Starved biker slips into depression.. Result? A monsoon ride to Mangalore..

July 23, Friday

I wanted to go home and also desperately needed a long bike trip. I think for long hours while I am at work and finally the truth hits me - let me go home by bike, alone..

18:30
Back from office, freshened up and immediately took my bike for a pre-ride check up.
As usual the mech says everything's fine. Then I took off to JC Road to Sandhya motors.Bought a spare accelerator,clutch cables, gear ratchet springs, couple of spanners, screwdriver and then also got a saddle bag fixed.
Satisfied with the arrangements, topped the fuel tank, checked oil and slept off at 01:00 AM.

July 24, Saturday
Woke up at 04:15 AM and I really meant to keep up my word of starting off at 5:00. Got a quick shower, donned my riding gear and yes, it's trip time again :)
Kept the bike idling a good 3 minutes and then set off towards Vijayanagar, whence I would take the Yashwanthpur-Nelamangala road.

6:00 AM
It took a damned full hour to get out of the city and reach Yashwantpur, thanks to the drizzle and the traffic!! soon I was seen taking a left at Tumkur Road-Mangalore diversion.Once in NH 48 I sped up a bit and pushed my bike till 65. I was not really confident on the condition of the engine after the repairs. However, I did hope it will be back in shape.
But call it the nature of the highways or myself, shortly I was cruising at about 75-80kmph :) The road till about Kunigal is not great, watch out for huge potholes, diversions and speed breakers.

07:00 AM
Kunigal is about 70kms from Blore and the journey till here was uneventful.
Stopped by for breakfast at a hotel and stumbled upon four students on two Pulsars. I just hit upon a conversation and learnt theat they were heading towards Mullayyanagiri in Chikmagalur.
Mental note: This place is amazing and is definitely in my to-be-visited list.

My next pit stop was in CR Pattana. The weekly fair was on and I made a very wise and fortunate decision of buying a big polythene sheet to protect my baggage.

Once crossing CR Pattana, I really felt a rush of excitement and turned up the throttle till 80-85kmph. After 2 hrs of nonstop ride just stopped by and checked the soot deposit on the silencer and was glad to see no trace of oil(for non techies= it meant bike is fine) :D

The scenery was uninteresting until crossed Hassan. So dint bother to take pics.
Once I neared Sakleshpur, it started to drizzle and to my horror, just magnified to a full fledged downpour. Switched from the leather jacket to the raincoat I had got and fastened the polythene over the baggage. The roads through Sakleshpur were windy and wet, made me bit apprehensive about the speed so stuck to a respectable 60-65kmph.

11 30 AM
Had reached the apex of the Shiradi ghat section, stopped for a tea cum bike inspection. I was completely drenched and shivering by this time. Not even porn would heat my body up.. Not really..
Shortly, the descent down the started and surprisingly enough the roads were good. I could still manage about 65kmph in the ghats. Lush green surroundings and light rain, I was so glad on making this solo monsoon ride :)


One of the Royal Enfield's poster says "SELFISM".. But there is much more to a trip on a Bullet than this - you smell freedom, adventure and a certain serenity while you hear the rhythmic roar of the bike.

During the descent down the ghats, met another lone bulleteer heading to Mangalore. Exchanged a few words and then I was off on my own. After some kms, saw half a dozen cyclists parked beside the road. I was very curious where these guys came from and on asking learned that they were students from Hassan!!

Then I took diversion to Dharmasthala and amidst the heavy rain was just hitting speeds of 75-80kmph. Could hardly see the windy road, forget the traffic!!


02:00 PM
Home sweet home!!!!!
Got a mouthfull from Dad for being 'STUPID' :D

July 25, 26
Spent at home and town, eating Mom's delicious dishes.

July 27, Tuesday
08:15 AM
Fastened the baggage on the bike and after nodding to Dad's essay type instruction/advice started off towards Charmadi ghat. Yes, I plainly knew taking this ghat route meant rains for sure but did not want to go back the same route.

En route to Charmadi, I almost had a potent accident setup - noticed that I was bit high on the speed for the curve. For next three seconds this is what my brain calculated: No brakes or gear change becuase I had entered the curve and banked too. Take the risk of entering the blind, wrong side of the road and get the control back.
As I had expected, there was a Omni coming with a horrified driver staring at me. I barely managed to get out of his way :)

Charmadi ghat has amazing, breath taking scenic roads. Few turns were very tight and I loved working them out.


