Team-BHP - The art of travelling between Bangalore

Ampere,

I have explained the Nice- NH4 route from a Mysore road-entry point of view:

1) Entry on Mysore road - after Kengeri - on the left. Toll Booth just before you enter the Nice road here.

2) Exit on Tumkur Road (NH4) - On the left - Just after the toll booth on the Nice road. This is the first toll booth you will encounter 'on' the Nice road when coming from Mysore road. Do not take any other exit before you encounter this toll booth.

(check attachments)

Quote:

Originally Posted by ampere (Post 2121792)

Parag, All,

Can you please explain the map around the toll road and NICE.

1. If one comes/goes through NICE what he needs to do?
2. How should enter exit the toll road?

PS: Its been ages since I have been there.

Amp, I seldom take the NICE and then take the toll road since I stay in North Bangalore and I get onto the Toll road right from where the booth is located on Bangalore side.

However, when I did Bangalore-Pune in July I had to drop my wife and kid at HSR Layout and then took the NICE to proceed towards Pune. During this time, the only way I could enter the Toll section was by staying on the extreme right of the service lane and then taking a Right-U-Turn and again a Left-U-Turn to get on the toll road. The place where I did this is actually for exiting from the Toll road onto the service lane and not advised. Honestly, I dont' remember exactly where one can enter the toll road if coming from NICE and wanting to go towards Nelemangala/Tumkur.

This might also be due to the fact that not all the bridges were open at that time. Other who took this recently Via NICE should throw some light.

But I am 100% sure on where to get down from the Toll road to get onto the NICE road.

After Nelemangala,Keep watching for the Himalaya Drug Co on the right and a kilometer or two after this is an IOC Station on the left and soon after this you can actually spot the high mast lamp and overbridge cutting across NH4 from a distance. There is now a board that clearly tells Chennai/Hosur/Mysore etc and just after this you remain on left and get down onto the service lane.

Once on the service lane, a few meters ahead you see on the left that there is an entry to NICE.

OK, here is the latest update as I took NICE to reach Electronics City today morning from Tumkur Road and observed something that will help.

To get on to Toll Road from NICE, one will have to merely get down from the exit Ramp of NICE (Towards Tumkur) and about 100 meters ahead there is 2 gate Toll booth installed to accomodate vehicles wanting to get into the Toll Road. I saw these today and I know they would've been installed long back but never noticed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ampere (Post 2122594)

So in effect there should be 2 sets of toll gates. One for entry/exit from Toll to NICE and the other : entry exit from normal road to NICE.

Main toll booth to Exit NICE is about 1.5 Kms before you get down the exit Ramp as thats the last section of NICE. This is the same Toll gate that essentially caters to both Incoming and Outgoing traffic.
A toll booth just after about 2 Kms from 8th Mile Signal on Tumkur road with Multiple gates (main gate) to make an entry into the Toll road.
Another 2 gate Toll booth to help NICE traffic get into the toll road which is situated just after you exit down from NICE (as mentioned above).

Hi Folks,

I did the Mangalore-Bangalore route last weekend.
Left Mangalore at 7:30, took the shiradi ghats route. Reached Bangalore around 6:15. This included about 6 stops (We were to try to get my baby to have food) in between totalling around 2-2.5 hrs. I am sorry did not keep perfect count.
Again the only bad roads are near sakaleshpur (about a 50 KM stretch), but it is manageable if you drive slow and carefully.
I would recommend this route to anyone wanting to travel the mangalore-bangalore route.

Just returned back from a trip of Sringeri, Horanadu & Dharmasthala. My take on the roads are :

Hassan to Sringeri ( Via CKM, Balehonnur) - 90% good roads
Sringeri to Horanadu ( Via Kudremukh) - Road upto SK Border - 50/50
SK Border to Kalasa - Good
Horanadu(Kalasa) to Dharmasthala ( via SK Border, Bajagoli) - 90% good roads
Dharmasthala to Hassan ( Via Charmadi, Mudigere, Belur) - 90% good roads
The road surface at the haripin bends in Charmadi has deteriorated with some moderately sized craters at some bends. I had covered the same Charmadi stretch in March and the roads were in a better condition then.

The above observations are based on driving a Wagon-R. If the same roads are covered in a Sedan / SUV, the drive will be definitely a better one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sushrutha (Post 2121469)

If I consider the erratic bus dirivers + number of 2 wheelers riding in their own world + Magadi town potholes + Sunkadakatte road,
I would say Kunigal - Nelmangala stretch is better than Magadi road, based on the above points. Though Kunigal-Nelmangala stretch has too many Road humps , but quite Managable

So ,what you recommend for someone starting at 4 am from Bangalore?
I havent done the Nelamangala -Kunigal route since quite sometime.I am skeptical of doing Magadi-Kunigal at that time of the morning due to the heavy rush of Bangalore bound vehicles in the morning.

Quote:

Originally Posted by speedsatya (Post 2127300)

Go ahead with the Nelamangala - Kunigal route. I started from my home at 4.30am on Saturday and it was a breeze on this stretch.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rajesh K R (Post 2127251)

I Totally agree with you here.
I had been to Sringeri - Hornad 3 days back.
Most of the road is in good condition.
Best is between Mudigere - Kalasa, newly laid tar road.

Quote:

Originally Posted by speedsatya (Post 2127300)

Sathya, if you are starting by 4am, If you are staying in South Bangalore/ Near Indiaranagar , I would suggest you to take NICE Road and join. MAGADI - KUNIGAL stretch, forget the 2kms potholed stretch inside the Magadi town.
Last Saturday, I took the Nelmangala Kunigal stretch, too much of road humps and deviations

Just came back from a B'lore-M'lore roundtrip; my route:

Onward:
1) B'lore - Tumkur - Gubbi - Tiptur - Arsikere - Bhanavara- Belur- Mudigere- Charmadi Ghats - Belthangady - Mangalore (7.5 hrs: 1 break. Total Dist: 400 kms)

B'lore to Bhanavara: was a breeze (left early and hence missed the Nelamanagala traffic). Only bad road was Tumkur Bypass road.

Bhanavara - Belur: not so good road. Narrow. requires you to go off the road to overtake trucks. Several stretches of heavily cratered roads.

Charmadi ghats - 80% excellent roads. 20% real bad. But for a ghat, this was above expectations for me. Beautiful scenery though. And hardly any traffic.

Belthangady - Mangalore: few stretches of bad roads. But mostly manageable. A small stretch of terrible road once you enter M'lore though.

Return:
2) M'lore- Charmadi - Belur - Hassan - Kunigal -Nelmanagala - B'lore (6.5 hrs. Total Dist: 400 kms)

I highly recommend this route right now.
M'lore - Belur is covered above.
Belur - Hassan: Wide 4 lanes, excellent road.
Hassan -Kunigal: Good road, diversions at some points but cruising at 90 is easy.
Kunigal - Nelmangala: Good road. Potholes seemed to be patched up.
Nelmangala-B'lore: Expect traffic in peak hours. But most of the flyovers are complete so still can maintain decent speeds.