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A 1200 KM ride between Bangalore-HYD-Bangalore...
Someday I had read someone saying somewhere, "I am not against ageing, I am just against getting old". A line which has so much been the way I have tried to live till date; Young. But the obvious bitter truth of life is that it isn't really as easy as it sounds. At some point life itself starts taking a toll on you; Through a world of expectations & loads of responsibilities, both from the personal and professional fronts. More often than not it wakes you up in the morning, makes you follow the same old routine, the same protocols & finally takes you to bed so that you can wake up again to continue redoing the cycle. And someday you get to realize that you are not really living the life, you are merely just spending it. That is when you feel like breaking free. You think of doing something different. You fall for adventures. You start searching for moments that you can truly live. Moments that can bring you back some youthful memories & even if for a day, but can refresh you with a feeling of the same young boy you once used to be. Not only that, even that one day of wild and crazy moments keeps driving you through how many more days to come. And someday it also makes you look back, smile & say to yourself "yeah I had done it !!!"
Well, for some time now I too have been searching for some of those moments. It has been so much of a routine life since I came back from Tokyo three years ago. I have been longing to break free, to get lost in some wild youthful adventure. But the question was how. Thanks to XBHP, the ardent bikers over here & their travelogues; Reading them every now & then has kept at least one thing constantly alive in my mind; The excitement of a really long long ride to some destination. Something I was so used to doing during the younger days; hitting a long highway & riding along.. I always know this as one of those beautiful things which any day can bring out the young man out of me. But then it is no longer easy being a married man. Therefore I needed one right opportunity too. Then along came this moment when I was talking to one of my closest friends over phone ….
Where it all started:
Me: Man it seems am going out of India again..
Friend: When ? this month ? Wow.. that’s good news ! But what happened to your promise of visiting & we guys having a weekend blast here in Hyderabad ?? You have been promising that every time since independence !!
Me: Awwwwww… mmmmmmmm…
Friend: Now don’t give me those god damn smiley(s) & just come down. & No excuses please, you just got to be here before you leave. As such bhabi (my wifey) is at her parental & you are alone.. This is a long weekend on top of it..
Me: Hmm.. alrighto.. am definitely coming over this weekend.. Just ensure you have the beers chilled by the time I reach
Friend: Oh ofcourse I would. But I just hope this is not one of the same old promises..
Teaming up with my travel partner (who turned my co-pilot later):
Me: Babu, am planning to visit Nihar’s place.. are you are coming ?
Babu: Yeah sure !! By Bus ?
Me: Bus ?? mmmmmm.. yeah we can.. Hey but how about a ride all the way to Hyderabad ?? I guess a bike trip would be wonderful !!
Babu: Well, that sounds cool bro.. Am game !! let’s make it a bike trip only.. But would bhabi agree ??
The approval process (Part-I):
Me: Listen, Nihar is almost about to kill me. Am planning for a Hyd trip.
Wifey: Cool.. Go n have a weekend blast.
Me: But I was thinking….
Wifey: Nooo.. If by any chance you are planning for a bike trip then just forget it.. No way.. 1200 KMs to & fro.. are you crazy..It’s too long & too risky.. Definitely not.
The planning (Part-I):
Spent half a day on searching for right busses to & fro between Bangalore & Hyderabad, busses whose timings can maximize our period of stay, quality sitting etc.
Booed the tickets too at a hefty price & called up my travel partner.
Babu: Bro, should you try one more time..
Me: mmm.. well, miracles do happen..
so let me try.. The approval process (Part-II):
Me: Listen, today is such an auspicious day & I guess you are just coming out of a grand puja.. I am sure you won’t say no if I ask for something ?
Wifey: Yes to everything, but bike trip, NO.. & don’t you try to convince me..
Me: After some sugar coating for the next one hour & some convincing (I don’t know why I try to do that ).. You agree no ??
Wifey: Hmmm.. OKAY.. But you got to promise me that you wont cross 60 KMPH at any point in time...
Me: Done !!
Voila !!!!!!! Did I just hear OKAY ??? I just called up my travel partner turned co-pilot & said, “Babu, we are on !!! Don’t go back home from office on Friday. Instead come over to my place. Let’s celebrate the evening & we would start off by 6 am on Saturday”. & boy, my co-pilot was happy too!!
