Yercaud Tri-State G2G
The arousal of my touring spirit!!!
It has always been in my back of mind but I never tried it down. Some or the other would hinder in the way and stop it. Used to get relived when I started owning my own and doesn't have to depend on others. Finally I own a Yamaha, it's a 153cc urban legend FZ-16 from Yamaha stable last year. With one of the best looking bike I rejuvenate me from all the personal set-downs and the only things which I had is my bike and me set all alone in the beautiful stretches of ECR and the Bangalore Highway.
Been travelling out with my friends on the caged 4 wheels many times since they doesn't know the pleasure one would get by riding the motorcycles. Tried couple of times to plan a ride with my colleagues to Mahabs and Pondicherry, and went on to do some solo trips - cant say trips, a dash down to Vellore and Gingee. People who knew would call be crazy, yes am crazy about bikes and riding them as frequent as possible. I was that crazy that during my college days I used to ride from tambaram to thiruvanmiyur on his RX135 just as a driver J - just to ride the bike and take bus back to my house in velachery
When I first got my unicorn in 2004, I wanted to some modifications to my bike with now knowledge about them just like the posers. But slowly realized about biking, motorcycles and the riders safety. Later in 2009 I sold of my unicorn and got myself FZ-16. Done many short trips with my friends but it's not easy to make them very skeptical to come always. Was in search of like-minded people and finally landed on Xbhp.com the place where I found not only the like-minded bikers but also people who could give their guidance and support to the budding bikers/tourer like me.
Biking has always been the one which would free me whenever I had some stress and troubled thoughts in my life. Recent times, it was like me crossing a rough sea, and was finding all possible blocks in whichever way I moved. Was totally stress down and laid low, that's the time when I don't know what to do next so took my bike out and jus rode the way the roads lead. As the ride went on I was getting clearer and clearer, by the time I returned back I was very clear of the problems what lie before and how should I proceed further in clearing them one by one.
One by one I slowly cleared them, some I solved it, some I accepted the way it is and started to live with it so that later point of time I can decide on it, some of it I left them to cool down. That's the time when the touring bug started in me. started to me more active in my biking community by attending G2G's and doing some solo rides. Then there is the MEGA G2G plan came up, which boosted my inner self. Even though I thought of procuring the riding gears for long time, but this is the time I really focused on getting them for sure whatever happens. With some blessing from the ultimate one -yep, it must the god in disguise since when I tried to order the riding gears online, I had the sale coming up for the exact riding gears which I looked for and also my friends were coming down to India on the right time
what else is needed for a biker like, I just went ahead and ordered the Riding shoes, pants, Jackets and gloves so that I can be well ready for the first real touring I am going to start.
Preparation for my Soul
Now as the spirit has risen, it got to be well prepared for the coming trips. So started meeting the people for advise and preparation by attending the pre-ride G2G's which tuned not only my riding style also gave my bike the insight of what it has to go through in the coming weekends.
First pre-ride G2G, we meet up at CTC with Kiran, Sriram, Ganesh, Tarun, Deepak, Raghav and rode to vallakottai near sriperumbadur. It was a nice ride and weather was awesome. We discussed a lot about bikes and the upcoming ride. Got lot of insights what too except during a ride and the things to be made sure before the ride. We didn't stop there, we decided on meeting up the next week with more members to much more longer ride. So we had discussions over the place for the weekend all down till Friday and fixed up the place to Amrithi forest near Vellore.
As Usual Sunday morning, set the alarm to 4 am but I woke up only by 5, as I stay in tambaram it would be late for me to reach the meeting point CTC, so message Kiran and Raghav that am running late and will meet them near the savitha Dental college on the highway. By 6 I reached there and joined the group from there. From there we were cruising on the highway with our formation and stopped near kanchipuram for Ram.
Raghav passed a comment that he somehow though it was some guy on a blue Fazer, who was touring on his own. Only when i Pulled up in front of them he realise my motocross pants can actually and in a strange way remind of the Fazer's fairing. LOL
After regrouping we headed to the nearest Petrol Bunk for a Fuel Stop, where a few of us filled up and headed off towards Vellore. It was already 6.30 by then and we had to make up for the lost time, so we decided against breaks and were averaging only about 80. The Lesser experienced riders like me ,amit and surabith stuck to the center of the formation. we had a bad time communicating signals as we had either forgotten or unaware that it needs to be passed on. I was however aware of a few and passed it on to so that it would flow on till the sweeper for the morning ride, Aargee, who was doing a great job and keeping an eye out for newbie's like me. After some seventy odd kays of travel, we met up with Ram(Whizkid_ram) who was there on his Apache 150 and a brand new CROSS helmet. Here we took a couple of seconds to explain to the group to pass on the signals and to stick to the formation. I would say that this is where the fun began. Ten Odd bikes ranging from The new Yammie R-15 to Ye Ol' faithful RX, were maintaining a staggered formation right in the center most lane in one of the most perfect stretch of roads accessible to us! One funny thing I noticed when overtaking a bus was that one of the passengers kept signaling to all of us reminding them that our headlights were on! This was a common scene from there on. We reached Vellore by 9 something and entered the town. We found our way to Hotel Saravana Bhavan for a Scrumptious Breakfast and a light and informal introduction between us. There too were people wondering what we were doing. We had strange questions asked to us.
