Day 5 (Salem - Bangalore)

We started around 9:30 as we had not much to cover, only 200 kms with GQ complete we knew we would reach Bangalore by 2 PM. After one stop we reached the BPCL pump at krishnagiri, had our breakfast at Adyar Anandha Bhavan complex. Soon we reached Hosur where we were invited with bad roads with some stuggle with bad roads and traffic we reached Bangalore around 2. Stopped to say bye to Akhil took few fotos. Reached home at 2:30, and said to my sis with a grin on my face "Look i am back in one Piece".

Breakfast at BPCL Adyar Anandha Bhavan

Total Distance 1494(+165 kms Gps was dead)

@ the end of the trip

Day 4 (Trivandrum - KanyaKumari - Salem)

D Day for me :)
The plan was to leave early in the morning around 4:30 AM, the water tank in the house had run dry and getting water into the pipes Akhil woke me up, it was around 4:30 then, quickly took a shower and we were all set to leave by 5 AM, Joe in mean time was waiting for us, he sent us off and we started ripping to catch the sunrise, when we reached Neyyatinkara there was a 2 kms jam, we did everything to get out of the jam, even the narrow NH slowed us down.. we knew we would miss the sunrise, around 7 the sun was hitting directly into our eyes which made worse to ride, the other factor was the wind, considering my weight and my bike weight the wind was easily throwing me off the road :D Finally we reached out destination, KanyaKumari, we stopped near some scenic spot.

Do i need to say more

The two R's

End of the land

One at the end of the land

Me posing :D

After spending enough time we reluctantly moved on has we had a long way to go back, next 30 kms were narrow, patchy roads. In this route we found some 1K+ wind mills for almost 10 kms, it was a sight to pass through these.

Wind mill surrounded road

After which we hit the GQ and we thought it would be a rip session for the rest of the day but we were wrong, after traveling for 10 kms we knew it would be hard for the rest of the day because of the deviations the road had every 2 kms. It was around 11, we found some decent restaurant and had our breakfast. We met with some elderly people there you were obviously surprised seeing a 12L bike touring and another exhibition started which went on for 15 mins :D.

Soon we were cursing on the GQ around 100 kmphr easily but every 2 kms there was diversion which made the road two lane, now this was pain. The roads were like this till Salem. Even though the road is completed dont know why they have not opened yet. To add to this there was a light drizzle. The R1 needed fuel badly so we took a detour to Kovilpatti, after some wanderings we finally got the pump with premium petrol, then left for Madurai. Reached Madurai around 3 , went in search of the famous 'GowriShankar hotel', soon found it, had full meals. Yummy food i should say. The owner was kind enough to get us a table at the entrance of the hotel so that we could see our bikes.

After one more heavy meal we started towards Madurai, it was not even 10 mins we left i was feeling very sleepy, so stopped and Akhil asked me to sleep for some time, i slept for good 20 mins next to the road :D. After i woke up we headed towards Salem, It was around 4:30 and we had to cover 220 kms, it was not the distance which was bothering us but the roads, we encountered at least 70 diversion, this took out all the juice out of us. I was bit ok but it was Akhil who was completely drained out. It was 6:30 and my headlights came up for the first time in the trip. We reached outskirts of Namakkal and stopped for refueling the One. The pump belonged to some local MLA, we came to know Namakkal had pretty good hotels, so we decided to halt there, it was 20 kms away. The MLA was insisting us to stay in Namakkal in his friends hotel which had 5-star facilities with 3-star prices, we were not so comfortable to stay after we spoke with MLA . So we started with two minds whether to stay at Namakkal or head to Salem. While i was leading with all this going in my mind and totally exhausted, one Innova zoomed past us, he was sure in some hurry. Akhil said if we can tail him we can manage to reach Salem. Next 50 kms was rip session for us, the Innova guy was making some unbelievable overtakes. It was dangerous but we had no other way. It was all fine till some Balero guy joined the rip session of ours, seeing Balero zoom past Innova the Innova guy went mad, he started belting more, so we decided to stop following him. Made a small stop relaxed for few mins and started, in 20 mins we reached Salem. Found some decent place to stay where there was basement parking. We even had no mood to have dinner, checked into the rooms and crashed :)

One of the many diversions :mad:

Look how clean the R1 is :D

Click here for Day 5 (Salem - Bangalore)

Day 3 (Aluwa - Trivandrum)