The planning (Part-II):
- Cancelled all the bus tickets.
- Checked the to & fro routes thoroughly from Google maps & took the printouts.
- Being a ZMRian, posted a couple of queries in the ZMR ownership forum, which were promptly answered by @Divya Sharan, @RaajD & @snehithpereira . After all I was going to enter another state with my vehicle & there is every possibility of getting harassed by traffic cops. So it's better to take precautions. As suggested by the fellow ZMRians I kept the originals of the Insurance paper, Registration card & DL in the bag so that I can produce them as n when asked.
- My ZMR is relatively new & it was serviced a week before; so there wasn't any reason to worry for its health. Just checked for any tyre punctures & lubed the chain properly with my Motul spray the previous evening.
- I don't let the SVC guys to replace my engine oil with the oil from HMC. Therefore replaced it personally with Shell Rimula R4. Choose R4 as it is a 15W40 oil & is thick, apart from having other good properties. I knew that the engine obviously would get heated up like hell with sustained high speed riding for an entire day & a thick oil like Rimula can help in that case.
& The journey begins:
So here we are.. 07-Sep-2013, THE Saturday morning.. Early, very early, my co-pilot woke me up.. “Bro we gotta get fresh n go.. Hurry”.. This must be one of those rare Saturdays when I would have got up & got fresh soooo early..
Kinda a strange experience, but I did it; ah but not before 8.00 am 
We knew by this time that we were late. But then the imagination & excitement of the bike trip was hardly letting us care for that. Finally we were good to start by exactly 8.35 am from our flat in Old Airport Road. While I took the rider seat, Babu my co-pilot made the pillion. Filled up the tank once we reached the Shell filling station in Old Madras road. Got the tyre pressure rechecked & started off again. Sailed through the early morning Bangalore traffic & reached Hebbal roundabout at around 9.30 am. Fuelled our own stomach with some nice south Indian breakfast & we were good to hit NH7 for a long ride thereafter. Had to go slow till new Airport as traffic was still there. Next came Nandi Hills & stopped by to take some photographs. I guess I was doing some photography (which is my other passion) after quite a few months !
Breakfast Time..
Nandi Hills and the beautiful surroundings..
I guess it was 10.35 am by that time & we realized that we had covered hardly 50 KMs by then ! Damn !! We just decided to have one good stretch to cover up for the loss of time & this was the first time I opened up the throttle fully. The beauty of NH7 between Bangalore & Hyderabad is it is as good as empty & you can ride as if you own the highway. Additionally I was also excited to see how my ZMR responds from being touted as one of the best sports tourers in our country. We rode for the next 70 minutes without a single pause & covered close to 100 more KMs in that one stretch itself. I must say I was pleasantly surprised by the response from ZMR. The ride during that stretch was at an avg. of 100 KMPH & ZMR was really smooth even at such sustained high speed with a pillion !! Needless to mention that it really has very good high speed stability too.
Gave the bike & of course us a much needed power nap & it was time for photography again! The stop point was surrounded by beautiful hills at both sides & it was a tremendous place to do photography with the vibrant orange ZMR standing on the empty highway.
Mine being a rare orange coloured ZMR, I was recollecting a couple of fellow ZMRians who had requested me to post some good snaps of this bike in the past. This was a good time to work on that..It was time for my co-pilot to take the rider's seat. He was really anxious to experience the bike as he was riding a bike after a couple of years. Two mins of initial hiccups with gear shifting & he was good to go. I though ensured that he rides as slow as possible & we continued for the next 40 KMs at around 65-70 KMPH. I must say this is the best speed range you can ride a ZMR on the highway. Vibration is literally absent & there isn’t as much wind blast. The pillion feels ultra smooth at this speed range & I guess such was the smoothness of this ride that I could have fallen asleep had I got a pillow with me..
Luckily for us the weather was super cool. It was cloudy all throughout. There were light drizzles at stretches, but not enough to stop us from riding.
