Team-BHP - Chennai - Pune - Shirdi - Tirupati - Chennai! Solo Ride of 3,100 kms

Hi,

Here is the Travelogue for the solo ride from Chennai to Shirdi to Tirupati and back on my CBR 250r 'Akarachi' - firstly a incident free ride but for a minor fall at about 5km per hour when leaving after a break cause I ran over a stone, clearly lack of attention on my part - Just a minor dent on the exhaust guard. I thank all the support I have received from this forum which gave me the confidence to proceed alone and for helping me ideally believe that this was possible - I am guessing that was the battle half won !! it was initially planned as a ride with 3 people including myself and the drop outs started - When it was D'Day I had to choose between a solo or a cancelled program - Solo it was !!

On the ride a minor modification was made to the route and instead of heading to Shirdi from Satara I went to Pune as a surprise visit to meet my son and headed to shirdi from there. The final overall ride in google maps is attached for reference and is also listed below.

Day 1 (11th January 2013) - Chennai to Chitradurga.
Day 2 (12th January 2013) - Chitradurga to Satara.
Day 3 (13th January 2013) - Satara to pune and onwards to Shirdi.
Day 4 (14th January 2013) - Shirdi to Pune.
Day 5 (15th January 2013) - 1 day break @ Pune.
Day 6 (16th January 2013) - Pune to Davangere.
Day 7 (17th January 2013) - Davangere to Tirupati (Via Dabaspet, Chittor and onwards to Tirupati).
Day 8 (18th January 2013) - Tirupati to Chennai.

The ODO clocked about 3100 odd Kilometers, when I left chennai the odo was 2929 and when I reached my garage at home it was 6034 - Obviously it included some local travel in towns/cities when I was there looking for hotels/food/fuel etc. The CBR performed very well, no glitches what-so-ever. The hourly average (counted at the end of the day varied from 70 to 90 KM/HR - The highest speed was in the chitradurga - Satara ride day, about 70/80 km out of chitradurga - slope assisted - 145 ODD KMPH - for about 2/3 km or so I would assume did not check the total distance - A few blips of 125 about twice or thrice a day when a clean road was seen without hindrances/blocks/vehicles - The CBR holds up in a 100/110 Km cruise very well and feels relaxed.Just a odd rattle from the meter console which needs to be looked at during the service ! Maybe another ride or two and a ride upgrade (if folks permit) would be helpful !! I used bungee cords to tie up two bags to the rear seat - If it was possible to go back and change something - Maybe a saddle bag would be bought !! Unfortunately there was no stock of the Cramster model (I think Colt) - and therefore went ahead with this jugaad !

Fuel : Most the places on-route had BP-COCO outlets and most of the fueling was done at these stations, speed where possible and regular unleaded when speed was not available, incidentally apart from Major cities speed was hard to come by. I opted for speed wherever possible simply cause I have this opinion that the quality of fuel would be better If I recall correctly 3 or 4 fills were in non COCO outlets - the entire ride was with about 90 odd liters of fuel and I have about 3 bars left which would mean a minimum of about say 5 to 6 liters - Summary 3100 odd km on 84/85 liters of fuel - Averaging about 36/37 KMPL !! - So for those who want to know cbr 'itna detha hai" - Heard some "NEWS" from some BP-COCO employees - the best would be that speed petrol is the same petrol as normal petrol - it costs more because it is shipped in newer trucks and so the transportation cost is higher - Anybody thought of that before ????!!!!

Learning : The ride just helps understand how 5.30 am is 5.30 am and 6.00 am is actually half an hour late !! easier said than done while you have to get the fueling done the previous night, eat right (hopefully light) sleep early (HBO can wait till later despite torque being played), your mind starts to play tricks on you before you know - more so when you ride. The huge benefits are that Sunrise in the rear view mirror is something that need to be seen and felt with the cool breeze - Those first rays of the sun are absolutely magical !! The twists on good tarmac are unbeatable - knowing fully well that you are secure thanks to the gear in place ! - Helps in building discipline and helps learn to focus - Exploration, new places and meeting new people are add ons typically !

Hotels & Stops : No major booking were done - Chitradurga, Satara, Shirdi, Davengere and Tirupati were hotel stays - average costs range from 800 to 1500 per night - Generally carried a list of hotels with contact numbers and call them around lunch or so to book a room - Always pushed for a 15% discount and one side dish thrown in- usually worked !! Most hotels seem to understand when you say you are riding a good distance, all hotels always provided some additional security for the ride, some hotels siad please park in front of the reception so that we can see directly and the camera is on all the time - Special credits to the hotel in Tirupati and Shirdi for they allowed the ride to be taken up the steps to be kept in isolation to ensure no one tampers with the ride in any form !! I think they all seriously went that extra mile. I can provide if need be the hotel contacts for the common use of members of this forum - All hotels were typically on the NH so not much of deviation - (Shirdi and Tirupati were nearer the temple though)

Roads : Chennai - Pune - nice good road , no glitches, smooth - Pune to ahmednagar is good and fairly smooth - Ahmednagar to Shirdi is something that will make you feel closer to GOD - The last stretch to shirdi and Tirupati were both bad - surprises me, considering that both are destinations which attract a huge following - I dont quiet recall the Shirdi road from ahmednagar but the tirupati route I have seen fairly regularly for about 3 years now and its only getting from bad to worse - more so in the AP regions !! Hopefully the election season will help all road users some way or the other !!

People & General : The region in and around Karnataka was packed with extremely nice people, Most of them stopped if I was on a break and checked if all was well, Almost all hotel breakfast/lunch/dinner breaks resulted in at least one number being stored and one new friend in the list !! - Got fined a 100 Rs in Pune while I was returning from meeting a doc with wifey - Clearly our fault and we took the wrong bridge - supposedly only cars are allowed on that bridge - Even the cops there were actually nice to deal with (I know thats a strange thing to say).

Met with and happened to see a lot of riders on much bigger and better machines - IBW it was and so had the opportunity to meet with and see some rides that I normally would not have !! continuation was bulleteer's who were heading to Rider Mania 14 - met some old (common) friends - (I used to be on a RE hence common friends as well) -

What Next : Thinking about 7500 KM ride perhaps from TN to AP to Orissa and returning through central India !!

Pics : Pics taken on a Blackberry and perhaps not to clean per so - Honestly I am not well versed with photography and quiet dont know how !!