Me, My Machine and The Elements 1.0

Good god….I am thinking about writing a series on my weekend rides. Maybe my destiny is to become a writer one day. What the hell, I am attempting it nevertheless.

Well, this time I was planning to ride to some place nearby so that the entire trip can be completed in one day thereby not encroaching into my already depleted leave entitlement. So the decision had to be taken between Horsley Hills, BR Hills and Yelagiri. Horsley Hills was rejected for the plain reason that a friend of mine had already been there. It’s a complex, you see, what’s the point of being the second one? BR Hills was ditched owing to the fact that I felt it was too far away. So by Saturday evening, the destination was decided and the bike was tanked up. I cost me 879 bucks for 16.18 liters of fuel.

The night before the ride was a sleepless one. Twice I woke dreamt that I woke up too late and my friends had already left. I actually got up six times to check the time. But at last when the alarm went off, I didn’t want to get up and was craving for another couple of hours of sleep. Anyway, I got up, washed, brushed and put on the jacket, shoes, gloves and helmet and started off from home by 6.18. The roads being empty enabled me to reach the meeting point at the Old Madras Road, after the hanging bridge, by 6.30.

Within no time all the bikes have arrived. Two Yezdi Roadkings, one Unicorn and one Discover. Four bikes, seven people, with yours truly being the solo rider. We set off in the bucolic Old Madras Road with sparse traffic. We got carried away by the road in such a way that we missed out Hoskote where we were supposed to take a turn and went some six kilometers further before realizing the mistake and backtracking.

From Hoskote, the real fun began. The road was awful in the beginning, but after a stretch of crater filled monster of a road, things began getting better. The next big village was Malur, after which the condition of the road saw a whopping scale of deterioration which meant we were virtually dirt racing for the next few kilometers. What compensated for the rough terrain was the fact that we were traversing one of the most beautiful parts of rural South, which made us stop from time to time to take snaps and to get some respite from the roller-coaster ride that we were having. By 9 O’ clock, we reached Bangarapet, where we had the breakfast from a tiny vegetarian restaurant and asked for directions.

From the map we had, we saw that it will be easier via Kuppom, but when we asked around, at least four people testified that there is no Road to Kuppom other than the railway track. Still unfazed, we asked an Enfield rider and he says that there is definitely a road to Kuppom via Kolar Gold Fields. And what a road it was! This is what one will expect from a country road. Smooth surface, non-existent traffic, green surroundings and flowing curves will satiate the thirst of even the most eager biker. It was a breeze from KGF to Kuppom and from Kuppom to Nattranmalai. Only difference was that ‘Halli Darigalu’ turned into ‘Uri Darulu’ and then into ‘Kramathu Salaigal’ in a matter of a few kilometers as we crossed two state boundaries.

Then came the climbs where I left others behind when it was just me, my machine and the elements. After every couple of hairpin bends, I would just stop the bike and stare into the valley below, which , after every stop, became smaller and smaller and made me wonder how it would look if I were the God and looked down from my lofty office table at my own creations. According to my reference material there were fourteen hairpin bends, but I scarcely counted them as I was deep in bliss finding my self in the terrain which I am more familiar with, one in which there is more curves and climbs than the boring straight stretches that I am cursed with, in and around Bangalore. It took us 210 kilometers through the highways and country roads to reach our destination.

Finally reaching the top by 1 PM, we had lunch the first thing before going to this village called Mankalam where we parked our bikes and left our helmets with the villagers and went off to stretch our legs for a trek. I didn’t climb much as after some distance, I found a rock under the shades where I slept obliviously and blissfully for two hours with cool breeze flowing over my face until when the guys woke me up on their way back. According to them, the hike was excellent, but I still think that I made the right choice since those two hours of sleep in the nature had recharged me for another five hours or riding. After that we came back to the village where we had tea. One important thing to be noted is that all the villagers are very much polite and eager to help you in any manner, which signifies the fact that tourism has not reached this place to such a scale as to show its darker side.

After visiting the park and the lake, we started our journey back soon after 6 PM. The ride down the hills was another first-class experience, where, again, I left the pack behind and was enjoying the terrain to the most. Once I reached the valley, I stopped at a small bridge and sat waiting for the guys and staring at the behemoth hill and the zigzag road that I climbed down. It was a truly humbling experience to watch the mount knowing that I could climb over it but still how small I am, compared to it.

Then others turned up and we reached the main road when the rain hit us. There was no point in waiting for the rain to subside, and also since we were all wearing jackets and helmets, we chose to continue. It was another learning phase for me in the highways, when the crosswinds were so powerful that sometimes it felt my rear slipping because of that. The gale and the rain hit us with the mighty power that the nature has got as we made progress to cover the distance to Krishnagiri as on the way back we chose a shorter route, mostly through the highways. NH 46 till Krishnagiri and then NH7 till Bangalore were in excellent condition as we made the distance pretty fast and finally reached Bangalore at 9 PM covering around 170 kilometers. When I crossed the Silk Board Fly over, after which you can say it is Bangalore, I let out a sigh signaling the end of one memorable ride on a Sunday. It was just city traffic and the congestion after that.

This was when I thought of writing about my Sunday trips to the country side, to escape from the ennui of city life. Somebody suggested it to call it ‘My Motorcycle Diaries’ but I chose not to, since even though I love the concept of traveling cross-country, I don’t like the falls. Then I gave it the current moniker since, above all, it is just me, my machine, and the elements. I plan to continue with this venture in the coming weekends when I ride out into oblivion and then come back and write about it on Mondays.