The next days plan was, Aluva-Alleppey-a few kms on MC Road and back-Kollam-Varkala-Trivandrum(Kovallam Beach). So we started off around 6 after strapping the battery back on the R1, we went in search for the fuel, unfortunately we couldn't find pumps with premium petrol and the Crazy Kriega bags made us stop for 4 times in 20 mins. We final found some pump which sold premium fuel filled in and headed towards Allepye, next 60 kms we encountered bad traffic which slowed down us a lot, final we reached Alleppey and headed straight to beach. The Alleppey beach is very clean compared to other beaches, may be its because every one are more interested in the back waters, seeing the clean beach i got very excited and drove into the beach, damn riding in loose sand is very difficult, after riding through the loose sand realized its not even possible to park the bike, called up Akhil who was seeing me thinking what the hell i was doing and asked him to get some stone so that i can park the bike, but the water was soo tempting so could wait for him to get the stone, mean while i removed my shoe and pulled the side stand on it and ran into the water, after some time Akhil came and showed me some old stone jetty where i could have parked safely, Akhil asked me to get the bike there, taking out the R15 out of beach was a task, the next 1 hour for me was full fun playing in the water. We decided to ditch the M.C Road plan and headed towards Trivandrum.

Few pics:

R1 parked safely outside the beach

Do i need to say more :)

The super clean and calm beach

Some struggling act

R1 and the beach

R1, R15 and the beach :D

Riders and the beach

After leaving the beach we stopped at some hotel and finished our breakfast, the next stop would be Trivandrum, the road was 2 lane and i was surprised to hear it was a NH, damn states highways are better, again the traffic haunted us. When we reached Varakal, Akhil pointed towards the beach and took a deviation, it was about 20 kms from the main road and it was worth visiting. This place was beautiful, as soon i saw the place decided when i come to Trivandrum next time, will halt at this place. Let the pics do the talking,

the clean beach

R15 posing

Me posing :D

Joe was waiting for us at Trivandrum, so we left soon, we met some XBHP guys(Sreeraj and Anup) who invited us to their place, so it was 5 mins ride to their place, spent some time with them and headed back.

Joe and his RD

Joe took the led, after reaching the city we passed through some tunnel, it was soo pleasant to hear the RD, R1 and my silent R15 exhaust notes in the tunnel, i said to myself again, some day will own an RD :D. Some thing was not good with the RD, Joe was struggling to ride it, it was the clutch cable, the cable came of from the casing, Joe asked us to continue and said he would meet us later after fixing the bike. It was around 5:30 when we reached Akhil's cousin's place, we were quick to ditch all our bags and headed towards Kovalam on my bike which was around 10 kms from where we stayed.

Kovalam has two beaches, Eve's Beach and Grove's bea. We parked the bike and walked into the Eve's beach, as expected the place was crowded, we soon hopped into speed boat and went for a spin. After this it was all walking in the beach and playing with the waves for me as Akhil was working on his photography skills. The sunset was superb.. Some pics:

Sunset

Me getting washed away :)

After some time Joe called up and said he was at the beach, we met him spent some time and headed back home. After we had dinner, Joe and turbo came along to Akhils cousin's place, we spent some time speaking about bikes and the stunt teams of TVM. We decided the next day plan and crashed for the day. We planned to leave early to KanyaKumari spent some time their and try to reach Bangalore, so it was a long ride tommorrow, around 700+ kms :)

Click here for Day 4 (Trivandrum - KanyaKumari - Salem)

Day 2 (Vadakkencherry - Aluwa)

The second day's plan was to reach Allepye, so there was not much to cover, thought of leaving around 8 AM, the route was: Vadakkencherry-Trichur-Athirapally-Vazhachal-Angamaly-Aluva-Kottayam-Alleppey.

After we hit the roads around 8:30 after having a heavy breakfast, traffic slowed down us a bit and 2 ZMA followed us for while, us means the One here, bugger they were coming b/w us and their way of overtaking vehicles in the traffic pissed me off a lot, after Chalakudy we had to take a diversion from the highway to Athirapally falls, we lost them there, the falls was 29 kms from the highway and i would say this was the best road we travelled in this trip, again following the R1 and keeping with it in the ghat section was fun :D There are two falls, one is Athirapally falls and other one is 10 kms ahead, Vazhachal falls, this place was less crowded as many head back after visiting Athirapally falls and it felt safe to leave our bikes here and we went to check out the falls, took few snaps and headed back by the time we came back the security personnel and cops were drooling around the bikes.. after some Q&A we headed back from there to Athirapally falls, seeing the crowd we decided not to go near the falls as we had to walk 1 kms leaving the bikes behind which was not a good idea, we stopped near some view point and took some pics, i was very tempted to go near the falls , never less this place is worth a visit second time ;). Initial the plan was to take a fery after reaching Athirapally to Angamaly but unfortunately the service had stopped couple of months ago, was a bit disappointed but the roads were superb, so that was good news :). So we headed back, i took the led from Athirapally falls, while i was ripping happily i noticed i couldn't see the One, waited for 2 mins and headed back, it was the Kriega once again which made Akhil stop, he was pissed off with that bag for sure :D. And there are 2 Water Theme Parks on the way to the falls if you are interested you can have fun there.

