3500km South India Bike Trip - Part 1

Sometimes a dream is all that take to achieve that may seem impossible. Many of you may think that 3500km is not that much, and you are absolutely right. There are 'legend' bikers who have put that many kilometers and more multiple times. But it is impressive when it is planned by few 'novice' bikers (except one) and successfully completed.

We started planning the South India ride way back in May-Jun 2020, when most of the country was still in full lock down. Partners in crime - Ashish (@ashish_ranjan_87)(Youtube Channel: Highway Stories), Kshitiz (@nuisancejunkie), Shreyas (@Shreyas_ad), and Amrut (@iamrut11), the same Hampi trip gang.

I don't know about others, but I participated in the planning as a joke as I never thought we were going to undertake this trip owing to uncertain situation. Other reasons being:

• Given 4 out of 5 are married, undertaking a 10-11 day trip away from home is neither an easy decision nor an easy discussion with your better half :-)
  
• Just like our Hampi ride , this was again going to be the longest ride for all of us, except Kshitiz.

For some reason all of us agreed on Munnar as the destination, and I think Ashish was the one who planted that in our head. Once the destination was fixed, we finalised our route plan after multiple iterations, given the constraint that I didn't wanted the trip to last more than 10 days excluding 1 day in reserve. We all agreed that we will only pre-book our stay in Munnar and keep the rest open to provide us enough flexibility and allow us to ride at our own pace as well as make changes to the plan if required.

Five of us initially planned the trip - Ashish (@ashish_ranjan_87), Kshitiz (@nuisancejunkie),  Shreyas (@shreyas_ad), Amrut (@iamrut11) and me (@subitsaurav). A friend of Shreyas also decided to join us, but as happen with most group trip, Amrut dropped out few days before the trip and very unfortunately Shreyas' friend had to drop out the night before because of personal reason. Despite these hiccups, all four of us were very excited for the trip and we started on the morning of December 16, 2020. The final route maps for our trip:

(Google Route Map)

Given the objectives of the trip were simple (1) Riding :-) and (2) Reaching Munnar on the third day, and hence we didn't planned any sightseeing on the way. We wanted to take the more scenic route and hence choose to take the coastal route from Hubli rather than main highway. 

Our trip route was Mumbai - Hubli - Ankola - Mangalore - Udupi - Kannur - Kozhikode - Munnar - Coimbatore (Adi Yogi) - Ooty - Coorg - Belur - Devangere - Hubli - Mumbai.

On the first day, we started early and after riding around 600km, ended the day at Hubli. We stayed in Ramya Residency, which is right beside the NH48. Very decent hotel in terms of cleanliness and service, but their non-veg food was literally out of the world. I'll highly recommend stopping at Ramya Residency for food to anyone passing by Hubli. 

We could have easily done another 100-150km but few things stopped us from doing so. First, while we were a group, we were riding like solo riders, which was not a good idea as we ended up wasting time in coordinating. So, my learning:

• In a group ride, always ride in a manner that the next rider in visible in the rear view mirror;
• The fast riders in the group should be riding in the back and not leading the group, and the slowest rider should be in between;
• Blue-tooth communicator can be a boon, but it will only be helpful if the above two points are followed;
  
• Don't do elaborate lunch breaks but rather a quick one. If anyone in the group is stopping for fuel break, everyone fuel up. If anyone is stopping for bio break, everyone take a bio break.
  

Unfortunately, I only got 'enlightened' towards the end of trip and we didn't waste any time coordinating during the last three days. Hopefully, in the next trip, we will be able to implement these from day 1. Few pics from Day 1:

Day 1 blooper: Ashish's phone fell off the holder, but lucky guy that he is, he got it back. Thanks to a good samaritan.

