Travelogue approved.

Nice start there. Waiting for lots of beautiful pictures.

Good trip there! The thread title needs to be changed...

Waiting for more pics from Sri, Tarc & others...
@Tarc - I heard about your Endurance!!! Good going man!! You're doing justification to C5.

0520: By 0520 the following riders had assembled in front of the CTC with Raghav on his GS150r to send us off.

• Sriram on his Unicorn leading the gang
• Srini on his blue GS150r
• Rajesh on his orange GS150r sweeping us
• Deepak on his CBZ Extreme
• Amit on his black ZMA
• Tarun who would later join us for dinner after riding solo on his charismatic Bullet c500
• ... and me, on my red FZ

With last minute checks and pre-ride body tank emptying procedures we were off! It turned out that we were not the only ones riding that day. We had a bunch of older folks heading to Yercaud on their Yezdis. The sound of an Yezdi engine in the wee hours of early morning left us with high spirits.

Note that most of the pics were taken by srini from his cam.

The Route:
The following route was taken to reach our destination.
Chennai - Vellore - Palamaner - Madanapalle - Horseley




Sometime around 0800: We stopped for breakfast at a restaurant called Avanaa Inn which Srini recommended. Breakfast Buffet was cheap at 75/- a piece and everyone had a heavy morning meal. After navigating through the morning traffic near Vellore and Katpadi, we were in Andhra Pradesh, the land where everything has a hint of chillies in them!


Around 0900: Right after hit AP, Sriram's bike stopped moving. Suspecting air lock and a few minutes of failed attempts at starting his bike, we learnt from a local that the mechanic was hardly 100 metres away. Although we didn't see any mechanic we still ended up fixing the bike at a 'Welcanis shop'



It is said that an average human body is 61.8% water by weight. Sriram proved that this fact is valid by volunteering to try out Raghav's new JK24 jacket.

The guy at the back: "Dude, you spelt F*ck wrong on your tee shirt"



1100: The terrain started to get rocky and we had kickass stretches of tarmac like these in front of us.

Taken a few kilometres outside Palamaner. I for one, was grinning like a little kid


The gang munching miles like a locomotive


1120: We reached Palamaner and had greenery around us, which was a bit surprising given the rocky terrain we had all along.



From left: rajesh, cbz_extreme on his er... cbz extreme, Only Amit,Sriram,Zaphod


1240 We reached Madanapalle at noon. The town was quite big with chaotic traffic filled with bikers suffering from tilted-head-syndrome slowing our progress.

We lost Rajesh, our tail, in the town. Taken while waiting for him


I think this will do for today. The rest to follow

Meanwhile, here are some teasers for the rest of the log.
@Other photographers. Guys, please try to post pics taken only upto this point for now. Lets keep the folks who missed the trip a bit tip-toed for more.

nice log anf pics.looks like you guys had a blast. keep it coming

@Zaphod - any reason why the comments are kept in smaller font size? Make it normal mate, give me the pleasure to read without strains

awesome pics and good log.

Madanapalle town was filled with hell lot of traffic . gang went in front losing me in traffic. i didn't notice they stopped before a turn i went on and couldnt find anyone. Even thought i should proceed alone. Tried calling sriram and we couldn't even converse over the phone thanks to buzzing traffic and noise.

After wasting some time finally smelled (i dint hear) a word from sriram like CSI church. inquired some local people and went there.

@Zaphod... i will also give some text for the log here and there.

Nice pics and comments Sudarshan, waiting to see the rest!

Sriram looks like he was testing a sauna jacket! ROTFL!!

BTW, where's the Bulleteer?

Tarc will be visible only after evening/night.

Great going Zaphod.

The best part was, riding in the rains, were the tail lamps of teh previous rider was only indicator to me.

Superb roads, greenery all around. This makes a very good combination, not to forget the spicey chuttney @ HH Restaurant.

Hope Uncle Amit is having a good burn out now.

for me the highlight would be the excellent empty twisties.. had a gala time bending and leaning to my heart's content

well written zaphod.. keep it coming !

Srinivas

Guys please share the thoughts till zaphod shared dont go beyond that. please
-----------
Even though Raghav and his Black GS missed the ride his spirits was with us. He came to CTC even before others and called everyone to check where are they. Once everyone assembled he gave the jacket to sriram and gloves to me and even his bungy chord hats off to you bro.

Ride from CTC to Vellore was very quick not even a single break. just two mins when the lead asked suggestions to take ranipet or vellore route to chitoor. It was cloudy and chill we reached vellore around 7.45 AM.

Later at Avanaa Inn we had great food. When we see the menu for buffet we removed a`-la carte from mind and went for buffet had very very heavy breakfast almost one hour we were in the restaurant.

part 2

Saturday, Madanapalle - Horsely 1330: We reached the base of the Horsely hills after 1. The roads turn out to be a bit sucky for a few stretches between Madanapalle and Horsley due to repairs. However the bad stretches are easier to spot in daylight. Just be careful if you are riding in the dark as it will become a bit difficult to spot the bad roads. There was also this little pond on our right which begged closer investigation.

