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Exactly 1 year after getting my VStrom, I wanted to put it to the very use I purchased it for. So far, it was only used for the office commute and a few small rides out of Bangalore, but the main motivation for the VStrom was for the annual year end trip to native place. My bullets are too slow for this distance and also I do not want to abuse them by running at high RPMs for long. Last but not the least, at close to half century in age, and more than a decade since I have embarked on longer rides, I was a little apprehensive about the trip and how my back might tolerate it. But at the end the back was perfectly fine, and the only thing to endure is a sore throat which I probably picked up somewhere along the way.
The Route and planning
To be honest, I should have planned better, but then work and stuff took up too much of my time, and I was very busy until the last day. I just managed to get the VStrom serviced just two days before the trip so that there is fresh oil and everything is checked out. I was in a rush until the end. The rest of the family would travel by train, and I would ride all the way down south and visit a few places along the way. I was able to start planning only after I dropped the family to Sir MV Terminal in Bangalore and had to figure out the route, accomodations and any other things. As bad luck would have it, on the day before travel, my mother who is very old, developed some uneasiness and I was unclear if I would be able to go or not. Due to a delay of a day, I had to cut short some of the places to visit, and have a reduced travel time. The original plan was to go via Thrissur and Kodungallur and reach the final destination and in the return visit Madurai. But as things happened, I had to start one day late and that too only by 9 am from Bangalore. So final plan was changed to visit Madurai Meenakshi temple, stay there overnight and then next day head to Nagercoil and then to final destination. Spend 2.5 days there and on the return visit Srirangam and Grand Anaicut and then return by Sathyamangalam route. I ended up via Male Mahadeshwara hills due to some mistake but this also was a nice route.
Day 1: Late start but good progress
As I said, I had to start late due to health concerns of my mother who is nearly 80 and has to be alone for the week, but things worked out and I managed to start only by 8.50 AM from home. Luggage was light and consisted of just one saddle bag. I dont like backpacks on long journeys as it strains the shoulders and overall makes the journey tiresome. As it was Monday I expected traffic but thankfully due to the holiday season, traffic was not too bad and I crossed electronics city fly over by 10 am. As soon as I crossed the fly over, some one was waving widly to me from their car pointing to my bag. I looked behind and realized, I had forgotten to strap the bag to the carrier. It was just sitting on the rear seat so far, but leaning heavily to one side. Thanks to the good samaritan, I stopped and secured it properly and resumed the journey. After a while the traffic thinned out and there was a clear empty highway ahead.
Securing the luggage near the Toll center
Free highway
After brisk progress especially in Krishnagiri and Dharmapuri ghats, that I thorougly enjoyed due to lack of trucks, I hit the plains and soon crossed Salem. Past Salem, I was quite hungry and stopped at a new Parrotta place. Rejuvenated after hot parrottas and two coffees, I resumed the journey, but by now the heat was quite intense. The section from Salem to Madurai was non stop mostly except some stops for a few photographs and to stretch a little bit. The Kodai range came into view soon, and I took the customary photo of the Kodai range which I have from many years of travelling in this route.
I reached Madurai soon and took a while to navigate to the hotel, which happened to be located a stone's throw from the temple. That being a positive, the negative aspect was that it had no parking, and was in the middle of an extremely busy and narrow street. There was an argument between the hotel owner and the neighbouring shop owner about parking and I allowed them to converse without interfering. They had a heated argument about how the bike will block his shop and the hotel owner saying that he cannot accomodate a car if I park my bike in front of his hotel. Then I too joined in the conversation, and after 10 minutes he relaxed and was enquiring about the why I would struggle on a motorcycle while there were so many ample modes of transportation. We carried on a nice discussion and then he removed his own TVS to make room for my bike and promised he will look out for anyone mishandling it while it is parked there. After that I went into the hotel (the hotel owner happily ran off inside as soon as I was talking to the shop owner), and checked in and he said this is the first time that person allowed anyone to park in front of his shop. I told him that he had very clearly been asked if he had inside parking to which he confirmed on the phone, but he said it must have been someone else who answered the phone. Shaking my head, I proceeded to unload my bag and went to the room to a quick shower and head to Temple for darshan.
