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How Was The R15 Doing The Trip ?
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Failure should never go to heart & success should never go to head,both makes a person to fall in life-Winston Churchill
Yesterday is history.
Tomorrow is a mystery.
Today is a gift, That is why it is called \"Present\".
Enjoy every moment. -
Hi Guys... It was my first long trip to hills on my bike. i really had a great time riding the bike for such a long distance. it was great meeting the bangy guys... it was a first long(highway) trip for most of the chennai guys (city riders) including myself
,we were jus learning the group riding ethics.. I thank all you guys for making this a wonderful trip...
Expecting Steve to come with some teasers and a trip log._________________________________________________
Yuv
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Chennai Participants:Originally posted by M@n()J View PostNice log Xeno.
Waiting for more pics
.How many riders from Chennai??
Manoj(Men_In_Jean) - P150
Srini(MadCatz) - P180
Eshwar(Insidious) - P200
Vicky & Praveen(Pillion) - P200
Srini(SteveBurnside) - Karizma
Kiran(Kirosh) - Karizma
Yuvraj(Yuv_BiKing) - P220_________________________________________________
Yuv
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I was wondering how come there wasn't a single pic of pranay until I found this.
And we had one MT01, although it only switched on it's engine at night . Man what a din.
.:. ArchiComment
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abey saley lambu ... i was taking the pics na.... anyways, prajwal has amazing pics of you.... i hope he posts it.Originally posted by archibaby View PostI was wondering how come there wasn't a single pic of pranay until I found this.
And we had one MT01, although it only switched on it's engine at night . Man what a din.
.:. Archi
MT? I thought it was a harley...
DoN\'t LivE tO DiE, dIe tO LiVeComment
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hehe .. no NSFW pics on this site. Who wants to see 4 adult men in a pool ???
harley it seems!!! Amit must be deaf already.
.:. ArchiComment
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Horsely Hills - the cloud station
Disclaimer: This is a huge post. I’m not responsible if you spend a good part of your office time reading it. Please read it at your leisure time. The views projected in this post are my own views. If it hurts anyone’s feeling, sentiment, or belief, I regret for the same.
Horsely Hills
One of the best hill-stations I've ever been to! Calm and eco-friendly, the place is. Kissing clouds and the mild drizzle they bring along, I'm going to call it a could station rather than a hill station.
What a place to be! It took me a big fight with my parents to make it to this trip. The flood havoc in Chennai was a big cause of worry for my parents. The rains brought in by Nisha had completely dampened the spirits of the boys as well. A few had to call off the ride due to the rains, while a few had some personal commitments.
You hardly can see the sun. You have an unexpected visitor waiting all the time outside - the clouds. Just open the doors and windows and you have the visitor coming in.
Horsely Hills is maintained by the Andhra Pradesh Tourism department. There are no private hotels or resorts on the hills. Booking for accommodation has to be made by paying the full amount and they do not accept credits cards.
The Developments...
With most of the guys broke for the remaining part of the month, Praveen (henceforth refered as Xinfii) came up with a different idea. We swiped my credit card at his hospital and got the required amount. We headed straight to the A.P. Tourism's Chennai office (at T Nagar) and made the booking for four rooms. Winds Fall - the name of the suite.
It has been raining in Chennai due to the low pressure on the Bay of Bengal. The weather department had a name for the low pressure - Nisha.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Terrorists have attacked Mumbai. The pictures being shown by the news channels were disturbing. Our very own Srinivas (henceforth referred as Madcatz) works for Taj (Chennai), but his family is in Mumbai. On the other hand, Nisha has brought havoc to Chennai. The entire city is flooded. So strong was her power that her presence could be felt in Bangalore too! We hear news that roads leading to Chittoor are flooded.
With all these unpleasant events, we think about pushing back the trip by a week or two. With more people calling for a possible postponement of the trip, Praveen and I called up the A.P. tourism folks to check it there was a possibility. The tourism folks told us they would refund 50% of the amount and cancel the booking; we had to do the booking again. Loosing around Rs4600 for nothing was out of question. With no other option, we had to make this trip happen. Everything was fine until Praveen decided to quit - his bike developed some fuel-pump problem. With the Chennai Bajaj Probiking outlet closed for the rains, there was no way that Xinfii's bike could make it for the trip. Loosing Xinfii was huge setback for us. Xinfii is one of the few guys who can make things happen the way they should be.
