[mobike008]

It was March 2017 when we had done our last long ride and the aching thing at the back of a mind for everyone who enjoys riding a motorcycle is planning the next big ride. And, we were no different and every time we meet for a short ride we deliberate where to do the next big one. Everyone suggested multiple ideas in all directions and they all get shot down for some reason or other which is mostly either dates dont work or destination is not too exciting to get confirmations.

It's quite challenging to arrive at a consensus and finally the destination was decided as Vizag and Araku Valley both of which are simply amazing and beautiful destinations. I have fond memories of Vizag which I have been visiting since several years and have also done 3 camps (15-day each) during college days inside the Vizag Naval Base and those memories were so adventurous that it's still fresh in the mind.

I visited Vizag a couple of times in the recent past. Once was a drive vacation with family last year (2016) during summer and then visited early this year (2017) for the Audi A3 test drive for Team-BHP. Vizag has taken a dramatic change for the good particularly after Chandrababu Naidu has become the CM for Andhra. There has been rapid development of two major cities of Andhra (Vijayawada & Vizag) as both have become clean and green with lot of importance paid to civic duties and green plantation across these cities

The final count of folks joining for this ride were 6 of us and ride plan was to start early on Saturday and return on Monday night (3-day ride) with 1 night in Vizag (Saturday), 1 Night in Araku Valley (Sunday) and Ride back home on Monday

Couple of weeks before the actual plan, I paid in full and booked 3 rooms in Rushikonda Beach Resort in Vizag which has a wonderful location as it's located atop a hilltop with rooms overlooking the magnificent rushikonda beach below

This was the route map taken by us with us passing through the Orissa border quite close-by



Group Pic of Riders (L-R) : Vasanth, Rajneesh, Karthik (Onaversys), Avinash (mobike008), Haseeb (Speed Triple), DP (IDPSharma)--Z800



Group Pose barring Rajneesh at our hotel in Vizag



One of the many mind-blowing curves on the Araku to Lambasinghi scenic stretch





Disclaimer : All pictures are cellphone pictures (iPhone 6+, 7 Plus, Nexus, One Plus 5 etc.) so please excuse the quality. You may click each picture to see a larger version of same

Mobike008- Kawasaki Versys 650
IDPSharma- Kawasaki Z800
OnaVersys-Kawasaki Versys 650
Vasanth- Kawasaki Ninja 650
Haseeb- Triumph Speed Triple
Rajneesh- Triumph Bonneville

[mobike008]

Hyderabad--> Vizag

Since we all live in different part of the cities, we decided to meet at one location on the outskirts of the city to start the ride. As usual, Hydeez are a lazy lot (me including ) and our times are not IST but, Hydeez Standard Time (HST) and always is 30 mins-1 hour delayed time difference from rest of the people who keep time...LOL

Not surprisingly, a 5:30am meet-up at the designated point turned into 7:00am ; that is when we all met up and were ready to head out of the city towards the this popular highway towards Hyderabad-> Vijayawada which many might know is a glorious 4-lane highway until Vijayawada (~ 300kms). Before we started it was decided that we should make a pit-stop at the extremely popular 7 at Suryapet for breakfast which was roughly 120kms away from the meeting point.

7 is one of the largest breakfast complex on that route and serves great food but, at exorbitant prices. To give an example; this highway eatery set us back by INR 400/- just for 2 Dosas and 2 Filter Coffees. They also flaunt a rude manner with respect to their service (take it or leave it kind of attitude). Me and Haseeb decided not to step our foot into that place again.

Why just me and Haseeb at 7? What about the remaining 4 riders?

Well, there is a story behind it. Even though we agreed to stop at 7. Me and Haseeb being the slightly "faster" riders of the whole group overshot the 7 by nearly 5-7 kms in our excitement of those butter smooth roads and when it hit us, we were already at-least 7kms ahead. We stopped and took a U-turn towards 7 thinking rest of them will stop at 7.

However, to our chagrin rest of the folks thought we are not stopping at 7 and continued ahead. It was like a classic chicken and egg story....