10:15 AM
Reached Kottigehara and I desperately wanted a tea after another drench cum shiver session of 35kms.Met a couple of guys on a UCE Bullet Electra whom I had overtaken in the ghats.

My next destination was Belur via Mudigere. It still drizzled, roads meandered through coffee estates and I was really speeding down the roads which were in bad shape till about 10km from Belur. Glad that I had a sturdy bike..

01:00 PM
The town of Belur was a busy place and I took the right turn at a signal towards Chennakeshave temple. Parked the bike, kept shoe and baggage at a counter nearby and replaced camera's battery.
Entered the temple sanctum sanctorum and wow.. It is so beautiful!!!
Not much of a crowd and wasn't I glad? took lot of pics and came out after a short prayer.

Went to Hotel Vishnu Regency, asked for a changing room and put on fresh, dry clothes. Gosh, I felt so happy to have gotten rid of those wet clothes.
The waiters were very active and served a sumptuous meal which cost Rs55.
Oh yes, he also gave me a pan which I so love..

I started to set some pace for the journey and 80-90kmph was my chosen speed till I reached Hassan. Again, had a nice(no not really!!) tea and back on NH 48.
By this time I was sick of fellows motioning about my glowing headlight. It occured to me that it's almost equivalent to an obscene gesture :P

The 220kms from Hassan to Bangalore just went past dreamily as I took the Magadi road diversion immediately after Kunigal.Later I took the NICE road till Kengeri. Only event during this stretch was that a maniacal truck driver tried to mow me down by suddenly shifting to the fast lane. Was just in time to notice and escape.Else you would not have this last part in the blog :P
It took me 4 hrs to cover these 220kms and was back in my cozy room by 18:30..

Odometer reading: START: 22680 END: 23370

Damn, a total of 690kms and the tan on my face tells me that it was one hell of a ride...

Installing a rear wheel mat..

Well, I was not happy with the thump of my bull, so had bought a big mat after seeing lot of bullets making thunderous sound with a mat installed. The shopping list also included a bracket to hold the mat and also couple of drills on the mudguard.
Mat: Rs35
Drill: Cost Rs30
bracket: Rs35


Got back home all excited, fit the mat and took the bike for a short ride. I swear the exhaust noise made every head on the roads turn and look at me. Initially I felt proud, however, after couple of kilometers I kind of felt guilty of causing this ruckus with such an outrageous noise :)
So took the mat off! This was some 1 month back.

Yesterday, being a Sunday, I again thought of installing it back. Opened my toolkit, removed the old, smaller mat and fastened the mat that had a silly picture of a tiger( why not a cat!!).

But this time I was wise. I wiggled the silencer sideways away from the mat so that the mat hardly obstructed the silencer's line of exhaust throw so as to reduce the intensity of sound. Happy with the home work, started the beast and ripped the throttle - the grunt was cool.

Today, 19th July, started off to office and as I had imagined, people could just not not turn their heads on hearing the thump :) I had earlier decided to switch to a Goldie but now am too happy with this inexpensive solution!!

With the onset of the monsoon, it also provides quite good utility of protecting the splash on the pillion.

Ooty travelogue..

This is a trip done in May 2010, just moved it from my generic blog :)

One fine morning JB(my friend cum colleague) tells me that he wants to get his RE Bullet shipped(trained!!) to Bangalore. Ah, this really turned out to be some kind of Butterfly effect thing.
We cooked a plan - B'lore to Ooty in two days, three bulls and three guys. The third guy happened to be Sampath, just managed to lure him with the trip details :)
Assuming the timely delivery of JB's the bike, we marked Apr 3rd for the flag-off. Well but then there was much action to unfold and no news of the bike until the previous day of the ride. So, after much drama the bike finally arrives here just once day prior.

Apr2
It's Friday and a good one - good Friday.
So I spent most of the day in getting JB's bike serviced. My bull was already in perfect shape, Sampath's at least looked like!
In the night, me and Sampath set out for a test ride to check out the electricals and also had to fill the tank.
All seems good.

Apr3
I woke up at god forsaken 3 AM and buzzed JB. Tried to wake Sampath up but he sounded as if he is in a trance. Let the bugger sleep for a while.
Eventually, we got ready by 4, tied the luggage to our bikes and kept waiting for JB at decided point.

