad, a Doctor infected during his duty at Airport..really a bad thing. Also doctors fear that a second wave of swine flu may hit any time post monsoon and is likely to be more severe than the current strain. This is something panic and chaos, hope all stay safe!!!

CBZ xtreme…live off the edge August 5, 2009

CBZ xtreme..this is the bike i owned. I got it after 1.5yrs of search and wait. Its been 4 months, and i am very much happy with the bike. A bit unhappy for the mileage. Recently i have completed my 2nd service, and i am really njoying my ride.

new CBZ xtreme..it rocks

Starting from the launch of Pulser, i love the bike  bcoz of its look, performance. These days its like auto rickshaws runnnig on road, major bikes are Pulser series..its really tedious. But definitely good for Baja the manufacturer for making a huge profit over 7-8yrs. Bcoz of more no on road for Pulsar, i closed the option. Then i looked for 125cc bikes like Shine, discover, Flame(more intersted as of its good look and other features), CBF Stunner, and a final choice Gladiator. Most of these was averagely reviewed. So i finalized Gladiator. Although i choose that bike, my dear friend started arguing me to go for 150CC+ bike as its been a trned for software engineer. I am not wrong guys, its happening…response from colleagues friends are suddenely diferent as the bike CC goes on more and more. So i got the option CBZ, Unicorn, Apache and Pulsar. After a lot research i choose CBZ..due to its good reviews on web.

So here i go…i purchsed my 1st new bike CBZ xtreme. It cost me 67K, which is a good price as compared to pther 150cc bikes. Initially i was unhappy bcoz of its performance and pickup(100km in just 6 sec found on web)…the gear was a bit hard. Once i did my 1st service, i found some improvements. I really like the bike bcoz of its height, the new look(i got the black and red combination) and the different gear system. Once bought, the mileage was around 48kmpl. I am sure the bike will be very good after its 4th-5th service. After 2nd service, the bike is really runs smooth, however i cant go beyond 70KM/hr, not sure what i need to do. And mileage is quite avg at 46km/lt, not sure why its less than previous. The reason could be, engine tuning was tuned a bit more in the 2nd service, to make the engine more smoother. This could a  CBZ Extreme’s bulky dashboard, perfect handle makes it just outstanding.It is bit taller than pulsar and apache. Whenever i use my friends Pulsar, i really feel uncomfort as its very short. Thats all i can share my experience with my 4months old CBZ extreme……even me and my friends planning to go for the bike trip of 200-250 kms, that will be a good experience on a CBZ…..Looking forward to have such long drive to Nagarjuna Sagar…lets c how it goes!!!!!