After heading back some 10 kms from Athirapally falls we need to take a diversion to reach the highway, man this road was tough for both of us, one thing was the heat which was annoying us along with the bumpy, narrow roads , after some drama with bags and hitting some huge craters we hit the Angamaly highway and soon reached Aluwa, Akhil had told me we would have lunch here so i was looking for a hotel, but Akhil took me to some home, i was like :eek: dude whats this, he said its man aunts place, i was again like :eek: this guy has relatives all over :D, then came to know it was Shyam house, i had met him when i went to chennai track with Akhil in his cage, we once again had heavy lunch, Akhil and his One were pretty overheated because of the temp, so we decided to leave around 4, and head towards Allepye which was 60 kms from Aluwa see the sunset and hit TVM if possible.

Now some thing happens which proved R15 is torquey, read on its fun, while i was gearing up Akhil called me and told his bike was dead, it was the battery again, the radiator fan and the new security system had eaten up the battery, so it was push start again for the R1, i think Akhil bike is getting used it now a days :D, so with my A'star knee guards on i started pushing the bike, how dumb was i right, i couldn't run while pushing because of the knee guards, so removed it and Akhil strapped to his elbows :D tried again but no signs and we tried again with me on the bike and Akhil pushing it but the R1 showed no signs of coming back to life, while we were doing all this in the closed road which was parallel to the NH, we had gathered a pretty good number of on lookers :D. Akhil proposed something which looked like a brilliant idea, he said, hey wait will bring your bike lets tow, i was like :eek:, towing a R1 with R15 cool let do it, he bought my bike along with a thread, we tied up one end of the thread to R1 forks and the other end to R15 grab rails and started towing, man it was a sight to see, I told to Akhil, who said R15 has less torque :D. Ok even this attempt failed, Akhil suspected it was some fuse problem and checked it but it was fine, there was some battery shop on the other side of the road where the bike had stalled, so Akhil went to get some help, the guys there helped a lot and checked the battery charge it was around 10.5V, so they got a spare battery and jump started the bike, the R1 roared back :)

It was already 5:00, so we thought it was waste going to allepye has we would go and halt there without seeing any places, so we decided to halt in Akhils aunts place. We went in search of a battery shop to get the battery charged, luckily we found some shop whose owner was very kind to give us the charger and asked us to return in the morning, we couldn't leave the battery there for charging has we decided to leave early the next day, we came back put the battery to the charge and that was the end of the day.

Mean while Akhil remembered the TVM Xbhpians and called up Wiz, he said he was in chennai but joe would meet us.

Now some Pics

Vazhachal falls

Fixing up Kriega

Athirpally Falls

Athirpally Falls

Athirpally Falls

R1 stalled

Click here Day 3 (Aluwa - Trivandrum)

Day 1 (Bangalore - Vadakkencherry)

Flash Back
After i got my bike in June couldn't ride out for many reasons, I always wanted to ride down to KanyaKumari. Mailed all the guys in October whether they were interested in 5 day ride.. obviously no one was interested. I had spoken to Akhil regarding the ride and he was interested, we(Akhil did all the planning though) zeroed in on the routes, places to stay and every possible thing in 2 days. He wanted to do the trip on his R1 but for obvious reasons it was eating dust in Bangalore Wheels for months.. He got the bike in mid November. We decided to leave in first week of December.

The plan was to take this route: B'lore-Vadakkencherry-Munnar-Alappuzha-Trivandrum-Madurai-B'lore.

For unavoidable reasons Akhil had to leave for US on 5th of December and he would come back only by 14th.. so we cut short the plan and we decided to ditch Munnar. So final route came down to this: B'lore-Vadakkencherry-Alappuzha-Trivandrum-Madurai-B'lore.

December 15th: Came back from my native. Sis and Chetu did the packing while they were doing the packing i was patient enough to listen again to all their "be careful, your are mad to do this on a bike and all", they got bored and stopped :D.. Called Akhil and fixed the meeting time 5:30 AM. Was a bit tired so slept a bit early around 11.

