A Fire run & meet with Hydeez Some statistics of the ride before going on Ride Date - 2nd December 2017
Riders from Bengaluru - CrAzY dRiVeR on Versys 650, Red Liner on Versys 650, dreamseller on CBR954RR aka Fireblade and Myself on Dominar 400
Kms covered - Approx 950 kms and my trip meter was 937 kms
Time taken - 22 hrs from home to home
I have always liked the day long rides on my bike, love the feeling of just being there on open roads, with me & my bike syncing in unison with the nature, ohh, it’s an irreplaceable feeling. I had done a couple of day long rides till date but the highest for a 24 hrs day was 690 km to be precise and wanted to see my endurance for a more longer ride and also to see if my bike would like to be pushed that much.
I tend to peep through all the Versys threads on the forum (no points for guessing I like the bike a lot for its stance
), be it the famous of the lot with ‘mobike008’s thread, detailed of the lot ‘CrAzY dRiVeR’s thread, the crisp & to the point 'Red Liner’s thread and the more recent 'Atul.ktm's thread. In one of such peeping’s, I just casually mentioned Avi, why don’t we have a twin city Blr-Hyd riders meet and being the way he is, Avi took it quite seriously and after exchanging a few PMs he started a thread for mid-way motorcycle meet and also got on board around 10 riders from the Hyd side, so it was for us Blr people to show strength with our entries. Leaving the long story short, all the riders opted out of the meet for various reasons and I was still missing the long ride & meet up with the fellow riders both from Blr & Hyd.
Soon, Avi mentioned that a couple of riders from Hyd were visiting Kodachadri for a two day stay and Blr riders can meet at half way on their way for lunch and I started seeing some silver lining on the ride meet. But then, the best thing happened with Ramana jumping on the opportunity to say, Koda is in our State and we will ride to Kodachadri and meet you. Oh yeah, the plan was made – no looking back. So, the riders from Blr were Ramana, Sujai & myself and Sourav joining the bandwagon soon in style with his Fireblade.
Now, the time was to plan the route and Ramana was the frontrunner, after checking with all possible sources, within the forum, friends & HVK forum, he came up with the best possible route which was a tad longer than the regular Davanagere route but it is definitely the most fun-to-ride route amongst all the possible ones and kudos to him for that. The route was loved by all of us and Sourav the most, for that he got to put his Fireblade to use in an otherwise not so interesting parts on the highways where he was made to ride at 100 kmph in his 160+ bhp monster. The route taken was Bengaluru – Hassan – Chikamagalur – Tarikere – Shivamogga – Hosa Nagara - Nagara – Kodachandri.
When the ride was two days away, rains started at Bengaluru due to the monsoons and I was the worried of the lot, as I didn’t wanted to start the ride when raining but I was fine with riding in the rain on the move. I think God heard my voice and though it was raining mostly the whole night two days prior, the night prior to the ride was clear without any hint of rains and I was relieved.
A selfie taken just before leaving from home at 3.30 AM At the meeting point
On the ride day, we met up at 4 AM at Parle-G toll on the Tumkur road and were joined a little later by Sourav. After the greetings and quick introductions (I had met only Sujai in an earlier drive meet), we set out for the ride around 4.40 AM. We had decided to push the breakfast to Chikamagaluru Town Canteen and so stopped for a quick coffee break at a Coffee day enroute and I took a strong dose of black coffee and all of us had the sandwich.
At CCD
Ride on the highway was good with Ramana leading the pack and filled our first fuel for the day at Reliance pump at Hassan and proceeded to Chikamagaluru. The road from Hassan to Chikamagaluru is in the best shape and we started enjoying the ride. Next stop was at Town Canteen, Chikamagaluru and as soon as we stopped, while the Fireblade’s engine was still running in idling, it could be heard at some long distance and people started noticing and joining in to see all big bikes. I was spared with my tiny Dominar with Versys & Fireblade among.
See how the big bikes showed themselves at Town Canteen making people to gather around and ask all possible questions
Masala Dosa at the Town Canteen needs a special mention. It is a must have dosa and I literally was gobbling the crisp & tasty dosa and if not for the ride ahead, I definitely would have ordered another one of that.