We took off after a short power nap again & rode hard to reach Ananthpur at around 1.30 PM. It was time for Lunch. The first restaurant we checked was as empty n scary as a ghost house & one of the waiters started following us as if we were the only customers for that day
We got so discouraged that we decided to try another restaurant & the next one was relatively better. Atleast it had some people inside !! Time to order for some delicious butter chicken & Andhra parathas. My co-pilot though was very interested in Dal Makhani. Food was readily served under 10 mins. Well but the less be spoken of the curries, the better it would be. While butter was a day dream to be realized in the butter chicken, Dal Makhani had suffered no different fate either. 
For a change the butter chicken was salty, spicy & full of curry leaves.. 
Luckily the Parathas were the saviours. Anyways, there was no choice but to eat as it was a long day ahead & we therefore requested our taste buds to stay immune for at least one day.The restaurant we would remember for quite some years to come, I am sure
Well it was 2.30 PM by the time we were ready to go again & I must say we were a bit worried. I had promised my friend that we would reach by early evening so that we could celebrate & we still had a long way to go. So it was time for a long stretch of high speed ride again. I took control of the handle bars & we hit a continuous speed of 100-110 KMPH for around 90 minutes, with 120KMPH being the highest I could achieve for some time with the pillion on. Damn, I had promised my wifey for not clocking above 60KMPH & here I was doing exactly the double !! Am sure she would kill me if she gets to read this travelogue.
At some point we came across these beautiful sunflower gardens. There was no way we would't stop and take some photos after seeing anything so beautiful !! Some more time lost, if not wasted.
Then came the showstopper of the day. We were happily cursing along & it was 4 PM by now, with 365 KMs covered. I somehow noticed that the area around a km ahead looked kinda misty. I just asked my co-pilot if it might be raining ahead & he too felt the same. We decided to take a pause & waited for 2-3 minutes thinking whether we should be going ahead or not. Thank god, the better sense prevailed & we decided to pull over by a dhaba close by. Guess what, it was raining cats n dogs within the next 5 minutes!! Infact such was the amount of rain that we wondered if we would be able to leave in the next couple of hours. But luck favoured & the rain somehow slowed down in the next 30 minutes. We were running out of time with 220 KMs still to be covered & we therefore decided to go ahead with the drizzles on. But we knew it won’t be possible to hit very high speeds anymore with the highway being so wet & with the ZMR on stock tyres. Additionally with each overtaking truck greeting us with a wake up shower every time, it could be really dangerous at times. So we decided to continue riding at a speed between 90-95 KMPH & for at least one hour without any further stop.
Thank god we had this dhaba as our saviour..
We took our next break at around 6.20 PM & It was completely dark by that time. My upper body along with the inside of my shoes was completely wet. I was literally trembling in cold & cursing myself for not bringing along my jacket. I had assumed that it would be a sunny, hot day ahead & jacket would irritate during the ride. Bad, very bad assumption it was
Anyways there was no point in regretting at the end of day. We just ordered for some hot tea & allowed our body to recover in the next half an hour. I changed my T-shirt, removed the wet shocks & we were good to leave by 7 PM.My co-pilot busy in checking the last portion of route while I was saving my life with a cup of tea...
The next couple of hours were relatively uneventful. However our butts had obviously given up by that time. But with just some 100 more KMs to go, we were in no mood to hold back. We reached ORR by 8 PM & that was it !! Our official entry to Hyderabad city !!!! The feeling of “Yeah we did it” was back !
We were relaxed & we were so happy. All the pain in our backs as if vanished at one moment & there was a new bundle of energy out of nowhere. Coz we knew we were there. We knew it would be hardly a matter of couple more kilometres & couple more minutes before the yelling starts, hugs follow, eyes glitter, the beer cans are opened & the old days are revisited A couple of panoramas which I tried taking through my mobile along the way ...