Fresh boiled salty Sriram. Anyone?



Uncle was the first of us to take his ZMA off the road



Followed by Srini and Rajesh on their Zukis



Saturday, 1420: The road splits after this, with the left leading to the hills. The road here then rolls on for a kilometer or two, revealing a small ravine which eventually leads to the much awaited hair pins.

As you can see the clouds have started to become darker



The roads are decent enough to show off your footpeg scraping skills. No reflectors at the bends and no white lines on the tarmac, so beware if you are riding in the dark




The Ghat section isn't long. You get only 5 - 6 bends where you can try to scrape your foot pegs. Since you are already ascending from a plateau, the total ascent is only about 500-600m above sea level. After almost 9-10 KMs of riding, we reached our destination. For a Government run resort, the place is surprisingly well maintained.

The hills have a pleasant climate which is neither cold nor too hot. The weather on saturday was cloudy with an occasional light drizzle. After having an ok'ish lunch buffet which was priced at 100/- a plate (Non-veg 130/-), we checked in to our respective cottages. Since we booked 4 cottages and there were 6 of us (Tarc would join us later), Srini had to spend the night alone in his cottage. The cottages come with 2 beds each, bathrooms with a geyser, clean toilets and a patio of sorts where one can chill out with a beer and a book. There is also a bar within the premises if you want to have some quiet quality time with your friends.

The cottages are roomy and even comes with its own satellite television







The Reception/Parking area


Without further delay, everyone crashed for a little evening nap, and boy did we sleep like logs.


Saturday, 1730: I got up and put on my jacket to do a solo sprint down the ghats and ride back up again. Once I came out to take my bike, Rajesh waved at me after returning from a little exploration of his own. We decided to do some off-roading and off we went! The others however were oblivious of our little adventure as they were all in their own little dreamland; probably pulling wheelies on a Royal Enfield (looks at Amit )

By now, it was eerily overcast. The two tiny bikes in the left are REs, part of another group of thumpers who had shared the hills with us for the weekend


The GS


Broken Bottles beware while navigating these rocks


Rajesh and I did a quick ride down and back up again. We had the full ghat stretch to ourselves with ZERO traffic


Watch out for a watering hole en route where you can spot Sambhar Deer if you get lucky enough. The hills also seem to have a healthy population of Langurs. (No pics )

Wondering how it'd feel like to get LEH'd


Saturday, Around 1910 - 1930: Just after we returned from a brief photo session, Tarc notified us of his location. It turned out that he was having plans of his own to do a solo trip of AP after returning from Munnar .

The entire evening was spent in Sriram and Rajesh's cottage chit-chatting and laughing our arses off watching Mission Impossible dubbed in Tamil (it was badass). Later in the night Tarc (on his C500) joined us for dinner receiving a well deserved welcoming ceremony from the rest of the gang.

By midnight, everyone was fast asleep.

Day 2 logs to follow.

13th August: Had a very bad day in office,Fridays never go well in office.
I was excited for the next morning ride ,couldnot concentrate much in work and damn!! Production alwayz have issues ...Got a sms from Ram that he is not coming...bad news...Already lot of friendz opted out from the ride because of some personal or professional reasons
Tanked up...came back and heard that Tarun joining late directly in HH hills, riding spirit Man !!!

14th August:
After struggling a lot for sleep...opted not to sleep at all, sent sms to Sriram and Zaphod ...started packing the saddle , polished and warmed up the bike ...started rolling @ 4:05AM
Raghav was the first there to reach at ctc although he was not coming...Man U missed it!!!

Slowly all riders came in and started rolling the machines on NH46...With leaders like Sriram, the ride is always smooth and safe...My favorite place to be at the morning time is the Highway...the cold breeze and the insects make it divine

We decided to take the vellore- chitoor route as we planned to fill up our tummies in vellore. With Srini's reccomendation, we had a delicious breakfast @ Avana...

After starting from vellore, Sriram's bike had the first breakdown in few kms...it was behaving like a air lock , but it was something else.Anyway we were lucky to have a wecanic shop nearby

We continued riding upto madanapalli...government gave us enough opertunities to do off-roading in that road

After few fag n Pee breaks, we entered the Horsley hills ghat road. Although it was not very long...but the twisties are awsome and the weather was like wow!!!

After reaching HH hills...all had a nice lunch and Errr...its going too long

We were having discussion on Xbhp...Chennai Xbhp...the spirit of our fellow bikers when Tarun joined us setting a example
After a lot of chit-chat and leg pulling, we decided to sleep and wake up early in the morning for the individual and group Photoshoot...one of the significant part of a trip


Guyz...Let the Snaps do the talkings