So far I have not said anything about the motorcycle itself. The motorcycle feels fairly steady and there is no feeling of instability even while passing large lorries or buses or when Innovas overtake me at high speeds. The motorcycle feels relaxed between speeds of 85 to 95 km/h after which there is room to go until about 120 km/h for overtaking etc. But the engine does not feel relaxed beyond 95 km/h on the speedometer, and I too feel this is a reasonable speed to maintain.
The other complaint I have about the motorcycle is that the height of the windscreen is less and it is not adjustable. If I duck slightly there is excellent reduction of wind buffetting, but at proper sitting position, a few millimeters more of the windscreen would make a big difference.
I can say that the Oil cooling system is excellent, and even at continous driving in fairly warm weather, there is not the slightest indication of heating and the engine performance is absolutely fine from start to end.
The best feature of the Vstrom 250 has to be its fuel efficiency. At the end of the day the Odometer read 475.9 km and a F.E of 41.9 km/L. This includes the city commute in Bangalore and Madurai, so the highway number should be slightly even better.
I use 3M soft earplugs to block road and wind noise and they perform amazingly well. Would recommend this to everyone 100%. My helmet however was quite uncomfortable, and I have yet to find a good helmet that does not cause pain in the ears after a while. Perhaps I should go for the more expensive ones, but that is for the future. This helmet is a regular one from R.E (which is just a R.E branded Vega helmet). The Visor when closed cuts off a lot of wind noise, but at a certain point there is a resonant vibration of the visor which is irritating. I managed to get rid of this by inserting a small piece of paper that wedges the visor tight against the upper helmet body and that eliminated the vibration. I have too many helmets at home, but none are comfortable.
Day 2: Madurai to KK
I started around 8:30 AM on day 2 since I did not have much distance to cover. The plan was to reach the destination by lunch time, with a stop or two for refreshments along the way. This part of the ride is very windy as the landscape turns to very flat and one can see the horizon in all directions. Soon we reach the meeting point of east and west where I took a deviation from the highway towards Nagercoil and then further to the destination.
With some Nongu sharbat and other refreshments along the way, progress was quick and i reached right on time for lunch.
Ramco Cements Factory
This seems to be a popular spot for people to pause and have some refreshments.
East Meets West
Coffee with paws company
I spent 2.5 days with the rest of the family enjoying the christmas break and some visits to the beach.
Days 3 & 4: Return Journey
The return was split into two days, with the first day planned to reach Trichy and visiting Srirangam, Grand Anaicut and Ucchi Pilliyar temples. And the plan was to ride back home via Sathyamangalam route primarily because I enjoy this route. I only managed to start around 9.30 AM after extra heavy breakfast and encountered traffic of about 45 minutes to cross Nagercoil town. Post that, I wanted to stop for a few pictures which I had hoped to take early in the morning, but due to the late start the sun was quite high and the pictures do not do justice to the location. I also managed to spot a train at this location, but for some reason the picture I took with the train seems to be missing. I refuelled at Jio (Reliance) fuels in this route. The ride was quite uneventful but the heat was intense until Dindigul. After I took a deviation towards Trichy, suddenly the sky was overcast and it started to rain. I rode in the rain for about 30 minutes which was thouroughly enjoyable and the scenery was also fantastic. I managed to keep triple digit speeds in this route due to sparse traffic and less side winds except during the rain, and reached the destination earlier than planned. Of course this resulted in a slightly lesser F.E in this stretch. I do not know if this is attributed to Jio Fuel or higher speed, but I will guess it is due to speed.
Green fields
Nagercoil to KK bypass
Rain after Dindigul
Srirangam Temple
Odo for 2nd stretch
In the evening after checking into the hotel and showering, I visited Srirangam temple. It was extremely crowded due to Margali maasam as well as Aiyappan crowd. I spent around 2.5 hours there and reached home a little tired. Next morning I walked to Ucchi Pilliyar temple and climbed the steps and had an excellent Darshan with hardly any crowd and had a wonderful view of Trichy from the top of the hill. I suggest anyone visiting here to go early, which gives good views of the surroundings before the heat haze sets in and also the crowd will be lesser.