5 30 AM
The trip is on - we had a steaming cup of chai near Rajeshwari arch and rode our bulls at a sedate 60km for next 15 min. By then the bikes had reached optimum temperature. After this all I could hear is the roar of the bullet for next one hour.
Just cruised at a pace of 80-85kmph and we covered 80km in an hour. Amazing stretch this is - Bangalore Mysore highway!
However, little did we imagine the tale of the day, it was nothing less than a movie script. To begin with my bull just died while running. My heart ached and I doubted an engine seizure. I restarted the bike only to get a hell of a noise from it. All of us pulled by and mulled over the next course of action:
1. Park the bike in Mysore which was a good 40km away and trip with two bikes.
2. Get it serviced in Mysore and carry on with the trip.

Well, I was in no mood to act a pillion, took the bike to Mysore RE showroom.
The guy did some medication and says we are good for the trip.

Huh, finally we hit the road again towards Bandipur. Meanwhile JB's bike started spluttering and just stalled midway while he was overtaking a truck :D
He definitely has no faint heart!
Covered some 15km and god damn - I cant change gears. A prefect day, aint it?
This time, it was a broken gear spring. Again, bullet guru from Mysore told me to use the tiny lever(neutral finder) to reach Nanjangud and then we could get it fixed there.

I never thought things can really go as bad as this because all other trips I did were picture perfects.Just drive, eat, take nice shots and narrate the story..
This was different and it proved so very early in the trip :)
Once again, this stuff was repaired and vroom vroom to Bandipur.
JB sahab had khitar in a hotel while me and Sampath munched over a veg puff.
Although my bull had proven to be a pain in the ass, it still ran like a darling albeit some high noise mimicking a diesel engine :)
The stretch through Bandipur was scenic. Fantastic road, beautiful weather, great bikes and animals lurking just beside the road. What more to expect of a trip?
Indeed, the journey is always sweeter and memorable than the detination..
Meanwhile, quite a few nice pics added to my kitty.

End of Bandipur stretch marks the start of Tamilnadu roads. We had a khadak, fresh tea at Masinagudi and then started the Kalhatti ghat section.
This ghat had 36 hair pin bends and by Jove, I could smell the engine giving out burnt smell as a result of deep stress. Still was laughing at the thought of JB's bike, which was carrying a fellow a good 20 kilos heavier than me :)
The feeling when you conquer a ghat is just exhilarating.

Finally at 20 00 hrs we stepped our feet in Ooty and we could already feel the chill in the wind. It's so scorching hot in Bangalore and Ooty , voila started freezing at 20 00! The idea of camping with a tent was sanely discarded fearing the risk of three frozen bodies and hence took a neat resort for two grands.
Me and Sampath left a shivering JB in room under blankets and drove to the town to get some food. It was burger, bread omelet and some fruits in the menu!
What next? just zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.



Apr 3
Woke up at 8 and immediately went out with the camera. Clicked out a few pics sipping tea and then we got ready for the city tour. We idled the bullets for a good two minutes due to the freezing weather and set off into the town.
The town's got a look of a typical tourist's place with loads of merchandise on sale.
People seemed to know many languages and this surely helped their business. Leather goods were really priced reasonable, so were the chocolates - oh yes, they were homemade chocos.
Tea is another good pick here and found a variety of flavors. I certainly cannot forget the smell of eucalyptus oil in almost every shop we entered. This place has amazing types of oils on sale( I also grabbed Sampath's attention towards a hair oil :D )
We bought some chocos and then set off to check the train to Coonoor. Unfortunately, this train has only around 60 seats and the tickets were sold out instantly.Drooping faces, we went out to the boating lake. Paid 125 bucks for the 4 seater and started pedaling the boat. The lake looks good but is filthy and smells foul. This is where the punchline of the trip was picked - "Shigra varu bhai"...
This was the dialog uttered at us by the boat crew at the dock. Man, it just made our stomachs ache with laughter.

12 00
Back to room, quick showers and we packed the stuff and loaded bikes with the luggage. It isn't quite over yet - we had to check out Dodda Betta. This is a 8km drive from Ooty and the road is curvaceous!!
With an altitude of over 8,000 ft, driving is again challenging and pleasurable.
The bullets never disappointed us and we were atop the mountain in a short while.
Kodak moments plus an ice cream, it was 15 30 already and we were hurrying back the route towards Bandipur.

After reaching Mysore the way back, had to take intermittent breaks every 30min owing to soar butts!! JB was the most suffered - he used a turkey towel on the seat :)
A sip of coffee at a highway CCD marked the last stop in the trip.
We made it to Bangalore at 12 45 AM in the night.
Yet another remarkable tale in the life of a bulleteer!

