Ride Approved

waiting for more bro.. looks like you had a great ride !

Loved the 2 nd pic!

Cheers!

Thanks pal...

Although not in terms of distance but the hardships faced makes this one the toughest I ever had...

@Sunny bro : thanks for the approval...Best of luck for your New Zealand trip!!!

Wah wah..touring start ho gaya..!! Put up rest of the pics too..

I feel 1 or 2 pictures are over-processed..

Start??? Prolly you forgot 2008 monsoons

Lately did Pune-Bang solo run(NV can tell u) and another 400kays trip to Tamil nadu. Just that am a bit lazy to do a write up

I meant after the hibernation.

Abt the Pune-bang i knew abt it..that was just to re-locate na..

Tamil nadu ka nahi pata tha..

Oh...yeah...finally am back on road!!!

Went to a place named Hogenekkal falls. Some pics here

The waterfalls do look good and BIG.

Day 1:

Plan was to start by around 5-5:30AM in order to have ample time to check out places in between. But thanks to the heavy booze the night before, I managed to start only at 7ish. Traffic was already creeping up on mysore road and maintaining speeds of even 70-80kph was tough.

Just after Mysore...







With small butt/sutt(read sutta) breaks in a gap of 80-100 kays reached Madikeri(Coorg). Till this place it was all easy going with decent roads. Had done around 250kays when I stopped for lunch-break and enquired about further roads. Got a warning from locals that hereon the roads get worse and its ghats almost all the way till mangalore.Little did I know what I was about to face from here. Meanwhile my bike's number(MH-12) raised a lot of eyebrows with people enquiring if I was coming from Mumbai(For people in the relatively smaller places here mumbai is the only place in Maharashtra)

Lunch break...





Cautiously I started the last leg of the journey to mangalore. Right from the word go roads were under construction on one side and no roads on the other where the whole traffic was doing chicken-dance around the li'l patches of road available. I hardly remember doing anything above 45kph for next 130kms which took me a whopping 4.5 hours.Almost forgot that I had 5 gears on the bike.Still I felt lucky of being on a bike coz the cars had a real hard time negotiating the terrian. Having spent more than 2 years in Pune I have seen lots of ghats and this was the worst I had ever seen.

Knee scraping anyone???



Somewhere in between the ghats...









Best that was available in the ghats...



Wanted to finish this up ASAP and anyways there were hardly any gud scenery around.At around 5:00pm was presented with some decent roads till mangalore(last 35kms).Gud thing about the journey was that I faced no issues with language. Hindi was understood and okayishly spoken by almost everyone. Route was more or less straight so whenever I enquired in order to make sure am on the right way I used to get the same answer...Mangalore STRAIGHT-AAA!!!

Indeed strainght-AAA!!!



Finally I hit mangalore around 5:30PM where my cousin was waiting for me at the entrance of the city and we went to his flat. I could feel the bike pleading for rest after the rigorous journey(although only a 420kms). Left her in the parking lot for the evening and took a auto to the multiplex where Aamir Khan awaited us to show his latest offering (The 3 Idiots). The movie freshened up the mood and I finally hit the sack with a smile on my face imagining the beach fiesta that awaited me the next day.

Stats :
Riding hours- 10hrs 30mins (including butt/sutt breaks)
Distance - 420kms

Updates:
Day 2
Day 3

Awesome stuff, Soumen.Btw, try adjusting the white balance of the pic.Some of the pics have blue tint in them.But even with that they look cool.

Btw,I guess your bike must be missing me badly!!

Updates : Day 1

Day 2: BEACH FIESTA!!!

Ride+late nite movie resulted in a good sleep of around 8 hours and by the time I opened my eyes it was already 9AM. The plan for this day was simple. Check out the town a bit and ofcourse the main goal : beaches!!! Am a sucker for beaches

Old memories...My X-firm



After finishing up the daily chores headed straight to Palambur beach. Found it well maintaiened with jet-ski and leisure boat service in place. Enjoyed a ride into the sea for 40 bux a person.But issue here was, being almost a commercial beach it had a parking lot which meant I couldn't take my bike to the sea. Hence decided to head to another beach.

Some of Palambur:





Even here...yammy!!!



Crowded it was



Surathkal(Famous for NIT) was the next stop. As soon as I reached here a big smile came on my face as it was almost a virgin beach with hardly any soul around and that meant I could take my bike right into the water(not literally though). Had a small photo-shoot and dived into the water. Had this experience last prolly more than a couple of years back(don't even remember exactly).

Suratkhkhal beach....











Riding on water was fun....







Two years of courtmanship completed...Happy b'day dear!!!



After around 3 hours of chai-chappa-chai in the water received a call from stomach that it was almost 3PM and it needed some re-fuelling. So headed back to mangalore from here for lunch when I realized the bike was acting a bit rough. It was around a 1000kms since last oil change(Mind you whole 1000kms of ultimate rip, no city biking whatsoever). Hence hunt begun for Castrol Power1 which was not tough to find and got the oil changed. From here headed to room for a shower as sea-bath left the body quite sticky...

Next stop: Someshwar beach....went for sunset shoot but all I managed was this...thanks to rain god...hid the setting sun







Day 2 stats :

Distance : 80kms(just nearb places!!!)

@ the end of day went out to booze with cousin(decided 1 beer each) which ended up to ~3 beers each. Returned room from there deciding to take the hasssan way from there which was shorter but it was not as easy as expected...

Updates:
Day 3

Hyperion likes this.

Good stuff man. Please also post the log for your Pune-Bangalore ride.

Updates :

Day 1
Day 2

Day 3 :

Woke up at around 6AM with a overcast sky . Straight-away I knew its gonna be one tough day ahead as I didn't foresee rains and eventually didn't have rain gears. Anyways I start the return journey at around 7AM and 10kms into the ride rain-god start showering his blessings. Took refuge in a shade for around 30 mins hoping the rain would stop but to my dismay it never did. Hence packed all the electronic stuff in polythene bags and start the journey under heavy showers. Within no time I was wet till my under-pants but hardly was left with any choice.



This time around I took the hassan-neelmangla route and in contrast to the previous route(mysore-madikeri route) this one was gud...Atleast something was going my way. After around 80kms ghats start and here begins my ordeal. Roads were pathetic for next 90-100 kms which was totally ghats and that too under heavy showers. Wherever I took a break I could see people staring at me in awe (thanks to my wet pants and gears). It was really chilly and at the same time I had to be extra alert through the ghats. Took around 4 hours for the 100kms patch after which roads started getting better and I zipped past Hassan. Hereon the journey was decent enough with gud roads but showers never left me all the way till bangalore.

Somewhere in between the ghats.





*Although had some beautiful sceneries in the ghats but couldn't click any pics as it was raining hard and I wanted to finish the ride ASAP.

All I was worried about was reaching city limits before dusk coz riding in the dark with poor lights and rain to add to my woes would have been tough. Thankfully I managed to reach the city with natural light still on me. Finally tearing through the busy bangalore traffic reached room at around 7PM. Thanks to my immune system I didn't catch cold/fever inspite of the ~12 hour run under rain. Never was I so bloody tired after a meagre 400kms. Somehow managed to get rid off the wet clothes and hit the sack after a light dinner.

Day stats :

Ride duration : ~12 hours (Had rain-god been a bit considerate would have easily be 8 hours max)
Distance covered : ~400kays

Total trip meter : ~900kms.

All in all this goes down as the toughest journey in terms of ride conditions I ever faced. Looking forward to explore further south soon

P.S : If anybody's planning a kerala trip from bangalore do lemme know as thats on my wish-list next

Amazing pics, Soumen. Loved the beach shots especially.