While taking an overnight halt was on the cards, Skoda’s ride comfort and the 1.5L TSI engine’s pull made us ride all the way.
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After months of planning, D-Day arrived at 2.30 AM on 21st March 2025 (Saturday).
Me and 2 automotive enthusiast cousins ventured from Noida with an ambitious plan that we will drive till we can’t and try to reach Bangalore by Sunday late evening. Google Maps suggested it would take us ~36 hours to make this epic journey.
After going through multiple travelogues and vlogs, the route decided was to take the Delhi Mumbai Expressway till Nayapura Toll and then take the road covering Ratlam to Bangalore via Dhule, Chatrapati Sambhajinagar, Solapur and Vijayanagar.
The mighty 1.5L manual Kushaq performed above and beyond my expectations. It crushed the highways and took out the bumps so effortlessly, except the ones in the Maharashtra zone.
Within the expressways, we were able to easily cruise on 150s. Hats off to the machinery from Skoda, the car never felt that it was ever out of breath; overtakes were so smooth and effortless.
While taking an overnight halt on the way was on the cards, the ride comfort and pull from the 1.5L TSI engine left us wanting more, and we decided to ride all the way to Bangalore.
Believe it or not, we managed to reach the Bangalore outskirts at around 8.30 AM.
My mighty steed
Road updates:
Expressway Drive (Noida to Ratlam)
The Delhi-Mumbai Expressway is still in the making and will do wonders for commuters once the entire stretch is operational. We had to get down 3 times from the Expressway as those stretches weren’t connected yet.
Noida to Sawai Madhopur
This was THE best stretch of roads that we encountered in this journey. Roughly 350 km was covered in 3 hours, including a 30 mins break for coffee on the way.
Sawai Madhopur to Laban
First exit from the Expressway was near Sawai Madhopur and the road from there till the next entry on the Expressway was horrible. Crossing the 2 lane Lalsot-Kota Mega Highway was such a disappointment with numerous villages and humps. We also encountered broken roads and narrow roads filled with trucks on the way. This 50 km stretch took almost 1 hour to cover.
James was A Dor.
Quick Expressway ride with minimal traffic. Covered 80 kms here in almost 1 hour. Took a quick break for refuelling.
Phata khera to chechat
~35 kms covered in 1 hour.
Chechat to Jaora Interchange
This beautiful, recently opened Expressway stretch lasts for ~150 kms and it took us less than 2 hours to finish it.
In this first stretch, we covered ~600 kms in ~7 hours, and it was such a breeze.
Ratlam to dhule
After a quick Ratlami poha for breakfast, we started our journey towards Dhule. On this stretch, we met an okay road and covered our journey on NH 52.
When we entered Maharashtra, we were stopped by cops twice to verify any pending challans, documentation checks, black tints on window shades etc. It’s a BAU modus operandi there, and we were anticipating this to happen. There was nothing that cops could find wrong, and they let us pass with happy journey wishes.
We stopped at a roadside dhaba in Dhule around 4.30 PM and took a lunch break for an hour there.
It lasted overall for 400+ kms and it took us another 7 hours to complete without any major halt.
Dhule to solapur
Roads were good and there was a sudden hill ascent to enter the hilly areas of the Deccan Plateau. Overall hilly area drive lasted for ~30 mins.
We zipped past Chatrapati Sambhajinagar with a quick coffee break in between. We stopped for dinner just before the Solapur bypass around 11 PM.
This stretch lasted another 400+ kms but this time, it took us less than 6 hrs to cover this.
Solapur to Bangalore outskirts
At midnight, we started our journey, keeping in mind that we will halt at any petrol pump for a quick nap if all the Drivers are tired. We played antakshari in the middle of the night to keep ourselves wide awake.
Road condition was decent in the Maharashtra stretch but it had very stiff and unscientific speed breakers with little or no warnings.
That wasn’t the case when we entered Karnataka though. The roads were in good if not great and the humps were predictable. Taking advantage of less traffic and good roads, we zipped through highways only to slow down near the towns.
We managed to reach the Bangalore outskirts around 8.30 AM.
This stretch was almost 600 kms and it took us ~9 hours to complete it.
We ended our epic road trip eventless, where we covered almost 2200 kms in 30 hours. We couldn’t believe the overall timings ourselves, but it was such a proud feeling and achievement for all 3 of us.
Key statistics
- Total distance – ~2200 kms
- Total time (including breaks) – 30 hours
- Total fuel filled (Mostly Indian Oil XP95) – ~170 liters
- Total fuel expense – Rs 17000/-
- Fuel average – ~13 kmpl.
- Total tolls – Rs 4,500/-
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