One such question which raghav got from a cager was, What are you guys from Chennai doing here? When he told him we rode down to Vellore for breakfast and as a kind of a pre-ride meet up, He was confused but politely wished us a safe ride back.
From there we next headed to Amrithi Forest. I had no clue how it would be and heard about it many times and the favorite one of Srini! First it seemed like a normal State highway, filled with enraged bus drivers or cagers. at what appeared like a few hazards thrown around, the numbers started to multiply and hand signals became frequent. At one point of time, a few of them got frustrated and started to point and wave at the side most of the hazards where. It had became a game of judging what was bad and what was worse! But some of the bends were real beauties. It was enchanting to watch 8 odd bikes in the back, corner them in grace at almost perfect and safe distance from each other. I wish we had a photographer stationed at the turns and capture the moment! After finishing the Amrithi Obstacle course, we reached the Amrithi Zoological park. after parking our bikes, we quickly started talking about the ride and realized we had traveled about 10 kms around the road. As a few of us were unsure about plans were briefed again and hand signals were quickly explained. Next in line was formations and Kiran took a brief class for us and gave us a list of quick tips on highway conditions and routes.
While a few us decided to talk about the Lunch a few started to discuss spares. After wrapping up with the talks. I shared the chocolates which I took along for some energy to ride back home. While coming back home we had taken a short route which ended up in small water body to be crossed. everyone was skeptical in corssing but soon we had a local guy riding his bike across the water and soon we followed the same trail and one by one reched the other side.
Rode back with lot of information about the group riding, touring and safety measures to be taken care while riding; which helped me a lot in the upcoming MEGA G2G.
Preparation for 'The Ride'
Got my bike serviced on 15th itself and Planned to take off on 18th to meet up with couple more Chennai gang as small G2G for getting the spares and tools for the ride. Unfortunately, office work came in the last moment and got to be in office on 18th. Asked Aargee to get the basic need - clutch and break cables for my ride and was breaking my head at office eagerly waiting to leave home. Finally, completed my work and left home by 8pm, on the way filled up the tank to full.
The D-Day Ride
By 9 started packing the bags, keeping the necessary things all in one place so that early morning I shouldn't in a tension of looking where it is and went to sleep by 10.30pm. Only to get up by 11 with no sleep, the enthusiasm has crept in long time back so sleep deprived me; but managed to get some sleep for 3 hours and woke up by 2 am. As soon as I woke up I messaged Tarun and amit that I will be there at the pallavaram meeting point by 3 and tried calling them to give a wake-up call
confirmed about the meeting point.
Got ready, packed all the required stuff in bag, geared up and went down to the parking place to see my bike ready to ride. Mounted my bag at the back, with a couple of pictures before starting and left home by 3. My security while opening the gate, gave me a look - might be he must be thinking where this crazy guy leaving in middle of night with all those riding gears (weird stuffs in his case).
After initial engine warm-up ride for a kilometer, gradually increased my speed to be on time in pallavaram; Tarun was already there waiting with C5 and soon Surbhit joined us. After few minutes amit too joined and from there we all started to the common meeting point CTC. By the time we reached CTC, Kiran and Ganesh(Aargee) was already waiting for us. We started parking our bikes and following us we had other group of riders reaching CTC and by now we had around 15 bikes. Kiran gave us the XBHP stickers and it was branding time as all were busy sticking the stickers on their bikes. As I was the CFO for the Chennai team started collecting the Trip Fund from all of them and we had the routine checks for the bike papers. After that we had small briefing session, where we had Praveen gave us the instructions, and also we had a small intro section within ourselves.
Praveen signaled for engine on and then on we all started rolling on NH and our next stop was to catch up with Yuvaraj and Manoj who were waiting for us near Savitha Dental college. After re-grouping we left a message to Ram that we are starting so that he could come and wait for us in Kanchipuram. Our next stop was at Kanchipuram which gave most of us the required nature call break and fag-break. After we split into two groups one group doing fast group (100+) and other one slow group (80+). I was in the 80+ group and was leading them till Vellore in the cruising speeds of 85-90. We reached Vellore Saravana Bhavan 10 min ahead of our planned time which was really good even with a 10 min break for photography, butt and fag-break.
