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-   -   Saddlesore ride: Bengaluru - Shirwal (near Pune) - Bengaluru (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travelogues/194967-saddlesore-ride-bengaluru-shirwal-near-pune-bengaluru.html)

Ah, where to start. A good position to be in when it comes to writing travel stories, a lot to say, but confused on how best to put it across keeping the interest of the readers. By the way, this is a ride story coupled with some info/do's/don'ts on the saddle sore ride, so bear with me for a couple of posts.

It all began when Ravi (a ride mate and DOCBian that’s Dominar Owners Club Bengaluru) mentioned to me and Keerthesh on 21st Jan, in a Sunday morning DOCB Breakfast Meet that he wanted to do the Saddle Sore 1000 miles ride which translates to 1610 kms in span of 24 hrs. In fact just few days prior to this Ravi had mentioned this to me in a Telegram chat and I had asked him if he had mistakenly mentioned 1000 miles for 1000 kms stupid:. My bad, I was not at all aware of this IBA (Iron Butt Association) & Saddle Sore rides.

But why saddle sore ride? I have been asked this question by lots of people (off-course non-riders), but honestly I am quite tired of answering questions and any efforts to make them listen would go futile.

To simply put, I quote my own post of my previous ride.

So, after my previous ride of 937 kms, I really wanted to see my endurance of how much can I ride in a day and Ravi gave me solution saying it’s 1600, as simple as that.

As soon as he asked about the ride in the breakfast meet, me, Keerthesh & Basant didn’t think twice, just nodded our head in excitement. At that point we had no clue what all were there to unfold.

On fixation of the ride date, I had preferred it to be in February as I had to attend colleague’s marriage reception in Hyderabad on 26th January and had planned to ride to Hyderabad. But on insistence from Ravi & Keerthesh that January would be the best month for the saddle sore ride, heart won and I agreed to skip marriage ride to accommodate saddle sore ride. Ride comes first, what say? agree:

Since it was a very short planning time we had left with, only 4 days to be precise, we decided to meet the same day in the evening to discuss the ride preparation.

A teaser pic of our steeds in action for the day.

L to R: My bike, Keerthesh's bike & Ravi's bike



KK

Now let’s look at what is this 1600k ride all about, before going to our ride preparation.

:rules:

Saddle sore 1000 miles is one of the many long ride concept by Iron Butt Association (IBA), which is an international organization dedicated to safe long-distance motorcycle riding, as claimed in their website

There are many certification rides under the IBA umbrella and fairly easiest of them all (not easy by any stretch of imagination, just easy on a comparative scale of other rides) is Saddle Sore 1000 miles to be covered in a span of 24 hrs.

There are set rules and some guidelines for successful certification of the different rides and the ones specific to Saddle Sore 1000 miles can be seen here in this link.

And on finishing the ride, one can apply for the certification. Application format is available here.

Remember, applicant also has to pay a certain fee to get certified, its there towards the end of the application format.

Interestingly, if we look at the list of various rides from the IBA website, it says the last updated ride is upto December 5, 2017, but this applies to applications received from all over the world except India. Shocking isn’t it. :Frustrati




It takes more than 6 months for them to make a detailed verification & certify the rides for applications from India, but why is it so? It is to be blamed on the numerous fake applications received from India for the certifications. Please read this to know more about the fake applications.

If one is willing to know more about the SS rides and IBA you can shoot a mail to iagins@yahoo.com and you are sure to get a response within a day.

KK

Ride preparation

As planned three of us met at Kanakapura NICE junction on 21st January evening and decided to ride upto Café Coffee Day at the Brigade Meadows (towards Kanakapura) apartment complex to discuss on the ride and Basant joined us a bit late.

We discussed on the rules to be followed for the Saddle Sore 1000 miles/1610 kms ride and during the discussion I was interested in knowing whether we are doing the ride to fetch the certificate from IBA, or even otherwise we are game for the ride. As expected, the response was positive towards the ride and certification was a mere add-on thing.

Ride preparation:

• The route was decided as Bengaluru – Pune – Bengaluru which offers good and straight roads to make it easier munching of kms.

• We decided to mark the fuel stations for the start, turning point at the destination & ride ending station at Bangalore. This is essential since, if you want to apply for certification from IBA, you have to prove the distance covered as per Google Maps and your bike odo is not considered as a valid proof. Though we had planned and had marked all the petrol pumps as part of our ride preparation, we finally ended up being not eligible to apply for the certificate given our distance covered as per Google Maps fell below 1610, whereas we had covered a distance of more then as per our bikes odo :deadhorse. Read further to know more about it.