Therefore, it was just Haseeb and me back at 7 and rest of the guys ahead of us. It was hilarious !!!

Thankfully, Onaversys messaged that they have stopped at a small joint ahead and will wrap up their breakfast and we were supposed to meet them there in another 30 minutes or so

Finally, we regrouped and started riding again. But, there were a couple of other minor misses where the group got split due to varying speeds and since we formed a WA group for this ride it was easy to communicate with each other our locations and regroup again

The ride until Vizag was smooth and we stopped at quite a few places either for tea, photos, or generally to stretch our legs. Ride overall was not that great due to the weather as it was pretty sultry and humid.

We reached our hotel around 7:00pm in the evening and as it was situated atop the hill. It was pleasant and very breezy

We quickly changed and got the dinner as take-away from Raju Garu mess which was just 200 meters away from the hotel. This place serves the best homely type of non-vegetarian meals with typical Andhra flavor which is quite spicy.

It was also visited by Highway on my Plate (HOMP) team Rocky & Mayur. I rode the Speed Triple for a while and my Versys was enjoyed by Rajneesh and Haseeb

After a delicious meal, we spent a long time in the balcony at the back of rooms chit-chatting, listening to music from the Oontz Angle (Bluetooth Device) before retiring to bed around midnight

Me & Haseeb enjoying Masala Dosa at 7, Suryapet



Rare picture of all 6 bikes together..Haha!



Dark knight somewhere on the highway



Stop after VJW for some hot tea. This small place made a fantastic cup of tea



IDPsharma



This lady put her hand on Haseeb shoulder and prayed for literally 10 minutes to make his shoulder pain go away. We were all bursting with laughter as he does this type of funny things whenever we go for a ride. Like last ride to Mahabaleshwar he got a young chap to give him an entire massage on roadside in a hut

Check this post to see what I mean above..LOL

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/superb...ml#post3994715



Lunch Stop



Stop at the popular super large Hanuman Statue before Vijaywada



Jai Hanuman

[mobike008]

Hanging out in Vizag

Next day the plan was to leave around 9:00am for Araku Valley. We all got up really early and visited the beach and then we just took 3 bikes and went for a long ride of nearly 50kms riding along the coastline of Vizag Beach (R.K Beach) and went up to the end until the port where large fishing boats were docked with nets spread across the area. It's lovely to be in a port city and see their lifestyle. After clicking some pictures we made our way back to resort around 9:00am and to our disappointment we found a bunch of problems with our bikes

Our plan was to check out and leave at 9:30am or so but, DP realized his Z800 was not starting and after some investigations realized his bike's fuse went kaput and thankfully, he had a spare fuse (Bless Kawasaki !!!) and problem was resolved after 30 mins or so

Once the above issue was resolved, Haseeb realized his Speed Triple is punctured (Imagine a brand new 0-km tyre before he started from Hyderabad). He had a bit of a doubt night before and kept asking me how the bike felt when I rode it. Lot of time was wasted in getting a puncture guy to our hotel and getting the tyre fixed

Finally, we checked out and left the resort around 11:00am and our distance to Araku Valley was around 175kms but, since most part of the route had ghat section, we knew it will take us about 3 hours. Finally, we all started from the hotel and everyone started zooming away, except me.

As soon as we left the resort the Dark Knight stopped in it's tracks. Realized the front meter console went absolutely dead. I panicked and thoughts of bike towing tormented my mind. But, soon after when my head cleared, I understood similar to IDPsharma's Z800 my bike's fuse may also have blown

Reason for blown fuse was due to the electrical wiring getting drenched in rain since the Top case/Cocase was removed from the rack and taken inside the room. And, open bracket has the wiring on top side and some water must have gone inside the wiring housing and short fused it.

Luckily, even I had another fuse to spare and we quickly fixed the issue with my bike too (All of them had went ahead for 5-6kms and returned back to check the issue with my bike. Special thanks to IDPsharma who gained the expertise of fixing fuses just 15 minutes ago, fixed mine as well !!)