Friday, November 28, 2008
It is 19:00hrs and I come out of my office at Vadapalani. I see mini-trucks carrying boats to evacuate people from the flooded areas. I hear a few sirens (ambulances) too. Apart from North Chennai, the whole area in the Vadapalani-Koyambedu-Madhuravoyal-Porur circle is low-lying too. So are the areas around Velachery.
Back home, my mom is in a different avatar! She tries all that she could do to stop me from going for the trip. Dad calls up from Kerala and tells me that I should not go. I was cursing the local news channels for making a big issue of the floods that has worried her. I myself make a decision that I'd call it off if it rains in the morning. I call Steve and Xinfii and convey them the recent developments at home. With hopes still alive, I go to bed.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
It is 03:00 hrs and the crazy frog (my phone's alarm) wakes me up. It is not raining! Wow! I start packing my saddle bags and load it onto my bike. Mom was ok by now. She conveys her usual dialogues every time I start on a trip - cursing the 'drunk' truck drivers is part of those dialogues. By 03:50 I make a round of calls to the guys and I'm all set for the ride. I head straight to Xinfii's place to collect the accommodation receipt. By 04:25 I reach the designated meeting point - the Chennai Trade Centre. The guys are already there except for Yuvraj and Manoj. Yuvraj calls up and tells us that the Inner Rind Road from Koyambedu is flooded and is closed. We decide to meet the duo on the NH4-Ponamalee bypass junction. Steve tells us about his colleague (Vicky) who might join the ride. I was happy enough to hear that. But as Steve revealed the new guy's history, I went mad. He also had pillion (Praveen) coming along. We decide to dump those guys and off we are to NH4.
As we near Kanchipuram, the beautiful morning fog forces us to stop for pictures. We take a break as we see a black-white P200 zooming past. Steve, unknowingly (), alerts the duo and they join us. By 09:30 we stop over for breakfast in a highway motel 25kms before Palmaner. Darthveda calls up and conveys that they are 30 kms away from Palmaner. By 11:00 both the teams meet up at Palmaner. A round of intro and the 16 bikes are ready for Horsely Hills. I lead the cavalcade and soon find that I was too fast for the rest of the gang. Half way through, I decide to be the penultimate rider. I really enjoyed riding amidst the Bangalore guys – ‘discipline’ is the word I should use.
We reach the top by 14:00hrs. There is confusion on the suites allotted to us but the confusion is sorted by the caretakers. We are shown our bungalow - with four suites. The suites were clean and tidy. I have never seen government owned resorts being maintained that good. Each suite had two televisions (with TataSKY), water heaters (24x7) in each of the two bathrooms, dressing rooms - all well-maintained. What more we had a swimming pool too! We had a caretaker and a supervisor and both were really helpful. The Tamilnadu Tourism Development Corporation (TTDC) has a lot to learn from its A.P. counterpart.
The only concern I had was the food tariff. I also told this to their manager (while departing) and he had reasons for the high food tariff. But considering the environment and hospitality, it is acceptable.
Half of the guys had crashed in to bed; the onward journey has made them tired. A few from Bangalore decided to take to the swimming pool. Yuv_biking, Men_in_jean, Insidious, Praveen, and I decided to take a walk. What started as a walk slowly turned out to be a uphill trek thru the forest. It was fun as we were pulling our guide's leg as he was leading us to a place that he didn't know. Praveen was the poor guide. After enjoying a good two hours, we were back. Soon it was dark and it was misty all over. The visibility was just 10 meters or so. All the guys were up and most of them went for a night ride. By 20:30 we all were out for dinner. Post dinner, it was time for me to crash, and off I go to sleep.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
I wake up by 06:45 and venture out. I'm joined by Amit for a walk. We head to a road-side tea stall and then to Gangotri lake. We also venture in to the Environment complex that houses a lot of birds and animals. After spending some good 50 minutes, we head back to our bungalow. We receive the complimentary breakfast coupons. All of us, except for Archi, have a good breakfast.