The next 2 days of stay were probably the best I have experienced till date in Hyderabad. I have been to Hyderabad a couple of times earlier; but I used to stay in the older Hyderabad; An area I never really fell for. But this time I stayed with my friends in the newer Hyderabad, which is otherwise called as “Cyderabad”. Built among hills, this place was a real surprise package for me. Newly developed, good roads, nice looking infrastructure, well this is was so much un-hyderabad to me ! But what made me really fall head over hills with this particular area was, it is so much like a hill station. When on roads, you are either climbing or driving downhill. Add to all this the greenery; well I must say I didn’t feel like coming back to the jam packed Bangalore (rather leaving Cyderabad) for the first time !! I must admit that seeing all these I was somewhere regretting that I didn’t stay in Banjara Hills last time I visited this place. The stupid in me had preferred Marriot over Taj Banjara that time
How foolish..Well nothing more to write on the stay. It was all about Chicken Curries, Romali Rotis, Biryanis & Irani Chai. Though Monday got to be an exception as it was Ganesh Chaturthi that day.
The Jagannath temple..
A photo we took on Ganesh Chaturthi...
Well the honeymoon got over very soon & we were set to return on 10th Sep. But unlike how we had started our journey, this time we could though start much earlier; at around 7.15 am. We had decided not to ride as fast during the return. So we just started off at a very very mild speed. And then we wanted to enjoy the morning ride as much as possible. Therefore riding fast would have ruined the entire idea. The first break we took was for breakfast; at around 9 am. I guess it was more of a motel. But it was decent enough.
We kept riding at the same mild speeds while enjoying every bit of scenery around the highway. This was the part of the road we had missed enjoying the other day as we were approaching day end. So we wanted to see every bit of it. Somewhere along the way we took two small tea breaks & set off again. I guess it must be around 1.30 PM we reached one Reliance Plaza & thought of finishing our lunch there. The place was really beautiful; along the highway, surrounded by hills & lush green terrain all around. I guess we couldn’t have asked for more. Then it had started raining a bit too. But as soon as we entered the compound, we recollected that all the reliance filling stations have been closed actually
Then how could this Reliance Plaza be real !! & we were right; coz the restaurant turned out to be some ‘G R Plaza’ instead. Anyways, we ordered some food, finished our lunch & shoot off again. But like the first day of our journey the rain god was unfortunately back again to haunt us. We though had to stop at one point, but this time we knew the trick.
We had understood that it usually rains within a radius of 2 KMs. So we decided to continue even if it rained. We knew we would get dried up very soon too. It was around 6.30 PM we reached Bangalore new airport & I must tell you we were really tired by that time. Not because of wind blast or anything else, but because our butts had given up completely this time. Luckily we found a CCD just next to Hiranandini & we decided to pull over. We knew we got to sail through the nasty Bangalore traffic for at least one & a half hours next. So it was high time for some hot cappuccino & rest. My partner was thinking of grabbing a chair and to relax. But I wondered if that could help really. After all it was continuous sitting only which had been our source of problem
Anyways a 30 minutes of break & cappuccino worked wonders & we decided to leave for our last stretch of ride to reach home at around 8.30 PM. Finally a couple of purely automotive observations which I would like to highlight from this experience…
- I guess I love my ZMR a hell lot more now. I have been quite critical of it till this ride. But it did pass a lot of tests this time. Throughout the entire journey it pulled & it just pulled without complaining even once.
- Rimula R4 though did disappoint to some extent. While it ensured a butter smooth journey for the first half, I guess the oil had lost it by the time we reached Hyderabad. Because when we returned, I could feel significant vibrations in the handle bars & foot pegs after 30 odd kilometres only. I could feel the engine getting heated up relatively much faster than expected. I guess this oil works superbly for 1500 Kms only if you ride inside the city; may be if you ride some 50 odd KMs daily. I would rather try a fully synthetic oil for such a long ride next time.
- I think even ZMR too has a speedo issue. Even with an avg speed of more than 100 Km/Hr for one hour, I found to have covered some 90 odd KM only ! A little disappointing
- With all the comfort, stability & reliability it provided though out, I wish only if the beloved ZMR had some better braking & some more cushion on the seat. The bike takes really some time to come to a halt from a very high speed with the pillion.
As I am finishing up this travelogue, I guess the only past experience I could find so very similar to this is when me & some of my friends trekked Mt. Fuji a couple of years ago. I remember it was equally exciting, wild, fun filled, tiresome & painful. But the true feeling of the accomplishment started only after a couple of days; when we had recovered & were back to daily regular life. Because the feeling of 'Oh we really did it' started to come then only !!!
. No No..its not because of the words per say (you did not mess it at all..) but the pun you intended 
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