simply awsome... good teaser pics.. logs please...

no captions ??? choose 1.

Mithun / akhil : I wish she was here.

Mithun / akhil : Wow nice chick...

Whoa! Swell pics

Lovely rossi! A ride from you after quite a while.. Waiting for the log and loads of more pictures.

Obviously im gonna sing the same tune as Aryan da and co..

Log & pics !!. Log & pics !!. Log & pics !! Log & pics !!. Log & pics !!. Log & pics !!. Log & pics !!. Log & pics !!.

Hmmm the thread is up.. what a week it was.. will update the pics tomorrow..

@navnish: bugger

This was my somewhat big ride of the year.

PS: Not to be confused with The Next Grand xBhp ride.

Prologue: Mithun wanted to go for a ride since quite sometime, and I was also up for it because I hadn't been able to do much because of my work. In fact, we had to postpone our trip five times because of my constantly changing work/travel schedules. I have to thank Mithun at this point, because he showed extraordinary patience and understanding each time I called him to say I couldn't make the trip departure date. He would tell me, "Don't worry, just finish up whatever you have to and we'll ride out together". Finally, it all fell in place, on 17th December 2008. It seemed ideal, because the itch to ride was massively large by then, and I had some personal setbacks as well.. so I just had to take a break from work, and Bangalore in general. I was in fact, planning on an indefinite ride.. I just wanted to keep riding around until my back broke or something. I had to burn petrol and burn it now.

Day 1:

Bangalore - Vadakkencherry:

We had decided to ride to Vadakkencherry in Kerala as our first halt. Being my ancestral home, and having a resort-like environment always attracted me to the place. I hadn't been there recently, because Our route was Bangalore-Mysore-Nanjangud-Chamrajnagar-Sathyamangalam-Coimbatore-Palghat-Vadakkencherry.

5.30 AM: I strapped up The One with my bags. I had bought tailbags from Kriega in one of my trips, and after having read some good reviews about it, decided to try it out. First opinion was it had good build quality and looked solid enough. How wrong I was.. More on that later. Got my gear on, and my folks saw me off.





Rode out to Rajarajeshwari Nagar entrance to find Mithun waiting. We took a few quick snaps and got going.





The time was 6 AM. Bangalore to Mysore, on the beautiful highway was uneventful. It was anyway my daily commute, and I waved a symbolic goodbye as I crossed my office. 132 kms on the odo were despatched in about one hour and 45 min.

I had decided on some strategic refuelling points for the R1 and Mysore was one of them. My criteria was 1) Premium fuel, be it Speed/Xtrapremium/Power. 2) Credit card facility. I tanked up the R1 and we decided to have breakfast in Mysore and carry on.






I know a bit about Mysore having come a couple of times on work, and I had breakfast at this amazingly small but wonderful place called Mylari Hotel. Mysore members will know this place for sure. This place serves only two things for breakfast.. Masala dosa and idlys. Even these two, they make a fixed quantity per day, and they close up when they finish serving that quantity! Only a hotel owner who has immense confidence in his food will do something like that, and he does that with reason. The masala dosa and idly we had there was just out of the world.. I haven't had South Indian food that delicious anywhere else.

Enough of the food. We left Mylari at 8.20 and crossed Nanjangud, about 30 kms away in no time. The roads were good enough, although patchy and bumpy at places.









It was when we crossed Chamrajnagar that we came upon some really bad roads. All the way to the border to Tamil Nadu. You can literally see the difference in the roads as you cross the board welcoming you to TN. I don't know where my 11% road tax on vehicles and infrastructure cess on every litre of petrol I buy is going. But I intend to find out.







From then on, the road and the scenery was a beauty! A small ghat section, coupled with some fantastic twisties, saw Mithun, me and the bikes subjected to centrifugal forces at some insane speeds. All within speed limits of course.







Looking back, I don't think this route is really worth it because of the bad stretches and two lane roads if you want to go to Kerala. Add the nonsense traffic in Coimbatore, and you'd be better off sticking to the GQ route to Coimbatore via Hosur-Salem. Of course there's much better scenery on this route, but again, not really worth it. I enjoyed myself more on the Aldoor-Chikmangalur stretch earlier this year.

We crossed Sathyamangalam without any notable incidents, except for one where I was stopped on the border. On a weird looking bike (relatively), which turns on the headlights as soon as the engine is on (thereby catching the eye of policemen everywhere), and me in full leathers, I kept triggering the neurons in the brains of policemen across three states, which screamed in their heads that I was a potential terrorist. With the usual questions about the bike, we were let off and we soon got into Coimbatore. We had decided to carry on straight to my place and have lunch there, instead of stopping again.

Refuelled again in Coimbatore, and by now, the afternoon heat was taking its toll on the bike. The coolant temperature would frequently hit 110-115. Getting out of Coimbatore was a real pain, afternoon heat and the traffic just killed the fun I had getting there. We entered Kerala border, and we were almost immediately welcomed by cops who docked me for overspeeding and of course, for being an unnatural sight on their precious bumpy, badly patched roads. Plenty of unsolicited advice, and a good 20 minutes later, we got going and then got to our destination. We entered my estate and parked the bikes, got rid of the gear, and after some refreshments and a brief rest, I set about showing Mithun the place. I think he liked it, but I'll let him have his say on it









While checking the bikes, we found that Mithun's rear tyre had a puncture and we decided to get it out later in the evening. In the meantime, we were making some changes to our route plan. We had decided to head to Valparai via Pollachi and then head to Aluva/Aleppey depending on time and our energy levels. My uncle, having been to most of the places in Palghat, suggested an alternate route which covered Athirapally Falls-Angamaly-Kottayam-Alleppey. This route would show us the best parts of Kerala, and take us through Kuttanad and the famous backwaters. We decided to go for it. Fixed Mithun's bike, had a massive dinner and slept soundly.

Day 2 continued:

Akhil and Mithun:Wow awesome trip there!Nice to see the one and the one five touring together ....waiting for the rest of the trip log.....

I was just going to ask when we spoke if you took out the R1 or Hamara bajaj. Keep it coming..

woah! damn neat Akhil.... looks like you guys had fun....

I can only imagine the cops getting confused looking at two similarly styled bikes which are 'unseen' in those parts of the world!

Awesome. potas beku!

So that status was for real - as if burning intercontinental ATF wasnt enough

some of those pics make me so wistful. btw 116ks is the max touched on the One? Woah!

The pictures are nice. Now, time to read that log..

Up, about and flying...

You got me salivating on your scavenging at the Mylari restaurateur. Nothing to complete a nice ride like good food.

Wow! Nice leathers, Alpinestars and all. If terrorists came in Alpinestar leathers and on the R-1, I would not mind inviting that terrorist to lunch.

Docked for overspeeding? On what speed guns and cameras? Did you see the record yourself? Coz, here in N'India, currently there are NO cameras that can record Bike speeds. And you have the right to ask for the imaged records!

Your estates are vast and huge... (aside: when and which will be your next Sbk?)

Beautiful Stuff! So this is where you were going when you announced on FB

Akhil and Mithun: A wonderful tour indeed! Nice to see the ONE touring again. Looking forward for the rest of the log and pics.

[OT] That A* suit on Akhil looks damn good.