View from just outside our hotel room in Rushikonda Beach Resort



Gorgeous beach

Attachment 1659857



Hotel Property



Beach view from hotel property



View when riding along the coastline in Vizag



We went out for a city ride along the coastline and rode up to the edge where boats, fisherman area is in Vizag





Dark Knight @ Rushikonda Beach Resort



Brothers in Arms (Mobike008 & Haseeb)



Fishes being sold at Port area



Entering the port area



Parked on the edge



Group pic at the port area



Port Area



Port Area



Ship Building work in-progress



Group pic (excluding Rajneesh as he took off for a spin then) at Rushikonda Beach Resort



A friendly neighbor at the resort..LOL



A nice pano shot to give an idea about the beautiful landscape

[mobike008]

Vizag to Araku Valley

After encountering the aforementioned issues with our bikes, we finally embarked towards Araku Valley making our way through the sparse city traffic thanks to that day being a Sunday. As soon as we left Vizag behind, road becomes extremely scenic and some of the ghats gave me and Karthik some practice for our International ride together planned some weeks ahead of this trip. Route was extremely curvy and Karthik being a native of Ooty and pretty much used to curves and ghats also confessed that these curves were tougher than the famous Ooty hairpin bends

We kept stopping at scenic places and one of them was on ghat where weather was surreal. Fog, Chilly and Very windy

Haseeb loves to whip out his Drone at every small stop and make some nice selfie videos of himself that can give none other than SRK some sleepless nights...LOL. While he was busy playing around with the Drone, we rested on the roadside ledge enjoying a hot cuppa tea.

As we rode along, weather became incredible and we parked our bikes on the corner of that narrow ghat road (Big mistake). Fellow rider wanted to move my bike to a safer place and due to uneven road surface, he and my Dark Knight fell on the right side incurring a broken indicator ( which was affixed with a black tape that myself and Rajneesh rode 30kms on the Bonnie to fetch from Araku Town).

There were some scratches on the bark-buster, a few on the fairing and a slightly bent right lever. However, this setback felt immaterial as we heard some panic calls from Haseeb as he was shouting in anxiousness that the drone has flown too far away (It has an incredible 7kms range) and his iPhone battery was dangerously low and drone may not come back.

It was a super anxious and sweaty situation in that chilly and foggy condition as it's an expensive gadget and losing it would turn the trip sour to a large extent. Thankfully, due to his adept and skillful maneuvering he somehow got the drone back to land and we all heaved a sigh of relief. It was incredible drama for 15 odd minutes. Haseeb swore to himself that next time he will not let it airborne without checking the phone battery levels...LOL!

After riding for some more time we all decided to stop for lunch and stopped at this popular resort named "Jungle Bells-Tyda" which offers huts on a high elevation for accommodation and I have always thought of staying there but, it never happened. Our lunch was a mix of multiple rices (Veg Fried Rice, Yellow Rice, Mixed Fried Rice, Schezwan Fried Rice) as the menu was quite limited. But, thankfully food was excellent and we sat there for a long time relaxing in that beautiful weather sipping on coffee post-lunch

Reluctantly, we left that place around 3:30pm and rode ahead for some more kilometers and were greeted by Rajneesh who had gone ahead and was waiting to guide us to the resort where we were booked for the night in Araku Valley.

One of the favorite pictures of this ride



Making use of the Drone to capture some nice moments

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw2ctPyW4Hk

Enroute Araku Valley







Resting "ON" Araku Valley Milestone


Beautiful view with Bonnie in fore-ground



A memorable break on ghats of Araku Valley. It was Super chilly and windy here where the Drone was out of control due to the heavy gush of winds..LOL!



