Best driving roads: Pirangut to Lavasa City
India is infamous for its shabby roads but at the same time, there are many fantastic driving roads spread through the length and width of our beautiful country. OVERDRIVE has been fortunate enough to experience quite a few of these roads, and we want to share the joy with a weekly feature of a fantastic road that you should aspire to experience someday.
This road is hugely popular with bikers
Last week we discussed one of our favourites, the road to Aamby Valley from Lonavala. This week we'll talk about another very similar road â" this time closer to Pune â" the lovely ribbon of smooth tarmac that snakes its way to Lavasa City. To get there, you need to drive about 17km from Pune on the road to Pirangut. At Pirangut, you take a left and head a few km down the road to a small village of Gadewadi that you'll recognize when you see the petrol pump. This is when the good stuff starts. 34km of fast sweeping tarmac extends over the Mutha Ghat and drops towards Temghar Dam. Here, the climb begins again before the road finally concludes in the township of Lavasa.
This picturesque and exciting route is a local favourite with bikers, and you can expect to see them tearing up and down the road on the weekend. Exciting stuff, but keep an eye out for the occasional bike that can't hold its lane!
Unlike Aamby Valley, Lavasa is open to visitors and you can eat at multiple restaurants on the pretty promenade built in the township on the water's edge. Like the Aamby Valley road, this road is best experienced in the monsoon where the air is cool and crisp and the surroundings are lush green.