After returning from Coorg on Apr 8th, I was wondering where will my wonderlust take me next. I was longing for a ride already!! Enter Vasanth("Vaas2000"[BN] a.k.a DeadMan Inc[XBhp]). My good friend and fellow member in BN and XBhp. He started a thread[made up of mails to and fro between different people who might have been interested in making the trip].
Finally the dates we had proposed were agreed upon and the route was decided and everything was finalized within a few days.
Finally the day was about to dawn[Apr 28th 2007]. All excited i had packed my cramsters, frozen my all important supply of Gatorade, cleaned my riding gear the previous day. Everything ready i cleaned my bike fairing and applied the ceremonious vermilion and some flowers for good luck. Then when I took the bike off the center stand; lo and behold! I found God had decided some other fate for me that day. I'd got a flat rear tire which i found out when I was about to start at 5:00am !!!!! I was devastated; then when i got to grips I thouhgt everything bad that had happened to me had a good reason. Yeah! It was to avoid a bigger problem or just even to avoid some embarassment. So I thought of dropping out of the trip and called Vaas and told what had happened. Vaas being my good friend and fellow rider said he'd try and convince the others to wait somewhere on the way.
Ok one good thing I found is to what extent my fellow riders will support me!!Then came the task to get the bike into shape. Bangalore being a late waking city finding a puncture walla was a big task. I tried a lot of persons whom i thought could help[including the ever helping Mr Venkat from Autoservice our friendly neighbourhood service center owner.] But to no avail, I kept on trying and at 9:30 am was able to get everything in place and started for Hassan where the other people were to wait for me after visiting Shravanabelagola.
First day I proved my mettle and my bike's. Reached outskirts of Hassan by 12:50 which is around 180-200kms from Bangalore[This includes the horribly busy traffic ridden roads from my Home to the diversion to NH48 some 40kms].
The road being fairly good from the diversion I was able to maintain good speeds. But I must say had a very bad experience when a truck was about to plough me down at 80km/hour!! The ruthless fucker just barged into my lane from the opposite direction trying to overtake another slower moving truck. I had to brake hard and the bike skidded into the gravel on the sides of the road!! Narrow escape but just a small example what kind of lane discipline our transport vehicle drivers follow and what risk they create to the other vehicles. Finally rejoined my fellow riders and then on it was just fun. When alone you are to fend for yourself but in a group you have like minded people who will support you at any cost. Also on a highway when in a group you get noticed better than when riding solo.
Here on the fun part started! We stopped near a waterfall just after Sakleshpur which is just by the road so very accessible. The cool water was refreshing to wash your face with. Potable dont think so!
The ride through the ghats takes you into a different place altogether!! You are surrounded by thick vegetation and greenary envelopes you! After the hot plains where the air is hot and dry the cool breeze in the lush jungles is a welcome treat.
We stopped at various places to take pics and cherish the sights. All the while we were dreading the rains!! Had heard from people travelling in that direction that there were heavy rains in these regions. Fortunately all the while we were riding the roads were wet to a little extent indicating that we had missed the rains by a short time. Good for us! Finally reached Mangalore at around 6:30 pm.
Accomodation; such a simple thing! I had asked my colleagues for accomodation and accounting to my vulnerability; they had suggested some place deep in the heart of the city with small narrow winding roads and throughly mad I repeat MAD bus drivers zigzagging their passengers through these streets!!
To the rescue came fellow XBhpians "Zahin" and "Sujay"!! They tagged along and found some accomodation which even had decent parking space and clean toilets and hold your breath DAMN CHEAP!!! I mean what can you term this when the propreiter allows 3 people to stay in the same double room meant for 2 for just Rs350/-! Kudos to these guys!
Next morning was to the beach!! Thaneerbhavi to be exact: All of us had fun playing in the surf and also driving up and down the beach on our bikes!! The photo below will tell the whole story!
Funny how the beach and surf can turn hard core bikers into kids free to enjoy themselves void of all inhibitions! Next stop was "Bekal Fort"!. But before that we were treated to a hearty breakfast by Zahin and wash and cleaning at the hotel.
"Bekal Fort" is situated 14kms from Kasargod town just after crossing into Kerala. This fort does not have any descriptions on who built it or why the location and all. Kerala Torism please note.
Well its claim to fame is that the song "Tu hi re" of "Bombay" film was shot here in monsoon.
Here are some pics!
Next after some cool drinks we left for Calicut but it was already 5:00pm so we rode until just before dusk and stopped at Kannur for the night. Now this is strange: We could not find a decent hotel which served fish in Kannur which is right on the coast! Maybe as fish is Kannur's staple diet, they love to indulge in beef and chicken in hotels and restaurants which was a common menu at many places!!
Next day me and Vaas hyped everybody up by talking about the twisties that we would come across on the way to Kalpetta our next destination! Yes this is the title of the blog because this is the crust of our ride! This is the "creme la creme" of our ride!
Before we started we came to know about a beautiful beach called "Kappad" near Calicut. So that was our next stop for the day. Truly this is a wonderful beach!! Calm, serene, clean and unspoilt.
We had breakfast at Kappad beach resort which was really good! We then explored the beach. Just as we were doing it I remembered my co rider Kamlesh Sanwal's photo trick and this is the result!
Coool ain't it!? Its actually our reflections on the tinted visor of my helmet!
After monkeying around for a while we left for Kalpetta and man what roads just cream and butter smooth!
Finally at around 1:00pm we reached Adivaram village just before Lakkidi ghats! I was leading the pack so I stopped and announced that we were at the start of our beloved "Twisties"!! Hurray!!
One view from the top!
Here on the "Valentino" in every one of us started to wake up and riders tried to take sharp turns with maximum lean. I scraped my feeler bolts twice and am proud to brag about it! After that we reached Kalpetta and had a hearty lunch and rested. In the evening we set off for Kuruva island supposed to be just 40 kms from Kalpetta. Very misleading at the least coz it turned out to be somewhere nearly 70 kms with about the last 3kms of dirt track. And to add to that there was nothing much to see there.When we started off from there the rain gods thought of giving us a shower! So there we were riding in slush and dirt back from Kuruva. To add to our misery it was almost dusk. Unfortunalely one of our bike's battery went konk and the whole bike depended on battery to run.Somehow we managed to get the bike started. Then on it was pure disciplined riding in formation keeping the konked bike in the center and maintaining safe speeds,proper signalling and et all! Finally reached Hotel had booze and crashed for the night!
Next morning was the day when we would eat twisties for breakfast! We got up real early so that the Lakkidi ghat twisties would be deserted and we could pull some good foot-peg scraping turns and bends.
But before that some serenity and zen meditation and this is the place for that! The Lakkidi viewpoint. Calm..........
Here are the results!! Awesome ain't it!
Later we were off to Tushargiri falls and some water splashing and photography!!
After this it was time to return to the daily grind of office and boring weekends; but before that it was the blast on Mysore-Bangalore highway!! Attained a top speed of 115 km/hr almost on par with Bullets!! But the real winner was the ZMA; bloody thing just accelerates and leaves just dust behind! But wonly slight glitch, it got dark very soon, so back to the routine of formation ride and controlled speeds.
Reached Bangalore at 10:30pm regrouped at Bangalore University Gates; thanked each other for their excellent company and parted ways, just for the next time a ride comes our way!