We decide to start by 11:00. While a few venture out to the nearby view-point, the rest do the packing up job. By 11:30 we are ready to start when we discover that Madcatz's bike disc has jammed. With no immediate remedy, the front brake lever is removed. He has to ride with the rear brake alone. Soon Pranay looses his bike's key. He gets it and the guys start moving. Now comes the third hurdle, Sudeep (henceforth referred as Xeno) is not able to unlock his bike. He gets it unlocked after spending some good five minutes. Lead by Prajwal, the cavalcade stops over at the entrance of the resort for me to take my helmet. Soon the cavalcade gets moving down hill.
Not even 20kms covered, we have the fourth hurdle! Xeno's bike is punctured! My foot pump came to use for the very first time. we pumped up as much as air we could and we had Madcatz (he is lighter than Xeno) riding off the CBZ-Xtreme to a puncture shop 2kms away. With three of the Chennai bikes having problems, the first batch of chennai gang decide to leave. They wanted to reach the city by dusk. Archi and Amit from the Bangalore team too start. Steve and I decide to join the rest of the gang until Palmaner. The flat tyre is fixed and we are on roll again. Now comes the fifth hurdle... it is Xeno's bike again! Looks like the bike is struggling for breath. Luckily we spot a Hero Honda service center near by. The bike is fixed and we are on the roads when the bike develops the same problem again. Hurdle #5! By now we have crossed a good 1km or so. I decide to tow Xeno's bike until the service center. The chaotic traffic and uphill road posed a big challenge for me. But we got the bike back to the HH service centre. The starter coil is the culprit! We spend a good 30 minutes there. Somu, the mechanic, did a commendable job in restoring the bike back to its normalcy. We are back on track and the CBZ is running good.
On the way to Palmaner, we are having a date with the rain god. Now comes hurdle #6 - Veda's bike gives up. It refuses to start. We are no where near to a possible town. With no option left, we decide to tow the bike until we find a mechanic shop. The day being a Sunday, most of the shops were closed. We stopped by a fuel station and Veda filled up his bike and tried starting, but in vain. With a heavy luggage tied to the rear, wet roads, oncoming traffic, and road users, it took great effort for me to tow Veda's bike for another 10kms or so to reach Palmaner. The rest of the gang was just following us. We found a mechanic and he immediately started his work. The issue was the same - the starting coil had to be change. Being a Sunday evening, there was no spare-parts shop around. The mech left and came back after some 15 minutes with the new coil. Even the spark plug had some issue and the mech got all those rectified. It was almost 18:00 when we decided to leave. Bidding adieu to the Bangalore team, Steve and I started our journey towards Chennai.
It was already dark and Steve wanted me to lead as my bike was running on a 55/60 bulb and twin-horn. We were maintaining constant speeds of 80-85kmph when two local folks on a Bajaj Chetak (I guess) started racing with us. They would have crashed twice with the oncoming vehicles. When we slowed those guys too slowed down and this was worrying us a lot. Then came the break - it started raining. The insane duo had to stop and we had a big sigh of relief. But the going was getting tough for us - it started pouring heavily. With the visor down I hardly could see the road. We could not ride more than 40kmph in the heavy downpour. As we were nearing Chittoor, the rain stopped and we steadily increased the speed to 60-65kmph. With the highway dug up at many places, we found it hard to spot a few. Soon we were following a Tata Safari hoping that we could sport the dug-outs as the Safari would slow down. By now we had reached the Naraharipet junction. Ranipet was 30kms away (NH4) and Vellore was 18kms (SH9). We badly wanted to reach the GQ and hence decided to take the SH9 to Vellore.
At Vellore, we had parathas and juice at Arya Bhavan and took a good 30-min break. I get a few text messages from the first group that they have reached home safely. While one bike was been driven sans the front break, another was being driven sans the headlight. The SMSes brough me some relief. I get calls from Anand and Insidious to know where we were - I was carrying their bags. By 20:50 we were on the GQ highway - both the ZMAs cruising at 90kmph constantly. We took a brief 5-min pee break near Kanchipuram. We stopped near the Sripermpudhur toll gate and gave call to Insidious and the latter agrees to come to Porur to collect his bag. By 22:35 we are at Porur junction. After bidding adieu to Steve and Insidious, I start heading to my place. It is 23:00 and I park my bike in the shed. Whoa! Mission accomplished!
