Its been a long time since I wanted to write a travelogue but never had a chance since I never went on a long enough ride .. also this is just going to be my second one so my lack of experience in writing might be evident .. here goes..

Going to your native?? It’s always exciting... Riding to your native?? Even better! So this is how the plan started taking shape… & it was my elder brother who was quite insistent on riding & convinced our parents! Both of us had already been there twice by bike, but obviously the enthusiasm was still the same. So it was finally decided that we will ride on the week of Dasara from Oct 21 to 28, applying leave for a whole week, which was not an issue for my brother, but for me, wasn’t that easy.. After a lot of convincing and working my ass off for a week, got permission for 4 days leave (one day was a holiday anyway)..

The final plan, leave on 21st morning from Blore as early as possible & come back on Oct 27th (28th being a day for rest).. distance is around 440kms through western ghats, so expected time taken would be 8-9 hours. Bought all the required spares the day before, did some tuning & DIY on carb cleaning & stuff, gave a visit to Shell & all was set.

The route map



So got up at 3:40am & we were all set by 4:40am, to embark on a ride which is always exciting no matter how many times.. Took a wrong turn twice within Blore city limits due to metro construction & some new deviations, wasted around 15mins because of that.. Covered first 42kms in an hour & then the perfect highway NH75 starts & it lasts for the next 100kms .. so it was possible to maintain good speeds to make up for time lost before & also in bad roads later..

My bro was leading since he had better headlamps than mine (his is 55W & mine 35W). The best part of the ride was the weather. It had rained in most places the previous day & hence it was quite cold, in fact for the first time I wished I had got my thermal lining for my DSG Falcon (younger brother of Nero )!! & Lucky us, it didn’t rain throughout the ride since we had our laptops with us, Though we were quite prepared for it..

Some pics before Channarayapatna,

Our rides,



The splendid NH75



Sea of light


My brother, Adithya



Me,




So many many cars & SUVs overtook us on the highways & most of them had a surprise look on their faces looking at us in our riding gears & fully loaded bikes Came across a typical hooligan without helmet on a pulsar, who must have just gotten up & looking at us in our riding gear & our exhaust notes, need I say anything about his reaction?? Ripped crazily & went ahead of us, kept looking back if we were doing the same.. we just rode completely oblivious to him.. which must have totally pissed him off!

Again took a wrong turn towards Arasikere & we realized after a couple of kms.. lost 15mins again.. Reached Sakleshpur at around 8:45am, had breakfast at Ossoor restaurant.. had great tea & coffee there since they have their own plantation.. People were looking at our bikes tied up with luggage with lots of curiosity..

Then the most surprising thing happened!! A couple of guys stood around our bikes & were posing & another guy was clicking a pic!! As if it were superbikes!! I just couldn’t stop smiling for sometime.. It was a great feeling! Never expected something like that to happen! We took some pics of all the green coffee estates around.. Went a little ahead for some quick photoshoots.. This is where the Cramster tankbag comes in very handy, just park, remove cam, click, put it back, all the while on your saddle.. my bro has a Lowepro camera waistbag which is also quite handy for quick shoots but tankbag can pack a lot more than just a camera... both have their pros & cons.. In the meantime, two guys in Apache came there and parked some distance in front of us & did nothing but look at us as if we were aliens!

This is where the superbike incident happened



There is no time to take the helmet off



We went ahead with quite some anticipation & enthu for the next 80kms of corners & we weren’t let down!.. which frankly saying, is the high point of the entire 440kms stretch!! only around 10kms of main ghat stretch had some potholes but luckily, the corners were pothole free, only straights had some of them.. We overtook almost all the four wheelers which had overtaken us earlier.. even a couple of inches wide road was enough for us Saw a couple of BMW SUVs getting their suspensions tested there .. There are countless number of trucks which are a pain but most of them are well behaved & use hand signals to let you know if the road ahead is clear to overtake..

Some corners of Sakleshpur and Shiradi ghats





The panaroma shot of a famous corner of Shiradi



Corners, here I come



The trucks!


As we went ahead towards Dakshina Kannada district, temperature & humidity started creeping in.. Every break felt like we were put in oven, thanks to textile jackets & noobs like me for buying it :P Both our exhaust notes combined was getting us attention everywhere! Everytime we come across another two wheeler, you can see the rider trying to turn around to see the approaching bike.. which will be my bro (since he was leading).. as he overtakes them, you can see their heads following the bike.. next was my turn thanks to Joel.. this happened to almost all the hundreds of bikes that we overtook! It was the same with four wheelers too, but you cant notice their heads turning ..

Stopped at a bunk for filling up..



Came to Mangalore quite quickly & there are some superb long sweeping corners on NH75, guess it must be the regular riding route of superbikers in Mlore (Suprisingly there are quite many superbikes there!) After that, the ride was quite uneventful.. work on highway widening to four lane is still in progress.. needless to say, it was quite boring.. One thing bothered me though, I was facing a bit of tailbone (lower back) pain which disappears on a short break.. this never happened before, maybe I unknowingly changed my riding posture which caused it.. Anyways, reached home at 1:45pm with a big smile.. a total of 9 hour ride incl breaks.. totally worth everything ..

Went to our relative’s Dasara pooja the next day & everyone were like when they heard we came by bikes! Even our parents got some advice saying not to let us ride like this .. My parents were of mixed emotions, they were proud that we came by bikes but also worried and concerned about our safety.. One of my elderly relative just couldn’t comprehend that we came by bikes.. every time I was around him, he kept saying “Neenu bikealli bandhidya?” (you came by bike??) with a surprised look, followed by it is very dangerous, those tankers in ghats are dangerous! We just gave up explaining, so we simply smiled & told them that it was fun & safe, nothing like what they imagine in their minds

The return trip log...