Here are a couple of videos of the Hospet-Chitradurga route. I passed this route recently as part of a longer drive. Hope this helps someone guage the road quality that everyone is mentioning in this thread:

The NH13 tunnel at Hospet:


NH13 Hospet-Chitradurga stretch (This is one of the better road surfaces):

Which route did you take from Bangalore to Bellary while going and on return? And how was the road conditions?

How was the Hospet> Kudatini > Bellary road?

We took the Tumkur->Hiriyur->challakere route for Bellary. This road is pretty good.
Hospet->Kudatini is definitely better than Kampli->Kudatini. It's a single lane highway but we didn't encounter much traffic so avg speed of 100 was easy.

I suppose you took the Tumkur Hiriyur Challakere both going and return?
How long did it take? And how was Kudatini to Bellary?

Also at Hiriyur how did you get on to the Challakere road from NH4? a google map link would be nice.

Leaving for Hampi on 15th Jan. Planning to do the drive via Chitradurga.

Since we are doing the drive in my Xylo, I hope I can swallow the craters on the Chitradurga Hospet stretch, without upsetting my passengers !

Should not be a problem. Especially as you say, you are just driving to Chitradurga, hopefully it should be a short drive.

There are no craters. Just make sure you keep distance from the vehicles ahead. That will help you to avoid potholes.

Just came back from Hospet. Route followed Hiriyur, Challakere, Bellary bypass, Hospet both from and to Bangalore. Distance 370 kms. Road to Hiriyur 6 lane is deteriorating albeit slowly but still one of the best roads today. Hiriyur to Bellary bypass is 2 lane undivided with very good surface except for speed breakers at every village. Lovely twisties as well as arrow straights. Traffic is sparse and no eating / loo joints here.

Getting to the Bellary bypass is a terrible patch of about 200 meters and can easily be missed. It is a railway crossing. Then the bypass itself was good with HUGE speed breakers. I touched my Ninja's silencer on these.

Bellary to Hospet again 2 lane, was ok surface but the mining trucks are driven very rashly so be careful of them.

Took 7 hours door to door.

I did Bangalore C'durga, Hospet some years ago. I prefer Challakere routs as less traffic, good surface, 30 kms more is worth it.

I drove from Hyderabad. Took the Kurnool to Bellary road. Its about 150 kms.
First 30 kms are very bad. The last few kms are horrible. In one section the road is so bad that you can not exceed even 20kmph. That 6 odd kms of craters are so bad that no words can describe them

Drove to and back from Hampi this weekend and tried both routes (albeit accidentally). While going towards hampi I travelled via Bangalore-Tumku-Hiriyur-TB Dam-Hospet Bypass after I accidentally drove past hiriyur and missed the turn towards Bellary. This road is down in dumps after Chitradurga and full of endless queues of huge trucks trying to overtake each other on whatever decent road surface you find. Avoid unless necessary.

While coming back I followed - Gangavathi-Bellary Bypass-Challakere-Hiriyur-Tumkur-Bangalore. For most parts this road is pretty good and you'll be able to maintain triple digit speeds. Some patches between hampi and bellary pass through villages and have speed breakers but after turning right from bellary bypass towards hiriyur it's completely deserted. Bonus part is the road that starts from Kamlapura near Vithalla Temple, goes past Jungle lodges and Daroji bear sanctuary and joins NH63. Absolute peach of a road. Deserted, snaky and perfect road surface.

Here is the route map. https://goo.gl/maps/Qz9N2. Follow this up to kamlapura and then you can chose to go to Vithalla Temple or Hampi. To go to North Side of river don't go via Gangavathy, the road is broken. Go to north side via Hospet itself.

So looks like in spite of improvements on NH13, Hiriyur-Challakere is the better option to take? Except for the food and break points, road is better?

We did a Bangalore-Bellary-Hampi-Bangalore drive during the 26th Jan holiday this year. As we stay at Yelahanka we wanted to explore this less talked about Ananthapur-Urvakonda route to reach Bellary. To our surprise, the road has no potholes, few speed breakers near towns and less traffic compared to Hiriyur - Challakere route. The route was also very scenic. However there are no eateries on this stretch after Ananthapur. We started at 11am from Yelahanka and reached Bellary by 5pm with lunch break at Sher-e-punjabi Dhaba at Ananthapur.

Guys, Planning to drive to Hampi this month and require your inputs on the route to take. Have there been any improvements on Chitradurga - Hampi route or is the Hiriyur - Challakere - Hampi still a better option?

Will there be any decent eateries available in either routes with a good restroom option?

If going to Hampi, you can go either via Kudligi or Hiriyur. I was there last month, and the road via Kudligi is fine. The Hiriyur-Bellary is also fine.

No major facilities once you get off the NH. The last place with conventional facilities would be Naveen Regency in Chitradurga. After that it's just the Dhaba's till you get to Hospet.

Hello Friends,

I am planning on a Bangalore-Hampi trip next weekend. The plan is to take the usual NH4 route : https://goo.gl/maps/pp2ja

Have any of you gone through this route recently? How is the road from Chitradurga --> Hosahalli --> Hospet?