• Finding witness for the start of the ride.

• We made a list of eatables to carry along to kill the hunger and gain some energy. Snickers, Energy drink (Gatorade), energy bar etc.

• Also decided on the things to carry for the ride – Bungee cords to tie our back packs, Lube, Power Bank, BTS2 (Bluetooth intercom which gets fixed to the helmet), Riding gears with thermals.

Over a period of next 3 days, we further chatted on Telegram group and were able to come up with the marked fuel stations which looked like this.


In hindsight, I feel we could have planned the below things better.

• After marking the key fuel stations, it’s essential to stick to the plan so that you don’t end up covering lesser than the designed number of kms. Believe me, we goofed up here. Though our initial planning was done for 1610+ kms, we ended up changing the route slightly which resulted in not covering 1610 kms as per Google Maps, though we covered sufficient kms as per our bike odo.

• We actually did not plan the 24 hrs at all, one reason could be that we had very less time, just three days to be precise for planning the overall trip and just ignored this part of the planning. We just assumed that we can set on the ride and can finish 1600+ kms and everything will fall in place.

• To just give eg:, if one is riding full 24 hrs without any break then you need to maintain average speed of 67 kms/hr which makes it 1610 kms. By this logic, considering the fuel breaks, food breaks and some small photo sessions, we need to plan for riding time of 19 or 20 hrs which converts to 85 kms/hr or 81 kms/hr, which is much easier to maintain on Indian roads. So, if one is maintaining a speed of 100 kms/hr on an average, it is relatively easier for completing the ride without sweating out much and hitting insane speeds.

• We spent considerable time for breakfast, in between breaks and lunch, which can definitely be reduced. If one carries dry fruits, banana etc, it will be possible to skip either a lunch or dinner and instead have the items carried over a small break.

Additionally, one has to keep in mind below ones before you plan for a Saddle sore ride:

• Physical fitness: Consider your physical fitness if you are planning for saddle sore ride. If you can’t sit in the same position for long time or suffering from back pain etc, then it is better not venture into this ride, as things will only be worse.

• Your endurance for long rides: Before you plan for this ride, it would be good if you have already done some day long rides of at least 700 to 1000 kms, so that you know you can take a chance for covering 1600+ kms. If you are not used to day long rides on the saddle, its better you take it easy, do some more rides and then do the saddle sore.

KK

After boring you guys much, now I am back on the ride part, just hoping you are still reading through this thread, if you have happen to gone out of this thread already after reading boring stuff, please excuse me lol:

Now, coming back to the ride part of it let me welcome you with open arms. This was taken just before entering Belagavi, where you have to take the road below the flyover and pass by the IOC bunk.



Just the previous day of the ride that’s on 25th January, luckily it was Karnataka bundh day and all three of us got declared holiday in office and it was so much relief as I really wanted a day off before the big ride to prepare my bike for the ride and also to take sufficient rest, which would help me to be on the saddle for 24 long hrs without any sleep.

We decided to meet at the bike wash place on the Kanakapura road, for mass wash of all bikes and to discuss some last minute preparations. Here is a pic of the bikes getting washed. We were pleasantly surprised by addition of two more bikes of DOCB for the washing making it 5 bikes at a time.

My bike getting a much required wash, I do generally wash myself, but this was for a change.




At home, I cleaned the chain and lubed it and was feeling restless and excited. I was just waiting for 2.30 AM to start the ride. With great difficulty I could get a sleep of an hour or so in the afternoon and just two to three hours sleep in the night. As a routine now with me, I got up before my alarm rang at 1.45 AM and stopped it before it made any sounds, sounds great isn’t it? Mind it, it happens only when I have to get up for a ride, otherwise, I always snooze enough until I get bored of snoozing.

I was ready to leave exactly at 2.30 AM and this is the customary selfie taken just then. Notice the TBHP Tee which I just received two days before the ride, its just fab, feel unlike my other Tee's in a good way



When I reached the BPCL pump in Kanakapura road which is just 3 kms away from my home, Ravi and Basant had already arrived. I missed to mention that, Basant had to opt out of this ride as he had to attend office on 26th but he gracefully agreed to be our witness for our start of the ride and he was present at the spot before any of the riders turned up. A big shout out to Basant for meeting us at the spot.