Solo ride to Manchanabele Dam

My biker buddies were too busy to make a trip and my hand was twitching badly to roll the throttle after I got my piston rings replaced.
So, what do i do? Got up on a Sunday morning and packed my bag with some biscuits, ID proof, documents and a spare pair of trouser, in case the gods decide to clean up my bike :)
The feeling of the early morning air hitting the face has always been exhilarating for me. Idled the engine for a good two minute before I thundered down the road towards Mysore highway.
Time: 6:30 AM Kms: 0
En route, stopped a few times to click snaps also contributing my bike's cooling. The mechanic had suggested me not to speed over 60kmph. I grudgingly had to follow his advice as I was tired of shelling out bucks to get the engine right.
Bangalore- Mysore highway is fantastic albeit some god damned speed breakers which appears out of nowhere. Had to go past Bidadi, go towards Ramanagara and then at a signal took right turn.

Then immediately the road forks and took a right again.
I did not expect the sub-urb road to be great but surprisingly enough, it was very good. Just kept looking at sign boards for the reading on Manachanabele. It's pretty hard to get lost reaching this place :)

Finally, after weaving thorough a village for 10 minutes, got a glimpse of the back water. I got excited and sped towards the road which ran parallel. Now the tarmac disappeared and crude, muddy road surfaced, much to my delight!
However, I rode a Bullet, didn't I? As far as there is something remotely resembling a road, the bullet would not complain :) As I approached the end of the road,saw a few visitors returning back. Cannot be better - no crowd is all I wanted.

The place is scenic, with nice hills at the distance, the dam amidst the water and the hills creating a picturesque view. Sunrise would be awesome here, I fantasized.
Time: 9:30 AM Kms: 55.

Over a distance I could see an Army truck loading some stuff, a resort kind of structure and a couple of motor boats.
As I rode to the edge of the bank, the boats sped towards the dam. I got my camera ready and immediately found an eagle searching food.
Took quite a few snaps and then found a shelter made up of stone pillars and slabs.
The snap ritual repeated and this time I ventured a self timed picture so that I can recall myself at the place :D


By then I was feeling damned thirsty, feeling sheepish that I forgot to pick a bottle of water. Raced back to the village and stopped to get a cool drink. Rejuvenated, I started my ride back Bangalore. Soon I hit the highway and this time I started twisting the throttle a bit harder towards 70 and occasional 75kmph.
Had read about a new way of breaking in the engine, so kept hitting 65 and varying the speed.

I wish I had some kind of a counter that counts the number of envious, admiring gaze I attracted from fellow bikers and people. :)

What's a bike trip without a cup of tea? It was a sacred tradition that we follow and hence stopped just before Bidadi and was sipping tea. Again, few people promptly neared my bike and started some talk which I could not hear yet knew about!!!

By this time the sun was right over my head and I felt need to speed back home.
Thundered at a comfortable 60-65kmph and reached Bangalore at 13:00 hrs.

Some times, a solo ride is very introspective! Do give it a try...

Test rode a RE Classic 500!!

Well, this thing was long due. I was kind of fascinated by the glamor of this machine which also had fuel injected engine in its kitty. So, yesterday, en route home I stopped by Teknik motors to buy a brake switch for my Electra. Politely asked the supervisor if I can find a classic 500 for test drive. He obliged instantly in an equally polite tone :)
Next, I had to fill in a few details, the supervisor gave me a quotation for all RE bikes. I glanced the slip and the guy says the on road price is Rs1.5 lakh. My eyes blinked a couple of times inside the dark goggles I wore, fortunately deceived the supervisor.
My test bike was a black one. Sat on it and first impression was that it's low - the 18" wheels make lot of difference. Pressed the self start and machine roared to life. In fact, it wasn't a roar like an older bullet but a lot of mechanical clatter as if some had put a dozen spoons in the engine. :D
Rolled the throttle to feel the thump but didn't find any - unbulletish, I would say.
Now now, it's a left side gearshift, I had to remind myself. Shift pattern is similar to Karizma's.
Slowly rolled ahead and sped the bike to the service road. The handle bar was uncomfortable to me. As I shifted to second, immediately noticed the power. Throttle response is crisp and I for once wished my Electra had the same. Quickly switched to fifth gear and I was cruising good. Saw a few vehicles coming up ahead and I awfully missed the neutral finder. Had to fumble to get to first.
The bike has split seat, hence the rider's seat got some springy action which I felt was good. Could not test the electrical system as it was still 17:00 hrs.

Verdict: I envy the powerful engine, but the bike is moving towards becoming unbulletish(yeah, I invented this word :))