Lunch Stop-Jungle Bells Tyda



Head Protectors



This lunch was also memorable. Very good food



Group picture before leaving Jungle Bells-Tyda



Absolutely gorgeous scenes with lush green field of view and an amazing weather













Just before reaching our hotel in Araku Valley. Check out who is our "Safety Vehicle"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GntmjJe5fbM

[mobike008]

Araku Valley

Once we entered the resort. All of us were taken aback by the location as it was situated on the side of a hilltop with glorious views of the valley around us which was lush green all around. When we reached the resort, it was continuously drizzling and location, weather felt like a slice of heaven. Apparently, this resort is used by Tollywood movie stars for their quiet getaway and the owner does not advertise this place (no signboard or nameplate anywhere) and takes reservation only on references.

The rooms was massive and were fully carpeted and there was a mammoth sized balcony behind our rooms which overlooked the valley below (there is a small clip in the video that is captured from balcony area)

Myself and Rajneesh rode the Bonnie to Araku Valley in the late evening in pitch dark for 30kms both ways to fetch some essentials (including some dark tape to fix the Versys indicator back) and the evening was spent in the balcony enjoying an excellent meal cooked by the resort comprising of quite few items listening to songs on our Bluetooth devices and singing songs until late in night with heavy rains thundering through the night

That night we all slept a blissful sleep with heavy rains slamming down on the roof, sound of loud thunder with us snuggled into our beds

We woke up at 7:00am and quickly dressed up and met outside the room outside at 8:00am to see that rains have not stopped. Infact, it seemed to have increased in the overall intensity

Host served us hot Idli and vadas for breakfast right off the pan. Vada's were so crispy that each of us had plenty of them.

We finished our standing breakfast by 8:30am and decided to wait for another 30 minutes to see if the rain stops. Unfortunately, it did not and we decided to start our journey back home in pouring rain. I was unprepared for this rain as I was wearing my summer jacket (yellow one) as my touring jacket was unfortunately at that time with dry cleaners and they didn't live up to promised date of delivery so stuck with summer jacket which was immediately drenched in those heavy rains.

I knew it that I'm going to get really WET! And, after mentally geared up with that fact, I stepped out along with other folks who were much better prepared to tackle the rains and started our journey. Our route was taking the back route and touching Orissa border and skip Vizag city and connect back to the main highway near about to Rajamundhry

Our hotel parking lot in Araku Valley. Can a parking lot get any prettier than this one?



Group Picture with that awesome background



Dark Knight enjoying the lush green valley views



Valley Views



Breakfast at Araku Hotel. One of the best Wada (Crispy and Non-Oily)

[mobike008]

Araku Valley to Hyderabad

We continued our journey through some of the most mind-blowing & scenic views encountered in my life of lush green mountains, valleys and streams running through most part of the landscape. Heavy rains added to the overall aura and charm of the scenery.

I always thought that Maharashtra/Konkan belt was the Scotland of India (especially places like Malshej Ghats, Bhandardara etc) but, this part of the country beats it hands down during the monsoons purely due to the diverse nature of the landscape. I highly recommend a motorcycle ride through this terrain during monsoons to enjoy this beautiful part of our country

We were enjoying the ride and sinking in every inch of that beauty when roughly after 40kms, the first issue cropped up. I started hearing a "Thak Thak" sound coming from somewhere which kept on increasing and it took me a few moments to realize that it was coming from my bike. I asked one of fellow riders who was riding aside if he too can hear some sound to which I get a thumping affirmative "Loud & Clear". My heart sank !!

I signaled the entire group to stop and told them about this issue.

We were in middle of the forest in Lambasinghi and over 900kms away from home and I did not want to take the risk of riding with a chain issue.

Onaversys ( Karthik) is passionate about bikes and rather enjoys tinkering with them. He was the first to jump into the problem. He removed the tool kit and tried his best to tighten the chain while most of us were watching the process with some helping in pulling the main nut off which was so tight that without the right tools, it was just impossible to remove it (A big oversight was not to open the main nut and trying to tighten the chain which i think may have been one of the reason for the chain set-up to get misaligned).

We spent nearly 2 hours here trying to get the problem fixed using multiple tool-sets from all bikes but, realized that without proper tools opening a simple nut is also a major task. Add to that the problem of continuous drizzle, grime and muck all over the bike.