Acknowledgements
My first thank you goes to xBhp.com - for providing this wonderful platform for like-mided people. A big thank you to Praveen (Xinfii) for initiating this G2G and getting things done precisely. I'd like to thank each and every participant who made this G2G a big success. Even though there were some goof-ups, let's take this as some learning for our future rides.
Thank you to the Bangalore team - Prajwal (for having come despite having an important family function), Pranay, Archi (Archibaby), Amit (Reutarian), Vedavyas (Darthveda), Sudeep (Xenologic), Arun (arun_v911), and Vivek (umailvivek).
Thank you to the Chennai team - Srinivas a.k.a. Steve (Stevebrunside), Anand (Anand_R), Srinivas (Madcatz), Yuvraj (Yuv_biking), Manoj (Men_in_jean), Eshwar (Insidious), and Vicky and Praveen (both non-xBhpians).
I'd also like to thank all xBhpians who had to pull out of the trip at the last moment. Each of us have personal commitments that take priority. As the saying goes... there is always a next time!
Special thanks to Badri, Tandeep, and Suren - they brought the motivation for us to visit this wonderful place.
And if you have come till hear or reading this, a big 'THANK YOU' to you too!
Cheers!
Kiran
Wear helmet, ride safe!All men dream, but not equally. Those that dream at night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act upon their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible. - T. E. LawrenceComment
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@Kiran:
It wasn't tough at all reading through the whole post! A breeze, if I may. Oh btw, you spent just the night at the hill station? There's just 50 minutes worth of sight seeing eh?
Oh and kudos to the whole gang. Would've been hard to keep tempers from flaring when so many hurdles follow successively!
Well, Tow Master, congratulations and again, very nice write up!Riot Engine |Norton WD 16H | BSA C11G |Enfield Fury
Thanks to Mr. Muthukumar, B&QRest Garage for these acquaintances!
sigpicComment
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Long and Nice Log Kiran.... but i feel a few of the first day events has been missed in this log...
Especially the Trekking fun that we had with our trekking guide aka Mr.Praveen.
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Yuv
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nice writeup there mate!
BIKER ...the thrill and sense of self-fulfilment is obtained from living a little dangerously!Comment
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Thanks, Slayer! There is a lot to see. Amit and I were just off to a morning walk for the 50 minutes. We even did a trek the previous evening, which I missed out. Will update the same.Originally posted by theslayer View Post
The tow master, btw, is now having a good pain on the right pelvic joint.
Thanks for reminding me, Yuvraj! I'll do the honors.Originally posted by yuv_biKING View PostLong and Nice Log Kiran.... but i feel a few of the first day events has been missed in this log...
Especially the Trekking fun that we had with our trekking guide aka Mr.Praveen.
Thanks, Shadez!Originally posted by shadez View Postnice writeup there mate!All men dream, but not equally. Those that dream at night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act upon their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible. - T. E. LawrenceComment
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Nice write up Kiran Missed this ride 
.But as you said there is always a next time .
@Chennai and Bangy guys:Next Inter-state meet at Thirupati???Praful listening??
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Originally posted by yuv_biKING View PostLong and Nice Log Kiran.... but i feel a few of the first day events has been missed in this log...
Especially the Trekking fun that we had with our trekking guide aka Mr.Praveen.
Oh, how can I forget that? By the time we got back to the room, I was in stitches and my jaw was aching! Yuv! You're too good at making people laugh man! Spontaneous genius!
To quote some important line:
"It's slippery there man! Come here!"
Originally posted by M@n()J View PostNice write up Kiran Missed this ride .But as you said there is always a next time .
@Chennai and Bangy guys:Next Inter-state meet at Thirupati???Praful listening??
I dunno about Praful, but I'm listening. Listening and nodding.
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Swiggy Mayhem!
We're trying to start an initiative where we're gathering enough photos or videos
of erratic Swiggy/Zomato/UberEats riders across all cities so we can cast a spotlight
on this issue and try and sort it out. If you video-record as you ride, or have a
dash-cam in your car, or can take SAFELY photographs of instances where these riders
are creating a nuisance by riding recklessly on the roads, PLEASE share the same with
us on the thread above. Appreciate it!Comment
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