As soon as I reached, Ravi had just filled up his tank and had taken the printed bill from the machine and showed me the bill with a blank expression, the time stamp in the bill was reading 3.54 AM, but the actual time he filled the petrol was 2.40 AM. It was more than an hour forward and which got us guys thinking on what to do now? As per the IBA rules, the 24 hr time kick starts from the time stamped on the first fuel filling bill, which was more than an hour further. No doubt, it may be advantageous to us as we can say we started at 3.54 AM, actually you start riding much before so you get more time frame to complete the 24 hrs ride, but it is not a right thing to do. We are doing this ride more of passion and not to fetch the certificate.

One advice, please don’t select any BPCL bunks for filling petrol if you need a proper timed bills. We figured the same pattern in one other BPCL bunk, there we enquired the time stamp and didn’t fill fuel there. Always choose Shell, Reliance or IOC.

Since, we had already filled petrol at the first BPCL bunk, we had no other go and started our ride at around 3.20 AM kick starting our Iron Butt Challenge.

We three along with Basant




Next stop was at the IOCL bunk which is next to Café Coffee Day just before Davanagere marking our presence at around 6.20 AM with a distance covered of 269 kms from the last fill up, there we fuelled up the bike tanks and our tanks too was fuelled at the Café Coffee Day.

We did a foolish thing by having our breakfast at CCD, it is just obvious that CCD takes at least 30 mins for serving any small order and we were locked up at CCD till 7.30. It is a lot of time, 1 hr for breakfast is too luxurious for a time bound ride.









Soon after riding out from CCD, I also crossed 15000 kms mile stone on my bike and just stopped to take a snap of the odo and a few snaps of the bike. 15k kms in less than 11 months, hmm, not bad.


Yayyy, milestone




Beast seen with the green background




Guys were riding at good speeds and I was the one who generally tails, as I can’t ride consistently in same speeds and tend to vary my speeds on the run. Next fill up was just before Belagavi and we also encountered a nice place for some photography session, when we took below the flyover for find petrol station.

We reached here at around 10.20 AM and covered a distance of 226 kms in just less than 3 hrs time and this also included a half way break of about 20 mins.

Nice pic




People in action, all the gears all the time clap:




Helmets, Camera, Action, with all the bells & whistles like camera, helmet bluetooth intercom, what not




While filling fuel fixed our next fuel up stop as Satara. Once into MH state, the traffic was crazy with lots of two-wheelers on the roads commuting which cut out speeds much. We were able to reach Satara at around 1.50 PM with a distance of 262 kms from the previous fill up in 3 hrs time. All three were damn hungry and I was starting to get slight headache so we stopped for lunch at a restro at Satara and thought of ordering Maharashtrian lunch as we felt it is supposed to be ready for serving. Lunch order took 30 mins to serve as they said they were freshly preparing food and it was a lot of time to spend on lunch, but we had no patience and energy to get up and go to another place and just waited for the lunch to arrive.

Much to our respite the lunch was good with hot chapatis and three types of curries and we gobbled it up fast without any talks. With our satisfied tummies we further ahead stopped for refuelling at HPCL and also lubed our chains which had become completely dry with a continuous good speed running we did.

Yummy food



By then we had covered a distance of 757 kms from the start point and we decided to ride another 50+ kms towards Pune way before taking U-turn for the ride back to Bangalore.

We rode spiritedly, and for a change I was ahead for some time enjoying the lead and within no time I could see Ravi & Keerthesh go past me. Roads were really good after Satara and we also passed through Khambatki Ghat Tunnel. Here we changed our original turning point petrol station, which was still a good 30+ kms ahead and we decided to cover any shortfall distance when we reach Bangalore as the traffic was literally more in those roads of MH which is Kolhapur, Karad and Satara.

We stopped at the petrol bunk where our total distance covered for the day was 811 kms at around 3.30 PM which is exactly 12 hrs from the time we started in the morning, which works out to a paltry speed of 67.5 kms/hr which makes it mentally difficult to accept, all this because of the two long breaks which we took. The place was called Shirwal.

Ehhh, finally we had reached our turning destination of the day and we had to repeat our ride backwards over a maximum of next 12 hrs, but in opposite way and at night compared to the day which we had ridden till then.

Pics of us with our bulls at the turning destination seeming satisfied with the ride and wanting more, Yeh Dil Maange more.

At the turning point destination. Half done, are you ready for the next half?






Watch out for the second part of our saddle sore ride.

KK

PS: Knowingly I have kept the travelogue quite detailed breaking the entire story into fuel fill up wise logs, this was done mainly to let any interested rider to know how the entire ride would be and most importantly to say that top speeds doesn't matter for this ride, what all matters is well planning and stops.

First leg was completed with much zeal and it was time to keep the same zeal for the ride back. It would be more challenging, mostly riding through the night, facing the harsh bright head lights of all sorts of vehicles as there was a stretch of single roads as well in between.