View of Trichy from top of the hill
I started from Trichy around 10 AM only, due to lot of time spent in the temple and this meant I had just 8 hours of sunlight to make it home. I could not take an additional day's break as the rest of the family would be home by train in the morning, and I had to be there to recieve them. Originally I had planned to go via Satyamangalam route, and looked at options in Google maps for fastest route. The ride until Karur was just brilliant with Kaveri river on the right and railway tracks on the left. For anyone wanting a brilliant ride I suggest this (of course early morning is best to avoid traffic). By the time I reached Karur, it was nearly midday and was very hot. My phone overheated and turned off, and I wandered around Karur making several wrong turns. Finally got re-routed by a helpful policeman and was headed in the right direction. I wanted to go towards Erode and then towards Bannari and climb the Sathyamangalam forest ghats. But the confusion in Karur made me go towards Namakkal and I only realized later that I was going off the planned route. I decided then to not spend more time re-routing, and try the Mettur route and cross Male Mahadeshwara hills. Of course, starting late and wasting time in crossing Karur meant that I was way off my schedule. Nevertheless I decided on this route and soon crossed Tiruchengode and reached river Kaveri again at Poolampatti. Mother Kaveri was in full flow here and was a beauty to the eyes.
Kaveri at Poolampatti
Fields near Poolampatti
After non stop riding I reached Mettur dam. I looked for the option to visit the dam, but with time running out and having a very long way yet to go, I decided to skip. Some pictures of the reservoir and backwaters here -
The dam
Reservoir
Soon crossed the border and entered Karnataka, and soon the forst area starts. This section is an absolutely enjoyable one and if you are lucky there will be stretches with no traffic making the forest serene and quiet. Soon I reached Male Mahadeshwara hilltop but could not spend much time there as it was already 3.30 PM in the afternoon. After some tea and biscuits, I resumed the journey. From here onwards the road was a nightmare. They are repairing the roads, but the condtion of the road is pathetic, and with road works being carried out it is a very difficult ride all the way until Thaalu betta point. Perhaps in 2-3 months the roadworks will be completed, but at this time its a pain to ride. Cars have an even worse scenario because there is very little road left, and luckily as a two wheeler I managed to zip past all blockages.
Beautiful forests of MM hills
Male Mahadeshwara
The rest of the journey was quite painful to be honest. There is nothing to see, and I had a long way to go. I wanted to cover as much distance as possible before sunset and kept on riding without any breaks. In hindsight I should have taken a break, but I am averse to riding at night. With no lunch at all, I was very hungry and exhausted by 7 pm. I stopped at the side of a small lake and took a 30 minutes break and had a lunch of snickers bars and orange juice and some biscuits. Again resuming the journey I had to only stop to refuel once near Malavalli and then reached Kanakapura toll gate around 8 PM. Then it was the nightmare of Saturday evening traffic in Bangalore and only managed to reach home around 9.15 PM. By this time I was really exhausted and tired and my bum was quite sore and painful. I had driven 11 hours that day with no lunch and really bad roads.
Finally unloaded everything and had a massive dinner at home with my mother being very happy to see me back at home.
Final reading
Overall the trip was a success, I did not get any backache at all and the ride was very comfortable except for the last day. That was of course my mistake of starting late and missing the routes. That happens and is part of the experience. Ideally I should keep a daily limit of 350 to 400 Km max, which gives ample time to enjoy the journey, stop for photographs and food etc. The last day was very rushed and riding in the night is very uncomfortable. The VStrom headlights are totally inadequate for highway at night, and I dislike white LED lights in highways as they do not penetrate the distance at all. However I am not going to make any changes here, because I do not plan to drive at night. Overall the motorcycle was very comfortable, stable and very fuel efficient. A F.E of 40.3 km/L is very good considering there was a lot of city traffic involved as well and I feel that this is a very strong positive of this motorcycle. The negatives are as I said earlier being limited to 85-95 km/h which is adequate but one could always wish for a little higher cruising speed. However the 250cc motor punches way above its weight and performs excellently with the Oil cooling system. I am satisfied with the motorcycle as it served its purpose and I would not be able to make these times and distances on my bullets and with this F.E. So in that sense I am more than satisfied.
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