Then it was decided that we should find a mechanic and get the problem solved. And, to my utter dismay (and, which converted into glee in mili seconds) when we found a mechanic shop exactly after 2 kms. It was a relief and surprise to see a shop in middle of these thick jungle type of area. We stopped here and since they had the right tools the main nut was opened with ease and chain was aligned in 10 minutes FLAT !!

Heck, who would that 2kms ahead we'll find a mechanic in these jungles. We all scratched our heads sheepishly thinking we could have saved 2 hours of our precious time

We continued our journey and for first 20kms the chain issue seemed to have resolved but, then the sound started coming again. It started slowly and after a few minutes, it was back to similar loud noise. I was cursing myself that I should have checked the chain slack in Hyderabad before starting on this journey but, since I had returned from a travel I just did not have the time to get that done (Lesson learnt :Check Chain Slack and Lube the chain before, during the journey to ensure a smooth travel)

I decided to continue riding trying to ignore the sound and within a few kms we passed through a very small town, IDPsharma signaled that his Z800 rear tyre punctured....LOL! Looks like god made sure we have some adventure thrown in to this return ride. We found a small mechanic in that small town and stopped to get his puncture fixed. I used that opportunity to re-align my chain yet again (2nd Time)

My chain issue seemed to have finally resolve. Whew!

We rode through the forests and traveled through some amazing hairpin bends which was an exhilarating ride and Karthik who hails from Ooty mentioned they are better than the Ooty hairpin bends. After crossing the bends, we suddenly saw some straight roads with beautiful surface and as many would do after tough terrain and ghats, we 3 who were ahead (Myself, Karthik and Rajneesh) gunned our engines and rode ahead only to realize in a few kms that rest of the folks were not coming behind

We three then decided to make a U-turn for nearly 15kms and got to know Vasant had a fall from his Ninja 650. Fortunately, he was fine as it was a skid due to sudden braking (non-ABS) because of a dog darting his path. His front fairing took a bad toll and he got some bruises but, otherwise he was perfectly fine. This made me realize that ABS is a boon and mandatory safety equipment.

We continued to ride and stopped at Tuni for lunch at around 4:00pm having covered only 180kms since morning

All of us were tired, wet and terribly hungry so we dug into some delectable fried rice and gravy dishes to go along with it and were thinking what to do as we were still many many miles away from home. We decided to break the team into two (based on our riding styles) and stick together throughout the return ride

Myself, IDPSharma and Haseeb generally ride fast so we were part of one team

Rajneesh, Vasanth and Karthik were the "gentleman riders" and they formed the other team

We said goodbye to each other here and decided to head out in this agreed 3-team formation with Gentleman Riders leaving about 30 minutes earlier than us as we three decided to stretch our legs, have a cup of tea and pray for rains to stop.. But, it was like wishing for horses to fly....rains kept on pouring relentlessly so we decided to start our journey back

After leaving the Tuni city and about 15kms later, my bike's chain started making a terrible noise (Whack, Whack) again. It sounded so loud that I just wanted to stop riding. It was already dusk and not too far from getting dark, raining and this terrible issue with the chain. I was getting all kind of imaginations in mind of bike getting towed in truck back to Hyderabad and I'm sitting passenger in that truck and reaching home with a sore backside...LOL!

At that moment, I truly wished all this was a dream and I woke up cuddled in my warm bed

It was a small 2-lane road that you see in any part of India with little or nothing on either side of the road except a some bit of village traffic and a few huts or small shops selling some basic general items. We stopped and took an immediate call to head back to city of Tuni which was 15kms back. After reaching the city, it was one of the biggest ordeal to find a motorcycle mechanic and after asking around and being played ping-pong (passed around from one person to another) we finally found one and since the bike does not have a center stand, we hauled it up on a steel stool and they checked the whole chain and mechanic proudly announced that chains looks absolutely fine. He just asked one question

"Did you lubricate the chain" ?

