Dejection was setting in real fast and the panicky overthinker in me was already prepared for a dull Chennai – Bengaluru and back solo ride.
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“We’re not going to Gokarna” was the painful realisation I arrived at, as I sat at my work desk staring into my laptop screen.
Rewinding a few years to sometime in April 2022, I had my first acquaintance with my friend, codename “Yeti”. Yeti happens to be a classmate of my cousin sister, and little did we know that one fateful meeting would open up quite a budding bromance in the years to come. We immediately bonded over motorcycles, UFC and talks about the glorious Delhi life we used to be a part of. As we kept meeting and getting to know each other better, Yeti happened to get his first motorcycle, a Yamaha MT15. Soon, he moved to Bengaluru, and a couple of months down the line, I upgraded to the 457. Long before the more recent chain of events, we used to talk about touring and destinations to explore in India. Even though long rides weren’t my cup of tea, I still did fancy riding to Gokarna someday because of how fascinated I was with that place. I even suggested that he could rent a motorcycle in Chennai, and then we would ride from there. Of course, at that time, this was optimistic rambling because I was confident that he would go back and settle in Delhi once his PG was over, which means that this ride wasn’t going to happen.
I was about 5 months into my Aprilia ownership and glancing at my holiday calendar when it suddenly struck me. Christmas ‘24 is smack dab in the middle of the week, and I hadn’t utilised any of my holidays since I joined my new organisation. While my mind usually doesn’t think this way, for the first time, my immediate thought was “ROAD TRIP”. Once I was on this train of thought, I didn’t even ponder over the destination, Gokarana, it is! I subconsciously called Yeti and just said two words, “Gokarna, Christmas?” which was met with an enthusiastic “haan bhai done!”
THE RUDE AWAKENING
I think it was about the second week of November, just a week or two after we had our confirmation call, when I started with the planning phase. Now, I am not at all the kind of guy to go ahead with impromptu plans, I need every detail and every arrangement sorted out well in advance. Sadly, despite my assumption that 40 days is enough buffer time to get a nice and affordable accommodation, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Turns out that finding the right accommodation in Gokarna during Christmas is an (impossible task)^infinity. The available ones were quite shady and far away from the beachside views that we were imagining.
More than anything, finding an accommodation with a safe parking space was the real hassle near the beach. We learnt that there are public parking areas near places like Kudle beach, but there’s no way in hell I was leaving my flashy white Maratha-Italian hottie over there. Maybe it would have been safe, but I wasn’t going to take that chance on a new bike that’s not even a year old. We did find one property, which ticked all the boxes, had its own parking but would set us back by an exorbitant 22k for 3 days, that too for a furnished outdoor tent and shared washrooms. Not happening.
Dejection was setting in real fast and the panicky overthinker in me was already prepared for a dull Chennai – Bengaluru and back solo ride. I still wanted to check what reserve options we had and gave a call to another friend who had done that route all the way up till Vagator multiple times for IBW. I explained my predicament to him, and he simply told me it’s a waste to spend that much at Gokarna, and why don’t I just check out South Goa instead? Suddenly, there’s a glimmer of hope. I am not one for the crowded and commercial Goa experience, and South Goa was anything but that. Its serenity, based on Google Street View, resembled Gokarna quite a bit, or maybe it was just my confirmation bias. After spending the next two days over multiple hour-long calls with Yeti, the destination we concluded on was Agonda, and I immediately booked an ideal beachside property that fit the bill. I left the route planning to him as he had ample friends with properties and recommendations on the route from Bengaluru to Agonda. So, around the first week of December, the plan was ready, the properties were booked, and the route we’d be taking would be:
Bengaluru – Chikkamagaluru – Agonda – Shivamogga – Bengaluru.
I would be doing two extra legs to reach Bengaluru from Chennai and return to Chennai from Bengaluru.
In terms of preparation, I didn’t have much to do apart from buying a new pair of riding pants. I already had a Viaterra Claw that I had gotten when I was riding the R15 in Delhi. But like an idiot, I made the mistake of dunking it into a bucket of detergent water to clean it inside out, which completely ruined the structural firmness of its inner materials. I would come to realise that this was a mistake long after I commenced the ride. I was still about 1200 km shy of my 2nd service due date, but I went ahead with an early service to be on the safer side and iron out any potential issues that I might face.
Luggage setup – Structurally ruined Viaterra Claw and Shima Ayro backpack
Took a test run after the 2nd service to ECR a weekend before the trip and to break in the new pants as well.
All set and prepped!