Ride in the morning was with good stop overs, which had to be cut short for the return leg to reach our target of Belagavi by 7 PM which was more than 270 kms away and on that note, started from Shirwal at 4 PM.

As soon as we took the U-turn the traffic towards Satara was horrible and was reminding us of the Bengaluru City traffic. The route from Shirwal to Satara is a different and a long route through the Khambatki ghat, the onward was through the Khmbatki tunnel. Traffic was bumper-to-bumper even on the ghat section with a large number of trucks and buses taking that route. Reaching Satara was a pain. Our two heroes took off in their sweet speeds and on the way I was mostly accompanied by a Duke 390 & a CBR 150 almost till Belagavi or even further. The CBR150 guy was riding crazy with top speeds and I am quite sure he must have done some remap or have a piggy back ECU to ride at such speeds.

I was riding at my speeds some time good high speeds and then at average speeds. After around 200 kms I just lost sync and stopped for a quick break and gulped a whole can of Gatorade drink, which made me feel so fresh. I was well past of the target of reaching Belagavi by 7 PM, and catched up with Ravi & Keerthesh who were waiting for me on the way.

Stopped at a IOCL petrol bunk just before Belagavi town at around 7.20 PM. From the last fuel fill up at Shirwal we had covered 273 kms in 3 hrs & 20 mins. Next stop was at Belagavi Vidhana Soudha which was glittering with lights, where we invariably stopped to take some pics.

Belagavi Vidhana Soudha at night




My bike in the backdrop of Vidhana Soudha



After the small photo ops we rode further and it was time to stop for some quick eats. We skipped our dinner and instead snickers and Gatorade occupied our stomachs to full and we were again charged to march at the destination. From that point on we were left with close to 550 kms and 7 hrs time. Since I was the sweep mostly I just mentioned Ravi & Keerthesh to carry on without waiting for me as I didn’t wanted to cause delay in the ride timings if I am not able to keep the pace, but of them both flatly refused and encouraged me to ride to achieve our targets. We decided to refuel at Davanagere next.

We kept riding and ride till Davanagere was uneventful and I kept my own pace and stopped at a HP pump for refill at Davanagere at 11 PM with one stop in between after some toll. Distance covered from the previous stop was 274 and time taken was 3 hrs exactly. Just then I get a call from Keerthesh and they were waiting for me after Davanagere. We were now left with 250+ kms and 3+ hrs time. We felt it is easily doable.

In between somewhere I had two oh shit :Shockked: moments, not able to recollect where exactly it was.

First one was in the single roads. Riding in the single road at night is quite a hard thing as you will not be able to overtake at ease and also you have to face the harsh lights of the trucks/buses who wouldn’t wish to put on low beam. On single roads, I was mainly dependent on the left lane (a small marked lane on the left side) where it was usually passable for two wheelers. In one such circumstance, a mini truck driver pulled suddenly to the left side for some reason and just then I was about to pass him through the left lane, and luckily I was able to break and slow the bike.

Second was after about 50 kms from the above incident which was in the six lane road which had no road lamps and I was riding on the left side lane. Suddenly out of now where a black dog ran from right to left and I froze for a moment, it would have been a bad accident had I hit the dog.

All three of us met last time before reaching Bengaluru after the Tumakuru toll and we were relieved and knew that the remaining distance can be completed with ease and started our last leg of the day’s journey.

Ride to Bengaluru was uneventful and we met just before the NICE deviation as we had to choose our last fuel pit stop for the day to conclude our 1610 kms ride and also to prove the time taken for the ride. Since, we had a bad experience the previous day at BPCL we opted to ride through the city till Shell petrol pump near Lalbagh (double road), which is also a 24 hr bunk.

Finally, we reached Shell petrol pump at 2.40 AM which is exactly 23 hrs & 10 mins from the time we had left at 3.20 AM the previous day and the closing odo of my bike was 16323 and we had done 1619 kms to complete our ride. It was a so crazy moment on achieving a crazy target. We were completely exhausted but still our face was gleaming with pleasure.

The Machines




And the happy men



The ride was so good and I could not have asked for a better company for the ride as both Ravi & Keerthesh were easy going and adjustable. With this our all in a day ride came to an end.

Wait, I will give you a twist in the tale of not so good thing. Though as I mentioned we completed the ride of 1619 kms (without any detour or any extra miles), the I know everything Google baba rejected our claim and said, sorry you have not finished your quota and gave a magic number of 1595 kms for our route taken.




