After 2.5 years, apart from the regular Independence-Republic Day rides, after so many ideas of meet-up, plannings, cancellations, Ather team plannings and cancellations, we finally got together! Old owners, new owners, and friends of owners too!
By the spark of a message on WhatsApp Pune group by a new enthusiast, Pushkaraj, the group folks just went in full agreement for a meet-up or a ride.
Honestly, I have never seen this enthusiasm amongst the owners till date the way all were discussing and wanting this to happen.
The idea of when to meet, how to come along, whether to keep it a ride or a meet-up, began as a discussion amongst the other issues and discussion in the group. Planning of the route started, polls created and venue for breakfast and what not!
Finally @thakur.ketan took the discussion to another group for better coordination and discussion, and the route was finalized and venue for breakfast too.
So Pune is divided majorly into two sections - PMC and PCMC. And you will find more of PMC Ather owners than PCMC as the EC was in PMC for a very long period after which the PCMC came up after a very later point in time. The route was such that the PCMC owners could join mid way.
The start of the ride was from EC at bhandarkar road, but people already started discussing about starting off from home and joining mid way while they reached the start point of the ride.
From PCMC side too there were 4 of us who decided to meet at different points and then move ahead.
Reaching at the EC:
The ride started at 7:35 AM and live location was shared on our ride group.
We PCMC and Baner Pashan folks met mid way and waited for the riders to come over.
Once seen from afar, we put on our helmets and joined them around 7:45 AM. Sanjay joined us a bit further ahead at Pashan circle.
After a certain distance ahead we halted, parked our bikes on the road side, and casually started introducing each other. We had ridden around 11kms by now.
The owners were ranging from 1 month to early adopters back to Dec 20 ownerships. But mind you, the enthusiasm and love for Ather was same across all of them. Boasting of the Kms they’ve ridden in short time spans, to discussing issues, we all stood there in a circle engrossed in the discussion. There were few who had to go to office post the meet, and I was surprised by looking at their passion to come down for the ride n meet the other owners.
Amidst the discussions, we stopped and decided upon a breakfast point nearby. Vardayini restaurant. We headed towards it.
That choice was by one of the riders, and it was a good one. The tables were aligned and around 17 of us sat n discussed all our experiences and issues while the breakfast was prepared n served. The topics varied from purchase amounts, hassles during delivery, State subsidy, New model of Ather, daily hiccups, old vs new models, range n riding styles, etc.
After a nice breakfast, we all decided it’s better we disperse as few had office n other chores to do.
But one photoshoot of our Athers was pending, so we went a bit ahead where there was empty space and started our bike photoshoot. Mangesh had got his DSLR and clicked some amazing pics:
We started for our own routes around 10:15AM.
We wish to have more meetups like this and hope to have more owners engaging from the community. We missed having many enthusiasts joining us as they weren’t in town.
Here’s a short glimpse of the day: Pune Community Glimpse
An event initiated and driven by the community itself! 