Road Trip to Land Fort …

Distance : 405 km Bangalore - Dindigul - Land Fort ( Nilakottai )

Duration : 6 hrs 30 min

Start time: 5.45 am Reached : 1.30 pm

LandFort , don’t think it is someplace in United states. It is the place near to Kodaikanal.It is known as Nilakottai (Nilam + kottai ) .This place is famous for flower market ,Gold jewels and Bronze vessels. Nilakottai can be translated in English into Land Fort :P. Kodaikanal is just 65 km from land fort.

I have recently shifted to Bangalore. It was really difficult to live in Bangalore with out a bike.

Last month, I got one too, though it was not a high end model(Bajaj wind 125 cc, 5Gear), but sufficient for office goers.I did not expect great mileage from my bike becoz of my riding style :P.

Need to test my bike’s max speed, riding comfort. I got 15 days vacation, so planned to go hometown by bike.

Long trips required good conditioned bike and good planning. Let me say some thing about how I prepared for the trip.

Started preparations before a week, my room mate asked me about the week before preparation and laughed at me, but it was really helped for better preparation.

Check List:

=> Ensured that I have all the necessary documents with me ( RC book , Insurance and emission certificate).

=> Checked the validity period of the insurance

=> Checked the First aid box and tool kit.

=> Took some ID card with me for safety purpose incase somebody questions it might help.

Preparing Bike –

- Check engine oil and change if required ( bought Castrol Power 1 and changed )

- Ask the mechanic to check Clutch, Accelerator, and brake cables. Change those if required

- Adjust the brake according to your comfort level.

- Head lamp, take one extra one bulb with you.

- Ask mechanic to adjust the chain tension and apply grease.

Checking the cable was very important. If you did not changed it recently better I advice you to change. Otherwise remember race seen in actor vijay movie “kuruvi” :P

Bike was ready well in advance.

The last working day was (18 Dec 2009) as usual not able to do much work. Don’t want travel in night time, so planned to start the trip at 5 am in the morning the next day.

On Friday evening filled up the tank and air.

Always I tank up at shell petrol bulk because of assurance of quality, quantity and service. My bike gives 50 kmpl but don’t expect the same in NH, since the speed will vary greatly: P. Filled up petrol for 450 rupees.

Fill the air according on your preference [Mileage / Comfort]. Correct level gives more mileage. A bit less air gives more comfort.

Did not sleep well in Friday night, I was dreaming about tomorrow’s road trip. Woke up early and got ready. Carefully choose the dress. I chose 2 in 1 loose pant and casual t-shirt. Even chosen the inner garments carefully J.Don’t forget to take the sun screen lotion.

Loose pant gives you comfort while driving. You can make it as shorts if you have 2 in 1 pant. Sun screen lotion protects your skin from direct sun light otherwise there is a possibility that your skin will get damaged.

Thanks to Rajith who always said “long rides should not have pillion”. If you are going with group of friends one bike may have pillion in case if somebody not well/ tired the pillion can help him. We can rotate the persons in round robin fashion too.

Getting ready with map:

Since this was my first trip from Bangalore to Land fort, I was not sure about the road directions. I decided to ask our good friends Bing and Google.

Do you know who is giving better results? Let us find out.

Bing gave route which has distance of 376 km. NH 7 route from Bangalore to Dindigul.

Bing directions link: http://preview.tinyurl.com/y97ssxy

Google gave route which has the distance of 364 km. Wow that is cool. They have some intelligence which tells shortest route. It gave the route which is not straight forward. It is a mixture of NH 7 and SH 17, SH 74 etc …

Google directions link: http://preview.tinyurl.com/ybos8p9

But this is my first trip from Bangalore by bike , so decided to follow the route which Bing gave. Very straight forward – follow NH 7.

Took the print out of the map and kept it in my jacket for easy access.

Split the distance into multiple milestones.

Having long term goal is good but don’t forget to split it into short milestones which always gives you the joy and satisfaction :p.

I don’t remember who said, but one of my mentors.

Planned to start around 5 am in the morning but my friend advised me to start bit late to avoid rash lorry drivers. In fact most accidents happen in the early morning because of sleepy drivers. I started at 5.45 am on 19th December from my friend home at electronic city.

Don’t forget to reset the trip meter before start. I took the first break after 50 km and then after another 50 km. Next goal is to travel 100 km non stop.

The morning ride was awesome. It is the golden hours (5.45 am – 8.30 am). The weather is perfect for ridding. I could enjoy the rising sun from the farm field; some times between the hills.

Near Karavur mist came down suddenly and swallowed the road completely.I was looking for some beautiful girl who might appear from it but no luck.

After doing 200 km, reached Salem around 9 am (3 hrs 15 min from Bangalore).

Stopped at a small hotel by the highway. Food was really good and hygienic. It is not always true that small hotels won’t be hygienic.

Most of the trucks were going at snail’s pace since it was fully loaded. It was reminding me the pregnant ladies walk. Anyhow it was good that they were driving slowly, so we are safe.

After taking break, Every time before I start, I was focusing on the objective (safe driving)

There are some good points to learn about over taking, that we will see in my next post.