We had a good breakfast which would permit us do the miles to cover with ease. From there we proceed further on our way to meet up with the Bangalore team; we stopped briefly near the junction to know where the bangy gang was waiting for us and based on their information we started moving forward another couple of kays we find our biking brothers waiting at us to keep left. what a gathering man!! We had 44 bikers welcoming us and what a sight to be welcomed like that
. Actually we stopped there so that we can try to get introduced but man with a crowd 60+ that wasn't possible on the highway so we started to roll as 2 groups one the fast group(100+) and the slow group(80+).
We reached A2B near Salem for Lunch and the common people who had already having lunch there was awestruck and wondering looking at us who entered there with full riding gears. As all the bikers were settling down in the available tables, some got themselves settled in the shade nearby. As we had a huge gathering, taking orders from each and everyone was tough so we went ahead and ordered veg-meals for most of except for few curd rice and couple of Fried Rice. Once the Lunch was over, we had a small briefing about the ride we are going to take in the hill section and then all were set to ride. We rode for another 20 odd kms and reached the foot hills of yercaud by traversing through the Salem traffic.
We had a short break for 15 mins then all started to climb uphill in a single-line formation. I was having really fun to ride in the hills for the first time in bike and was more excited and cautious when I was taking each and every hairpin. Was eager to trying my cornering skills but with the luggage on the bike and following a group it wasn't really advisable to do so planned to come down in the morning to try my cornering. We all again re-grouped once we reached top and waited until Kiran and praful went to guide the 30 bikers to Aishwarya Inn. Then the remaining all us went to MM Inn for our stay. We checked into the rooms and the first thing I did was to get rid of the gears and get the feel of air
. Slowly one by one parked their bikes unloaded their luggage and went to the rooms. Soon coffee was served and with that we all started discussing about the bikes, some about the places to see there and some on the modifications for their bikes. Kiran, Praveen and Apar shared their Leh experiences. I had bath to be fresh after the ride and took the cam out to capture some shots. Along with few others we all moved to "Pakoda view Point" which was only 2 kms from our stay to get the feel of the Salem city in night and the ghat roads. This is the time when all the SLR cams were in action. They took some amazing shots and am eagerly waiting to see them; hoping the photographers would share them soon
After that we came down to our stay and by the time, the other gang from the 2nd resort came have gathered in our MM Inn for campfire. All were pulling around john for his trademark dance move but john wasn't ready to show his move. Then all headed to have dinner and we chatted through our dinner and I moved to my room early to sleep so that I can get up early in the morning to go for a ride in the fog.
Got up by 6.45am to see aargee cleaning his bike and praful, john and others already done with the fog capture and leaving to a nearby waterfall. I tried waking up raghav, by that amit and surbhit had got up and was ready to give me company riding to down the hairpin's. soon we had raghav and ram joining us.. Sriram, Tarun, Deepak also wanted to join us so we were waiting for them. they were taking some time to get ready so we (me, amit, surbhit, ram and raghav) moved to View point for some fog view over the mountains and also a personal photography sessions. Soon we were joined by Sriram, Tarun and Deepak. so we had some more photo sessions and moved to the ghat section for the cornering. Deepak wanted have tea, so we stopped near lake and had tea. I finished my black tea early and with surbhit planned to start and reach a hairpin which would be the best place for the cornering. Man with so much excitement, we took a wrong route went towards some more place, as the roads were nice we kept on going and realized late that it was wrong path and tied reaching the others to check whether they followed us or took the correct route. No luck with the phone too.. So we returned back to find Sriram also lost his track and we three started to ride down the hairpins to find them. I kept on going and after sometime I lost both surbhit and Sriram in my RVM's, but the hairpins were so tempting that I kept on riding down all the 20 hairpins by that the other gang amit, Tarun, ram, Deepak, raghav was returning back. They went down to the foot hills and were returning as they didn't see us.
As already we got a call from kiran informing us that the breakfast is read, we had a quick photo shoot of us taking the corners in one of the hairpins. We had a small hiccup as ram tried to literally do a knee down which resulted in a small fall and amit all time missing his target to take the turn. We quickly wrapped the shoot and headed back to the resort, on the way up we saw few bikes zooming past us down and later when we reached the resort we came to know that the bikes zoomed past us were praful and few other bikers who left early to Bangalore. Even though we had some nice time cornering but we missed the fun part of the entire gang had in the resort while setting up for a group photo in the resort. Later we got our t-shirts and moved to nearby location to take a mega group photo with all our bikes.
