BHPian PrideRed recently shared this with other enthusiasts:Ride to KabiniIt’s about 8 months since I got a bike and most of my rides were limited to short ones and city rides. And yes, whenever it doesn’t rain, I ride Bullet to the office. Bike had clocked around 2K KM’s and quite happy with Bullet. Back in the days when I had Pulsar, I used to frequently do 350 KM rides to homeand nearby places. Those rides stopped after bike was sold, this was about 15 years ago. When I got bike recently, a little long ride with better half was always in my bucket list. While I must admit our short trips(~50KM) wasn’t much problematic, but not extremely comfortable either. That said we for some reason wanted to do a longer ride. One of the weekends stars aligned, and we decided to ride to Kabini, which is about 250KM one way from home. Not a long one but knowing Bullet and our capabilities, I knew this was not going to be piece of cake. I had decided to ride for 1-1.5Hrs and take a break, the whole ride was expected to be around 5Hrs. Another thing that was on the back of my mind was tube tires. While this was never a concern with my Pulsar 15 years ago, I was little concerned about tires. I decided to stick to the usual Mysore Road, since 2 wheelers are not allowed on expressway, and I had to stick to service lane. Roads were good until Mysore except for speed breakers and was ideal for speed that Bullet could do. We had started at around 7AM and stopped at Kadamba (Previously Malgudi Vattika) for breakfast. This was about 1.5 hrs. from home. The food was just average. We wrapped up breakfast in 30 minutes and resumed our journey. Stopped for fuel an hour later. We were not in hurry and were riding at around 80KM/HR, not that Bullet has power to ride at 110 or higher with 2 people. By around 10:30 or so, we were at Mysore. Wanted to check out World of Mysore Pak as it was nearby. The shop was open, and we tasted few varieties of Mysore Pak and other sweets. Nothing great, in fact I found the Mysore Pak a bit too sweet. Spent about 15-20 minutes and resumed our Journey towards Kabini. It’s about 2 Hrs. from Mysore and we reached Kabini by about 12:30-1 PM. Had a nice lunch after check in and took a long nap. The property was adjacent to Kabini reservoir and rooms had nice pano view of reservoir from balcony. We were contemplating if to go for Safari or not, but after checking on previous safari sightings, we decided to opt out of safari. We strolled around and went for a good walk. They had a nice organic garden which we checked out. By evening, some of the staff and guests were out to play cricket, they had nice big ground, and the weather was perfect . Spent 1-2 hours playing Cricket, was nice to hold the bat and play after ages. We had dinner and called the day after a tiring ride. While the distance was not exceedingly long, I was getting back to riding after long time and definitely left me tired. Next day we got up leisurely, went for a walk and then checked out after breakfast. I was planning to ride back via Kanakapura road. When we reached Mysore, we had to change the plan and ride to Puttur home. While Puttur is just 200KM from Kabini, since we had reached Mysore, it became close to 300KM ride. While the previous day was bone dry, weather prediction indicated rain post Madikeri. Though it was not heavy rain, my average speed came down and made it more tiring. We reached home by about 2PM.Experience With The Bullet 350Coming to bike, while I loved riding at steady 80-90KM/HR, Bullet struggled and felt it was boring on 4 lane highways with 2 people. On the flip side, I loved riding on 2 lane roads, and I could ride at a decent pace without much hassle. Suspension is decent and bike handles well. Sampaje- Puttur is where I loved the bike the most, fast sweeping corners and butter smooth roads, perfect for riding. Little more power would have been nice though. This trip was different than my usual car drives and was a memorable ride. Breakfast stop at Kadamba Fresh Mysuru Pak in making Approaching Kabini Pool next to Kabini Reservoir Cherry tomatoes at Organic Garden Fresh Saunf Roads inside property Lovely cricket ground Weight reduction is in trend! Bullet Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.