About NH 7:

After completing the Golden quadrilateral project travel time reduced dramatically. The road was looking very good. Safe to drive at good speed but beware of straying dogs which might come from any directions, any time. It is good that SOS telephones are placed at every ~2 km distance.

Tested the max speed of my bike. I was doing about 113 - 115 kmph. Maintained the speed for 15 min continuously then decided not to cross the 100 due to safety reasons.

Since I tied my bag with back seat, felt very comfortable while driving. Make sure you covered the bag with some plastic cover so that bag won’t get dirty.

I reached Dindigul around 12.30 pm and have to travel 25 km in State Highway towards kodaikanal. After reaching sempatty need to deviate from kodaikanal road to reach Land fort. I was reached home around 1.30 pm. It was a wonder full experience.

Hope you too enjoyed reading this and also got some useful information.

Stay tuned for next ROAD TRIP !

Yelagiri Road Trip

Chennai – Yelagiri – Chennai: Total Distance – 520Km

Bikes:

1. Pramod – FZ Orange.
2. Rajith – Pillion.
3. Abhilash – FZ Black.
4. Rajesh – Pillion.
5. Karthi – Discover 135.
6. Vetri – Pillion.

The Idea:

Karthi was suggesting going to Yelagiri for a weekend for quite sometime but we never really found time because most of us worked on Saturdays too. So we decided to run-off to that place for the Independence Day weekend. What better way to celebrate freedom other than hitting the open road. We floated the idea to Pramod and Abhilash who didn’t even give it a second thought as both of them owned Yamaha FZ and were eager to test it on the highways. Rajesh and Vetri were also happy to join the ride.

The Plan:

Planning and preparation was down to me and Karthi. The task at hand was to decide on the route which was easy because there was only one obvious route which was the Chennai-Bangalore highway. Then liquor which we got it from TASMAC and Pramod had some Smirnoff and Bacardi. Then came the stay and no one knows what happened except for me and Karthi. We got a list of hotel phone numbers and called one by one but to our dismay we didn’t find any rooms. It seems we had to book atleast 10 days in advance and for this weekend all rooms were full. We had only 2 more days and we decided not to tell the rest of the party about this and head to Yelagiri and see what happens. The only think which helped us was Pramod’s words: “We are all bachelors. We can even sleep on the platform…”

The Ride:

We decided to start on Saturday 5.30am and the meeting point was Menakshi College, Kodambakkam. When I woke up that morning I could here the rain…. Holy Cow! But all of us where very determined to make this happen and surprisingly we started at 5.30am inspite of the rain. The rain slowly subsided into a gentle drizzle. The bikes were prepped and topped up the previous day itself and the only thing left to do was hit the highway. Initially we were very cautious until we get a hold of the road conditions and decided to stop at Sriperambattur (30Kms). The wet weather got our tanks full and we needed to empty it ;) Then I took over from Pramod. I and Karthi were riding at a steady pace. Meanwhile Abhilash was playing yoyo. He would periodically gun the bike and go ahead of us and then drop back way behind us and again do the same thing. We had breakfast and tool several snaps on the way and finally we reached the foot of Yelagiri. The ride up consisted of several hair-pin bends and reached on top a around 12.30pm.

At Yelagiri:

The demon was back and we could not find any place to stay. I and Karthi set-off in search for a place to stay leaving the rest of them. This took us all around Yelagiri and all places were full but on the bright side we got to see Yelagiri. Meanwhile Pramod somehow managed to find a guy who rent out placed and finally we got a place to stay by around 3.00pm. The place was much more than we could ever wish for. We got a full bungalow for ourselves for 4400 per day. The price was little steep but we didn’t have any other choice. We then had a sumptuous lunch and headed to the lake and took a stroll around it. We were all getting ready for the night and bough snacks for us to give company. Back at the house we arranged beds and chairs in the balcony/terrace and began our session which went till 3 in the morning.

The next day we went for some random site seeing and we went were the roads took us. The roads were beautiful and the scenery was even better. We had out lunch and decided to leave by 1.00pm.

The Ride Back:

The ride down was a Blitzkrieg. I decided to take lead and wanted to test out FZ ability to break and turn. I was literally scraping the foot-peg at every turn and was the first to reach down a good 5mins ahead of others. We decided not to see the waterfalls as the locals said there wouldn’t be any water because there was no rain. We headed back home and as we hit the Bangalore-Chennai highway the heavens opened. We took that as blessing and ripped through the highway. One thing I found out was never tail a FZ when the roads are wet and never be a pillion when it rains. The rear tire picks up hell a lot of water. We were doing 90+ consistently and also 100+ at some sections. Atleast that’s what the speedo said. The only think that overtook us were big cars. We took a break at Vellore to have snacks and get some medicines for the hangover which me and Abhilash was having from morning. After that the ripping ritual started. Abhilash fell behind as he had to refuel. I and Karthi decided to maintain 90kmph because 100+ put a lot of stress on man and machine. We reached Chennai by 7.00pm and by 8.00pm all of us parted ways to rest our sore butts on our beloved beds.

Lessons learnt:

Always arrange for the stay before you start your journey if that is possible.

1. Never tail behind a FZ on wet roads.
2. Riding with a pillion is not a good idea. Avoid it if possible.
3. On busy highways with centre medians it is safer to ride on the right side.
4. DO NOT RIDE in the night.