We were disappointed as soon as we learnt this, but we were immediately pacified by the fact that we did the ride and no one can take that experience from us, :Cheering:

Ride is what rider experiences, what more than this.

Now, let me talk about the bike itself. Dominar rode flawless and accepted whatever we were throwing at it with ease, went over some unexpected pot holes and not so gentle speed beakers, never did hungama through the entire journey of 1600+ Kms. Some stretches were like never ending with 250 Kms without a stop and didn't feel that bike was stressed. I say after every ride it reassures me of my choice and Dominar is the most VFM bike in its segment with all technological features packed up, sure it is a jack of all trades.

Before I end this travelogue I quote what my fellow riders had to say on their take on the ride.

Keerthesh speaks


Ravi speaks


KK

PS: Pic credits to all the riders and sorry for some low quality pics taken through mobile phones.

Why you would do this for getting a certificate is a bit of a mystery to me to be honest. I can understand the pleasure in any ride, I am referring to a certificate being the sole reason for it. But, to each his own and as long as you are not encroaching on anyone else, it is a free country for such harmless pursuits.

But why one would want to fake an application to get a certificate of this sort baffles me completely. What is even more baffling - if that is possible - is why pay fees? Why not just forge the certificate? Who will ever know? Or bother to find out even if they could?

I have already clarified that in my write up, the idea was to ride long and certification if we were getting just was icing on the cake but not the cake in itself.


Exactly, even we were wondering why would a true rider want to fake applications, the joy is in the riding, not in the certificate. May be those are the squids we generally see on the roads showing off wheelies etc.

KK

Ahh, ok, I missed that part, my apologies.

As to the squids, I would expect them to
1. Not even know of this certificate
2. Forge it if they do and want it.

Because those that enjoy doing and seeing wheelies would be content with 2 if they passed 1.

Regrettably no one making a false application including paying fees is going to clarify here.

Once upon a time Saddlesore 1000 was my dream and the fact that no one did it on a Royal Enfield(don't know current status) was a big inspiration. I agree with your statement that "Idea is to ride and certification is icing on the cake".


Oops, sorry to know that, but don't you have some other methods like fuel bunk slips, ATM slips or geo-tagging in the photographs to support your claim?

By the way, this is an amazing travelogue, thanks for sharing.

So, did you complete the ride on RE, I have come across some people who have ridden on 350s & 500s.

Yes, we are checking on that, may be put up an application basis the info we have and see if it gets through.

KK

Congratulations KK on this great achievement. Riding 1600Km in just 24 hours seems like a dream for most of the people here in India. Most of the countries where Saddle Sore 1000 or similar feats are held have great road infrastructure and road safety measures in place. Although you missed the certification, your marathon is not less than anything else. Your physical fitness and endurance for long Rides are amazing and only one word for your beasts - They dominated. :thumbs up

No! Not at all. It is still a dream, a distant dream.

By the Way, I hope you are aware of Chitra Priya. The first Indian woman biker who completed saddlesore. Well, I am no more connected to any biker community, so not aware about recent updates.

http://www.thehindu.com/features/met...cle2857319.ece


All the very best for that. The title of “World’s toughest riders” is amazing.

First thing, congratulations on completing the ride, 1K miles (1,600 kms!) in 24 hours is a big, big deal, given the kind of road infrastructure, general highway traffic sense, and availability of reliable fuel stations (both in terms of fuel quality and correctly printed bills) we have here domestically :)

So three cheers to your effort, and your endurance!!

Given that all three of you guyz were riding the Dominar, would you kindly comment on:

1) The reliability of the bike on triple digit speeds (specifically if it felt planted enough to inspire confidence at high speeds)..
2) The amount of vibrations seeping through, and if it made the drive any more tiring..
3) Any other bike-related issues (heating or otherwise) that you guyz faced...
4) Your average fuel efficiency, if it was different for this trip given the time limitation, and resultantly higher average speeds..

Its very nice to read your story. It reminded me of my saddle sore ride. I completed on my second attempt since I had to quit after 650km due to heavy unseasonal rains near Karad. You should have started your SS after 12:00 noon instead of 2:30AM. The last 5-6 hours of SS are most difficult and dangerous. It is advisable to spend those times during daylight.
In principle, this kind of rides should be done solo, group riding slows you down a lot.
By the the way, my then roommate had done ss in 22 hrs 6 min in an R15 ( winter). I had done it in 22hrs 13 min in RE Desert storm ( done in summer 2013).
My RE Desert storm never recovered after that ride, thankfully this nudged me towards an worthy upgrade.