The above pic was taken while i was coming back from my native.

Day 1 [December 16th] : Got up at 4:30, was fully pumped up but many things kept on running in my mind like daemon processes, after listening so many things from every one.. Why am I doing this? was one of the daemon process.. Got a call from Akhil at 5:30, he told he will be there in 10 mins, so hooked my bag to the bike and my sis sent me off with a hug, i could see she was worried.

Reached arch in 5 mins and waited for 5 mins and i saw a twin projector light which came and stopped in front of me. It was the R1 which i would follow through out the trip, it was nice to see Akhil in his Alphinestar suit. We took few fotos and left for Mysore.

For the next 1:45 mins i was drolling around the R1 following it till Mysore. By the time i reached Mysore i had killed all the daemon processes running in my mind :D Reached Mysore around 7:45 Am, refilled the One and headed to Maylari hotel, a very good hotel which serves only two items Idly and Masala Dosa, had a plate each, both tasted very good and we hit Nanjagud road, we missed a turn and headed towards Sulthan Bathyre, then asked the locals and headed back to the Sathyamangala road, the roads were worst as we closed in on the Karnataka-TN border.

After the bumpy ride, the board read Welcome to Tamil Nadu and we could see the roads were super, started increasing the pace, Akhil at one moment ran over a Snake mistaking it for a cloth :P, as i was following him the snake started heading back, luckily missed it but my balls almost came to my mouth seeing a snake(its because of the fear i have towards the reptiles. ;) ) And then the Sathyamangala ghats started and we started using our bikes what they can do best , It was a sight seeing the R1 talking the corners :). How many get lucky to follow a R1 in twistes :P

One small foto session

Satyamangala Ghats

Reached Coimbatore refilled the One again and headed towards Vadakkencherry, we decided to have lunch in Akhil's place as the heat was taking a toll on us and even we couldn't stop the R1-R15 exhibition where every we stopped :D. We reached the narrow two lane NH and increased our pace after coming out of the Coimbatore traffic. We were 50 kms from the destination and the cops stopped us for the second time for the day, the first thing they asked was to switch of the R1 headlights which comes off as soon as the bike is started, we were held for over speeding but we were not fined, instead they killed our 20 mins time asking about the bikes. we had done close to 400 kms and the heat was talking a toll on me. Finally the cops told us to leave asking us to ride slow, we were doing 80's, they said these bikes are not for this roads, so ride slow :eek:. One of the cop asked to start the One, its started off with VROOOMM, the cop couldn't resist and twisted the throttle a bit and almost shit in his pants :D..

Finally at 3:30 we reached Akhils farm house, i was very much tired wanted to crash as soon as i reached his place but i was taken back by the place, it was very scenic and calm, got rid of my gears and had lunch. Later Akhil took me to see the estate, everything around the house made the place look beautiful the rubber plantation and the green paddy fields, the cool breeze. A liked the place very much.

Later Akhils uncle advised a different route to Allepye, this was the best route of the trip.. Later found a puncture in my rear tire fixed it, had a heavy dinner and i was fast to crash into the bed..

Now Fhoto's :D

Packing in progress

Morning 5:45 all set to go

Mysore

Sooper hotel Sooper breakfast

Bad roads, fixing my bag

Satyamangala Ghats

Paddy fields in front of the farm house

Rubber plantation

End of the day, My max no of kms done in a day

Day 2 (Vadakkencherry - Aluwa)

Bangalore - KanyaKumari R1/R15 Ride 2008

The dream ride for me, always wanted to ride along the beach, finally did it. :)

At the end of land :)

People called me crazy when i told i was making this trip on bike, when they heard about the R1 they said i was nuts, how can 150 CC keep up with a 1000 CC. . Yes i am crazy, for me riding is freedom, many can't/wont understand it and i have given up convincing them why i do this.

Summary of the ride:

Bikes - R1, R15
Riders - Akhil, Mithun
Kms Done - 1700 kms
Petrol - 39 Ltrs (R15) Mileage 43+
Route - B'lore-Vadakkencherry-Alappuzha-Trivandrum-Madurai-B'lore.

Day 1 (Bangalore - Vadakkencherry)
Day 2 (Vadakkencherry - Aluwa)
Day 3 (Aluwa - Trivandrum)
Day 4 (Trivandrum - KanyaKumari - Salem)
Day 5 (Salem - Bangalore)

Link to Fotos: http://picasaweb.google.com/mithun.08/R1R15Ride2008

Route Maps:

Bangalore - KanyaKumari










KanyaKumari-Bangalore










(Click on images for bigger resolution)