My sincere Thanks to Steve and Ananth for the Route Suggestions – even though I didn’t explore most of them but the ride was enjoyable and Sudharshan for his map, Sunny (Sunil) for the cramster saddle bags.
Day 0 – Preparation for the Ride
Since I had service my bike a week earlier, I just changed the Engine oil, then chain service, the bike is all set for the ride. Started to pack the Saddle bags borrowed from Sunny; as the ride is going to be for the next 10 days; I decide to carry enough t-shirt and shorts apart from the riding gear. Packed the SLR camera and P&S camera; charged the batteries. With excitement and adrenaline rush in air tried to get some sleep before my ride.
Day 1 - Chennai – Tiruppur – Coimbatore
With all packed up and the necessary stuffs in reach, woke up early morning to start my ride. Had quick bath in cold water which was refreshing enough from my sleep. First time I tried saddling my bags and was right on one go. Geared up myself, with a customary picture before the ride, I was soon on the empty roads, which were too gobbled up by my machine. As the Day 1 plan is to reach Tiruppur, catch up with Xbhpians and head to Coimbatore to stay in my friends place.
After 80 odd kms, still the sun is hiding behind the clouds; I was feeling much colder and the visibility was low. Later I realized that, its fog all around me – what a beautiful sight to see the fog over the fields and sun rising in my rvm. Took out my SLR, to capture some snaps of the fog and my first sunrise of this trip. From there on, the ride was very smooth riding in the NH with occasional photo breaks and a stop for breakfast. There were birds in the hotel which attracted my attention, tried to click couple of pictures and started to roll back on rode.
Me all geared up for the ride

Early Morning Fog in outskirts of Chennai



SunRise


My pitstop for breakfast

Birds at the Breakfast place



Thereafter the ride was of not much interesting, since the highways are open and FZ lacks juice to gobble up them in speed; but was able to maintain a constant speed of 90’s. With some Photo breaks and a lunch break, I reached Tiruppur by 3.30 pm. Called up karthick and met him up in his office – chitchatted about biking, t-shirt making, my ride plans, etc. He quickly called up cpoimbatore guyz for a small meet up, since being a Monday everyone would be available by 6.30pm only. So we made a delayed start to Coimbatore around 5pm and reached Coimbatore and waiting for the other guyz in their usual meeting point. Soon Ram, Mahesh joined us and later Deepak joined with his RX135. Exchanging intro’s and views/plans on my ride time passed by and Karthick realized it’s getting late for him to get back to Tiruppur. We moved to Mahesh office, to check out G2G t-shirts and each grabbed their one. Time to move; ensuring that we will catch up in the G2G, I started to my friend’s place for which Deepak helped me showing the route. Reached in friend’s house, took a shower to refresh and started planning for the next day ride. Made my friend Hari to take leave the next day and decided to Ride to Top slip and Valparai. With destination for the next day finalized, I lazed for a good sleep.







(L-R) Mahesh, Me, Deepak, Ram, Karthick

Route taken:

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