Can you make out that I am eating Masala Dosa with my smile
The roads after Chikamagaluru were a continuation of what was left behind with twists and trees around, it a serene feeling of riding in these conditions. I didn’t realise when we passed Tarikere & also Shivamogga and we stopped for fuel after Shivamogga. At some point in the onward ride, I could see Sourav stretching his legs and sometimes arms, given the aggressive seating position of the Fireblade and also that it is most suited for the track than for the touring.
Somewhere on the way, see the size comparison - Dominar looks so puny with other big bikes See the stance of Versys 650, I love its majestic looks - Its Sujai's bike
Closer to reaching Nagara, I hit the magic number of 12345 on my bike and stopped to capture it, see the time, it is just perfect at 12:39 (9 is total of 4+5 so aligning the Odo & the time), such a nice co-incidence.
My bike odo at 12345
We reached the destination Simha Farms, Kodachadri at 1.30 PM, which took 475 kms in my trip meter and a exact 10 hrs of me starting from my home at 3.30 AM.
This place Simha Farms is quite secluded and nicely maintained home stay inside a Farm and makes a good visit for a peaceful holiday. There we met up with Avi, DP Sharma (IDP Sharma), Haseeb, Sahil, Ashish, Ishaan with Two Versys 650s, a Z800, a Triumph Street Triple, a Duke and a FZ25.
A pic at Simha Farms with bikes and riders in background
We were there for just 2.30 hrs and the talks ranged from discussing on bikes, more of bikes and leg pullings and overall had a nice meet time with the Hydeez and a good, simple Vegetarian food at the Farms as cherry on the cake. When it was time to leave, we had a small photoshoot with the drone IDP Sharma was carrying and also some snaps with the DSLR. Now eagerly waiting for IDP Sharma to process his drone images and share it.
Simha Farms group pic
After reaching Simha Farms, Sujai promptly gave some feedback on my style of taking corners and guided me on how to better take corners, which was very useful and I tried to put it to use on the return leg.
We left at 4:00 PM with memories of the meet as we had to fast reach the highway. Unlike the morning ride which was mainly through the single twisty roads through slush greenery, for the return ride we wanted to catch the highway soon and took the Kodachadri – Hosanagara – Honnalli – Malebennur to reach the Davanagere highway. Little did we knew we would be approaching the wort of the roads tonight which can break bones off and kill the shocks of the bikes. The roads reaching to Honnalli and then till we cross Malebennur and reach the highway of about 25 kms were literally non-existent and we were only hoping not to hit any deep crater which can easily bend any bike rims.
Return route mapped
In these roads, the LED lights of Dominar was a saviour, but even then I was not able to see the extent of non-existent roads from a distance and was keeping my eyes wide open and a bit leaning to the front to clearly make out, as it was pitch dark without any street lights of any sort.
Once hitting the highway, we stopped at a CCD at around 7.30 PM for some coffee, snacks and mainly for a short break, and filled fuel too at IOC bunk next to CCD. After starting from the CCD, the unfortunate thing happened. Someone had left the large cement block on the highway (possibly a lorry driver has used and did a bad job by not removing it), which hit the front tyre of Ramana’s and Sourav’s bikes and both had a bad rim bend and Ramana even had a sidewall cut on his front tyre which luckily was a superficial one and not deep enough to leak the air. We waited for 15 mins to see if the rim bend is causing any air leak and then decided to move on at lower speeds after making sure both the bikes are not leaking air.
Further ride was uneventful and not so exciting riding at speeds of 90 tops on the highway and we took two breaks before dispersing and bidding byes somewhere near Dabaspet.
So, the rider’s day ended with 937 kms on my trip meter and 22 hrs on the road leaving at 3.30 AM in the morning and reaching home at 1.30 AM, making it my longest ride ever in a 24 hr day and the most enjoying ride.
Trip meter showing 937 at the end of ride It was a ride to cherish with the company of Ramana, Sujai & Sourav and look forward to another one. KK
Pic credits - I have taken only handful of pics in this, others are taken by other riders - all credits to respective owners
PS - If you want to read a better & more detailed version of this ride story then you should also visit Sujai's thread here
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/superb...ml#post4316159