We were taken aback by that simple question as it was a conscious decision NOT to lube the chain due to heavy rains and muck and dirt that it brings along with it heavily laced on the chain already

He asked me to hand-over the lubrication bottle which I removed from my top-case (I always carry the essentials on a long ride) and the mechanic sprayed the chain generously all over the chain with bike still hauled over that stool. He then said we are good to continue our journey

I must confess here, it was nothing less than "Divine Intervention" God came down from heaven and fixed that chain

From hereon, till I reached home that sound miraculously disappeared and bike became as smooth as it was before. Another important lesson learnt it. ALWAYS lube the chain during long journeys irrespective of the weather and road conditions

We continued our arduous ride back through the night with heavy rains keeping us company and also resulting in visibility becoming a huge challenge. There were multiple stops made to check air pressure of Speed Triple as it was continuously losing air from the big puncture from yesterday.

We ensured that we stopped every 20-30kms to wipe our helmets clean with a piece of tissue paper/newspaper. IDPsharma in that way is a stickler for such things and his jacket was stuffed with these small pieces of paper that helped us keep the helmet clean

Another important lesson learnt when riding in heavy rains

DO NOT keep the visor completely closed. Keep an inch of gap for the air to flow in and this will ensure the screen does not get fogged up. This will help you with a greater visibility and will ensure you can comfortably ride in heavy rains

Finally, we reached home. Tired to the bone, fingers and toes in an unrecognizable state (Due to being wet for such long time) but, there was a sense of satisfaction that can never be replaced with anything in this world. This ride will remain etched in minds forever as it was personally one of the most tough, painful, enjoyable and most satisfying ride of my life (There was another ride immediately after a few weeks that was equally good but, was done at an exotic international location---Look out for that travelogue in next few weeks)

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed this travelogue as much as we enjoyed during this ride trip !!!

Somewhere on the Lambasingi route



Green everywhere



We spent at-least 1.5 hours at this spot trying to fix my chain. Kudos to OnaVersys for all the effort





Enroute



We enjoyed taking breaks with rain gods blessing us from the top...LOL!









There were plenty of such hair-pin bends to keep us entertained



Spic-and-Span Speed Triple...Haha!



Taking shelter under a over-pass in Vijayawada. It was around 1:00am and heaviest rains of entire ride was experienced here



Panoramic view

[mobike008]

Before I finally sign-off from this travelogue, here is a video that can give a glimpse of the entire trip covered beautifully and edited by IDPSharma.

Please do watch till the end then you will realize how beautiful the stretch is from Araku Valley--> Lambasingi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcxgvQrG9cU

[mobike008]

Note from Mod : Travelogue is moved from Assembly Line to the Travelogues section.

Hope you enjoy going through this photoblog and my casual narration of one of our most memorable rides

[Shekhar2509]

Awesome travellogue Avinash! Seeing these six beasts in such beautiful locations is surely a treat to the eyes!
The Versys is surely an excellent bike! (I dream to own one in future )
Wish you many more happy and safe miles.
Cheers!

[n.devdath]

Originally Posted by mobike008

one of our most memorable rides

While I am sure that riding such wonderful machines is a pretty rewarding experience and friends only make it better, why do these machines throw up so many tantrums after one drenched ride?

I was eyeing a pre owned Ninja 650 but such reports of even the Japanese motorcycles blowing up fuses certainly dampens my spirit, especially since I am a solo rider on long distances.

What is your take?

[satish_appasani]

Awesome Avi. Can feel what you felt like riding to Araku. Few years back I and my friends rode cycles from Vizag to Araku. Gives me goose bumps even now.

[mobike008]

Originally Posted by n.devdath

While I am sure that riding such wonderful machines is a pretty rewarding experience and friends only make it better, why do these machines throw up so many tantrums after one drenched ride?

These are normal tantrums that can happen with any bike. Btw, it was not normal rains.

It was raining "continuously" from Araku to Hyderabad. It ranged from super heavy to steady drizzle through out. Didn't stop even for a single minute

Punctures are inherent part of long road trips

Originally Posted by n.devdath

I was eyeing a pre owned Ninja 650 but such reports of even the Japanese motorcycles blowing up fuses certainly dampens my spirit, especially since I am a solo rider on long distances.What is your take?