Day 2 plan was to start early and try to reach Kozhikode. Rather than taking the main highway, we took the coastal road. We crossed the ghats, enjoying the twisties and reached Ankola in fairly good time, and stopped for breakfast. Even though it was mid December, after 10am it was becoming very hot leading to dehydration. Hence we were stopping after every 70-80 km for water/ sugarcane juice/ coconut water. Saving grace was awesome roads of Karnataka, allowing us to keep decent pace. We entered Kerala in evening, took late lunch break and finally ended the day in Kannur, around 100km short of Kozhihode. Another challenge was, as soon as you enter Kerala, you would be saying goodbye to broad highways with divider and will be riding on 2-lane highways without any divider, reducing our average speed considerably. Few pics from Day 2:

Kaladi Town, birthplace of Shri Sankaracharya

 

Day 2 blooper: Shreyas bike got punctured multiple times, but thankfully on the highway.

 

Ask any biker, and he will swear by the statement, "Happiness isn't around the corner, it is the corner". And that's what waited for us for most of the Day 3 to Day 6, i.e. Kannur - Munnar - Coimbtore - Ooty - Coorg.

 

Day 3 we rode through some amazing scenery, and twisties. The only complain I have, for some reason, Kerala government has decided not to broaden their highways, and the highways pass right through every town. However, you forget all these once you start climbing up for Munnar, its just the road, you and your bike. With every passing corner, I can't describe the feelings but smile on my face was getting wider and wider. It seemed like the bike was purposefully built to do this. 

The day 3 blooper was big enough to be part of main narrative 😀. 

 

As I mentioned above we only pre-booked our stay at Munnar. While the property was fabulous, the route to the property was not. They are broadening the main road, and at one place because of work, the road was blocked. The owner had given an alternated route to follow which was quite challenging. But as luck would have it, I missed the route that owner had given us and followed Google which took us to the road block. To add to it, given Kshitiz and I were driving faster, and hence were far ahead of Shreyas and Ashish, so there was no way they could have called us and informed that we have taken the wrong route. Now at some point in time, Kshitiz was feeling hot in his gears and decided to take off his gloves. His Himalayan skidded and he had a bad fall. While the bike didn't suffer much damage, Kshitiz hurt his left hand badly. Luckily, I had a first aid kit. As soon as we moved forward, we encountered the blocked road and the person guided us to narrow broken path with loose stones. 

 

The minute we took that path, my confidence shook as I wasn't sure if I'll be able to ride my Ninja300 on loose boulders. To make matter worse, my bike skidded, fell and the right side foot peg broke. It meant I couldn't use my rear brake. The next one and half hour was 'trial by fire', riding my bike in the dark, through narrow roads full of loose boulders without being able to use my rear brake. Somehow, Kshitiz and I reached our hotel without breaking anything else.

Luckily, Shreyas and Ashish, had followed the route the owners had given, and hence despite being behind us, they reached the hotel ahead of us.

 

Original plan was to stay over next day (Day 4) in Munnar, do local sight seeing and leave for Adi Yogi, Coimbatore on Day 5. However with my bike's right foot peg broken, and Kshitiz having hurt his left hand, we needed to re-access the situation.

One of the challenge with owning bikes of premium brands is that their service stations are far and few. For me, the nearest Kawasaki service centre was in Kochi approx 130km. Initially we tried if the service centre could courier us the foot peg so that we could get it fixed locally. The service centre guy was really helpful, and asked us to call back next day morning, which was Saturday. Luckily they had the spare right foot peg but they could only deliver it by Monday or Tuesday via courier. That would have made a dent in our plan as well as pocket 😀.

So I decided to drive to Kochi on Day 4, get my bike fixed and then meet the gang in Coimbatore on Day 5. While it was difficult to ride with my right foot resting on the silencer, I quickly got a hang of it, reached Kochi safely and got my bike fixed. Next day while I started on time, and reached Adi Yogi before lunch, my group reached Coimbatore late evening, and Adi Yogi visit was re-scheduled for next day.

 

 Day 6 onwards to be continued in part 2....