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The story so far… We’ve ridden two of Mahindra’s Two Wheelers into the Indian hinterland. The destination is a Pleistocene era hole in the ground. A rather big hole that was formed when an otherworldly object came hurtling towards planet Earth. We’ve still got a daunting 250 clicks ahead of us, but the scooters are holding up just fine. The weather on the other hand is not. And the roads...? From what we hear, they’re not the kind of surfaces these scooters were built to commute on. So will Mahindra’s flagship scooters make it to the Lonar Crater? Read on to find out.
It’s 6am and it’s clear that the rain gods have been at it all night. Ahmednagar is a watery mess with truck traffic clogging the streets. This little town, which was once known for being an impregnable city, now bears a run-into-the-ground look. So as our gleaming scooters made their way though town, heads automatically turned and locals raced alongside to shout out the usual questions – ‘Price? Fuel economy?’ Our answers left curious roadside companions quite shocked. Over 300 km to a full tank of gas is what the Duro DZ had been clocking so far and that too without breaking into so much as a sweat.
The little dargahs of Ahmednagar were soon fading in our rearview mirrors and we began to stretch our legs and the little scooters as the highway rolled out ahead of us. The 125cc engines on both the Duro DZ and the Rodeo RZ are not just built for cities and this is quite evident the way they just notch up the miles on an open road. It’s hardly any effort piloting these scooters across Highway 221. The eager 8 bhp engines are refined and responsive allowing smooth and easy overtaking even at higher speeds. It was a good breather from the chaos of the city and the Lonar Crater suddenly started to feel like it was within reach. How magnificent could a hole in the ground be? Pictures of the place made it look like it was a really large lake. So what makes it different from any other lake? For starters, it’s really far from anything else, but even more interestingly, the Lonar crater was formed in a basalt basin. So the lake in its bed is both saline and alkaline. This has allowed the crater to have its own ecosystem around and inside the 8 km circumference that comprises the rim of the crater: from a variety of trees that are found to be in concentric circles to a flourishing bacteria that sits under the greenish water of the lake.
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