First we tried arranging the bikes in a single formation and as the bikes were in n numbers, even the widest lens which we all had was not able to capture the group even with Ravi climbing onto a tree nearby. So as he had climbed the tree we made him to shoot the group in 3 parts and later moved all the bikes to a nearby slope to take the formation. It took us almost an hour to arrange the bikes in a formation in that heat and finally once all were done we had a the grand photo shoot taken by the self-timers. After that the Kerala gang moved since they got to cover up lot of distance to reach their place. Everyone were back to the resort and lunch were served. Me, kiran, Praveen and Ravi (Bangalore CFO) gathered to do the accounts to settle the hotel guys.
Soon all were packing up their bags onto their bikes and were ready to roll back to their respective cities. Everyone started to move and decided to meet up downhill. We all were bid farewell to the chilly mountains and the beautiful twisters and were riding down that's when we saw one of our mate has crashed. We stopped few meters away from the spot later were kiran asked us to move downhill to avoid confusion on the stop as traffic was flowing that time. So we all rode back downhill and waited after the check post for the other to reach us. Soon we had call saying that they have started from the hill and everything if fine except for the bike which had lost its nose. Since it was getting late for all, Praveen and kiran decided to stay back and fix the bike meanwhile asked us to move ahead and wait at A2B.
Everyone started their bikes and proceeded ahead to A2B and this time I was following Apar this time, was superb to follow him with his R15's beat tuning my ears. slowly I let all the fast bikes cross me and was in the tail end on the group. We reached A2B and Apar has received a message by that time from Praveen stating they had started from the mechanic shop. Do some math Apar suggested that it would take another one hour or so for them to reach here so we can have a 10 min break and keep moving since they can catch up with us. Jus been minutes we discussed about this we heard the beats of Ninja slowing down and saw Praveen and Kiran in the fixed pulsar. amazing to see kiran ripping the damaged pulsar in 120+ to reach here.
After a break for refreshments the Chennai gang parted away from Bangalore since we had around 300 kms to cover and it was getting dark. With some group photos and lots of tumbs up, byes and claps we left A2B and headed towards Chennai. we all were doing 100+, when we had some company of a spy ride - which overtook Apar (he was doing 110+) with ease, we all were astonished as the bike looked like a small moped from TVS but not sure which one was it since it was covered fully. We had a small break for 5 min near krishnagiri and then again moved forward to have dinner in vellore. We had fun time in finding the place for parking our bikes and luck enough to find a small a/c hall for our gang. It was fun to see everyone order the dinner form Chola Poori, Parottas and idlies. After dinner few moved to tank up their bikes and others moved ahead few kms ways and waited for them. with kanchipuram in mind as the next stop we ripped in 90+ for the next 70 kms and reached kanchipuram for a short break and also to wait for the slow group to catch up. once they all came we bid farewell to Ram who needs one few kms to reach his home in kanchipuram and headed forwarded with next stop near Savitha dental college.
All were ripping and zigzagging the lorry traffic and that the fate struck and bike hit reserve which was way earlier that I had thought. With time almost 11pm and not sure whether my bike would cope up the another 60 km ride; so I slowed down and asked others to move informing them I would reach the meeting point after filling. I turned back to fill petrol and it took me 4 bunks and some another 10km to find a bunk. Filled up petrol and rode back to join group waiting. Soon we had the slow group reaching and really got to appreciate Kiran here to sweep the slow group which was doing 50+. From here everyone started to part their ways and me, Tarun, Amit and surbhit hit the Chennai-bypass to reach our destination Tambaram. After reaching tambaram I said my byes to others and reached my home by 12.30am with 897kms on my odo.
2 days of fun, riding, biking brotherhood in my mind I went back to sleep after messaging couple of Chennai members that I reached home safe and the entire experience running in my mind.
It was a real pleasure to ride with you all Kiran, Praveen, Amit, Aargee, Sriram, Yuvaraj, Manoj, Raghav, Dev, Deepak, Tarun, Apar, Atul, Ashwin, Vicky, Surbhit, Dev and it was great to meet the Bangalore, Coimbatore and Kerala members. Was able to chat with few and hoping to meet you all in future inter-state G2G's.
Note: Here i got to give credits to Raghav, Sriram and Tarun who had shared their photographs of pre-ride G2G which i have used them in log. thanks Guys.
P.S. Camera battery drained out in the morning itself so have shared the pictures which were good in the collection i have taken. eagerly waiting for the SLR's images in real.