My bike's blown fuse was purely due to the additional wiring that was connected to my top case (for those bling lights at night) and had I not got that fixed, maybe it would not have happened. Anyways, replacing a fuse (if you know how) is an exactly 2 minutes job

Actually, you should be looking at the other side of the coin of reliability, I was stuck with a bad chain (It was purely my oversight as i completed 17,000kms and didn't check chain slack for 5000kms and should have done that before starting on such a long journey) and even then bike got me home without getting stranded on a roadside

I could have easily skipped sharing these details. But, I have always been forthright and calling a spade a spade and been detailed in all my experiences so trust me this does not make any dent in the bullet reliability of a Kawasaki

With regards to buying a Ninja 650. You may have read the fall of Nasirkaka on my ownership thread and Vasant having a fall on his Ninja 650 in this travelogue due to the non-availability of ABS. Even though Ninja 650 is an able and excellent bike, I would recommend you to think twice if you really want to fork out big money to purchase a non-ABS bike?

If I were you, I would rather wait and build up the budget and buy a spanking new Ninja 650 which now comes with this safety feature

Originally Posted by satish_appasani

Awesome Avi. Can feel what you felt like riding to Araku. Few years back I and my friends rode cycles from Vizag to Araku. Gives me goose bumps even now.

Hey Satish. Good to see you active here after so long. Wonderful to know you did that stretch on cycles. Must have been a great experience

But, what impressed us most was the stretch beyond Araku towards Lambasingi. That was like heaven on earth !!

[NiXTriX2004]

Tired to the bone, fingers and toes in an unrecognizable state (Due to being wet for such long time) but, there was a sense of satisfaction that can never be replaced with anything in this world. This ride will remain etched in minds forever as it was personally one of the most tough, painful, enjoyable and most satisfying ride of my life

This feeling is one that only a fellow rider could understand. 4 wheels may move the body but 2 wheels move the soul. These experiences are a valuable lesson to help us learn to take things as they come and smile in the face of unexpected challenges. Completing challenging rides like this leave you with a sense of accomplishment and a weird sort of confidence to face whatever comes your way.

Kodus on enjoying your journey and sharing it with us. Look forward to seeing more.

[Sheel]

Beautiful t'log. The views are amazing. I watched the video as well and enjoyed it.

I am interested to know as to what luggage carrier was used in the N-650 and the Z-800?

Thanks for sharing I sincerely hope, I can pay back with similar t'log.

[onaversys]

It was indeed a memorable ride. It's very rare that you know you will ride into a storm and still ride anyway. Having heard stories about how hot coastal Andhra can get during summers, the best time to enjoy Vizag/Arakku was definitely the monsoons. It didn't disappoint us one bit and there were surprises every second hour.

There are several things that make this ride more memorable than the previous ones I've been on with mobike008...

- The select group of riders that mobike008 chooses to ride with and being a part of that esteemed company. The opportunity to hear hundreds of stories they have at their disposal which they are ready to dispense at the lightest trigger during a conversation. Those evening conversations after a long day's ride are pure bliss!

- The roads they choose to ride, the restaurants they decide to eat, and most importantly, the insanely beautiful places they find for resting. It's so meticulously planned and executed, that for me it's a joy just to slap on my phone on a mount and navigate to those places with them.

- This wasn't an easy ride by any measure. In fact, we had several issues: mechanical, electrical, geographical, torrential, and some emotional ones too. We became better friends and riders at the end of this ride. We made it through all with so much grace and it was an adventure in a true sense.

- This route had of the most scenic places I've seen in a while. Fogs and rains added to the beauty and didn't deter the experience one bit. The roads were surprisingly well maintained except for a few bad patches. It was easily one of the most tiring ghat roads I've been on a motorcycle (on par with the Palani-Munnar route) in terms of the never ending & improperly banked curves that keep challenging you and your riding skills.

Here's to more such fulfilling rides...