Day 1 – Chennai to Bengaluru (Solo)
I was confident that the detail-oriented freak that I was would have everything in order, but no, the troubles started as soon as I left for the parking from my door. I was planning to do this ride on my old AXO MG2 boots, which were far more comfortable than my current sport-oriented RYO T-Rex boots. As soon as I wore them and started walking out, something felt odd in the first few steps. A few more steps and “CRAAAAACKK”. The plastic heel counter on the left boot just shattered. I had no time to process this, just ran back, dumped these boots in my room and without any other choice, put on the T-Rex boots against my will. Not off to a good start. Nonetheless, I bid farewell to Amma and got on with what would be the first proper long ride of my life.
As I crossed Sriperumbudur, I saw a lot of other bikers who were also strapped with luggage and presumably proceeding with their Christmas plans. A lot of them seemed pretty surprised to see an RS457 with a luggage setup. One of the bikers pointed out to me that my Claw tailbag was sagging to the right, and that’s when I realised the grave error that I had committed by dunking it into the bucket of water. Its structural rigidity was completely gone. It was holding itself in position and wasn’t creating any balancing problems, but it would randomly just start sagging to either side, no matter how much I’d tighten it. This did have me worried, but I didn’t have any other choice but to push on with my fingers crossed.
Beautiful hills right ahead of the Pallikonda toll plaza.
As I rode further, I was also carrying a small hardtop sling that contained some quick carryables like my specs, vehicle documents and sanitiser, etc. The moment I crossed 100 kmph, it would start flying out again and again, which irritated me. So, I stopped on the side of the road, dumped into the claw and moved ahead. This also gave me a butt break and a chance to readjust the claw to a neutral position from its sagging state.
Coffee stop after crossing Krishnagiri.
I left at about 5:30 in the morning and reached Bengaluru around 11:45. Not bad, I’d say, for the sheer number of adjustment breaks I was taking. I reached Yeti’s place, exchanged pleasantries and kept rambling about how I felt like I had just achieved something big by travelling a mere 300+ km on wide open highways
Much-needed rehydration.
The excitement had just started to set in because the real ride starts now. I was told by Yeti that another friend of his would also be accompanying us on his Himalayan 450 till Goa, but only on the towards journey. We chit-chatted all night and, despite having plans to doze off by 9 or 10, ended up sleeping well after 12, which is a decision that would come back to bite me very soon.
Day 2 – Bengaluru to Chikkamagaluru
We were scheduled to leave by 4, but of course neither of us woke up on time. It was about 5:45 when we were ready to leave. Yeti’s friend AG was also there, and he was far more meticulous than us since he had been waiting nearly an hour while we were getting ready.
Ready to roll!
Quick stop at Neelamangala toll.
Chai-sutta break for them, chai-readjust the viaterra break for me.
Surreal scenes!
The above picture was when I forcibly told them to stop because I hadn’t seen fog in over 6 years since I moved to Chennai. Yeti couldn’t even see my signals and kept pushing on due to the visibility. This entire stretch just blew my mind because I guess this is some new under-construction highway which did have a lot of detours, but the roads were absolutely pristine. Unfortunately, my Insta360 didn’t charge properly or something through the night because it died off long before this stretch, and I didn’t even have the presence of mind to plug it into the power bank either. Missed opportunity!
All of us were riding on this stretch for the first time, and we had no idea about the food situation. It was somewhat early, around 8-9 ish, and we were well into the depths of the highway, but strangely, there were barely any eatery establishments on either side. The ones that were there said they’d only start serving around the afternoon. Once we crossed the Rajathadri Toll Plaza, we saw a Cafe Coffee Day on the other side of the road and indulged in a rather lavish breakfast.
At about 12:30 or so, we entered Chikkamagaluru. Yeti and I split towards our accommodation, Sirivasa Homestay, while AG went to his at Zostel. Our homestay was a gorgeous place in the middle of endless banana plantations. We were expecting it to be peaceful and quiet, but I think they were holding some function like a baby shower or something, so it was packed with people. We dumped our stuff, got fresh and met AG for lunch at a nearby restaurant.
The route to our homestay was extremely scenic and faced a hill called Shakunagiri. We had to stop there for pictures.
Yeti flaunting his posing prowess.
A shot of the homestay property from our balcony.
The owner of the homestay was as nice as they could be. He specially set up the patio area for our high tea before dinner. It felt a little unnecessarily romantic, but we didn’t care; our priorities were already aligned with the pakodas and scintillating aroma of the coffee.
We finished our evening beverages, had dinner, chatted with the owner for a while about our remaining trip, our bikes and crashed for the night. This is when I started to feel the fatigue set in. The lack of touring experience and fitness was really showing signs. And tomorrow would be the longest and toughest leg of the trip till Goa.
To be continued..
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