Long time no see Ride

Been ages since i had gone for one of the Xbhp G2Gs. Saw a post in Xbhp about weekend ride to nowhere (literally!) so thought of joining in as it was supposed to be a chota breakfast ride to BigBanyan Tree. Santoosh too joined in and so did murugesh, 3 is a crowd indeed :P We three met up as usual and rode on to meeting point, The Nice road - Mysore road intersection by early morning 6.30. Soon we found company with two sbk riders, all decked up with riding gear (for a change!) We found a MV Augusta! Later came to know that they were from Red roosters SBK group.

The Xbhp troupe joined us, they had taken NICE road. I was in for a surprise! After close to 6 months, i saw Professor there! He had joined the ride through Xbhpian John's contact. I was overjoyed bumping in to him, we had loads of things to catch up since our Last ride together was the Gokarna Ride in October 2007! That was one heck of a ride to say the least! Newayz, Soon, we all rode to Bigbanyan Tree, in absolute formation, with me and professor as Tail and Santoosh as lead. With in no time, we were there, near the Huge banyan Tree.



Had a vella time there, before our hunger pans started. There were no hotels near by, John was talking of going back to mysore road, catching up breakfast and leaving for home. Me and professor felt that we needed more from this ride, so we all informed that it would be better if we could go to Manchanabele dam, which was very nearby. Most of them agreed, few of them turned back. Soon, with santoosh as lead, we all rode in formation towards the Dam, through villages. The roads were nonexistant! It was total offroading to the core! The roads were akin to the ones i had encountered during Kemmangundi ride After prolonged offroading, we hit nice tarmac with awesome twisties! Few more kms in to it, we saw the first view of dam, it was beautiful.



Took some pics and joined the gang, we ventured deep in to the interiors towards the dam, offroading began again! Then john found a path way which lead us in to the backwaters, it was just too steep. While most of the bravehearts ventured in to the deep steep with their steeds, me, professor and few others bailed out and parked our bikes in safer places, we walked our way down, only to find a biker civilization near the back waters :P



Fellas were enjoying in the water like small kids :P not to mention overjoyed John, who took his P220 in to water like a ship! Santoosh too ventured deep in to water and parked his bike. Loads of laughter and chit chat followed, not to mention the photo session and john did his role of tickling everyone's funny bones. Me and professor caught up with loads of things since our last ride together. Met new members of xbhp and made new friends :) After more than an hour there, everyone got hungry, john and co wanted to head back towards bangalore and catch up breakfast on the way. While we four (santooh, murugesh, professor and me) decided to check out interior roads and do a lazy ride. We bid byes to everyone and took the interior roads towards Savandurga.

The roads were bliss, excellent tarmac with greenery all around. We soon hit the intersection of savandurga and ramnagaram. We had excellent breakfast in one of the local hotels, awesome "thatte Idlis" and fresh Lemon rice, few cups of tea. Total bill? Close to Rs 30! It was worth the wait breakfast :P We decided to ditch savandurga, which was 4 kms from where we were, instead, we took the route towards Ramnagaram, which would join mysore road. The road was dream come true! Excellent twisties with well laid tarmac. Santoosh and me had swapped bikes and santoosh was literally scraping his shoes on my zma! I was enjoying his hooligan bike after few months and enjoyed riding the torquey beast.



We found a nice shady spot under a tree, which overlooked a curve and decided to take cornering pics. Murugesh popped few wheelies, i couldn't capture it in full glory :( Santoosh managed to capture it properly in his cam. Soon, we were taking good cornering pics, professor even took my zma for the cornering pic :P as expected, he was impressed with zma's flickability and handling (next bike saar? :P) We were relaxing after the tiring photosession under the shade, when we found ourselves an unexpected host. We found ourselves being questioned by a bangalore kid, he was amused by our bikes and riding gear :P He wanted to know if we would like tender coconuts! We took couple of pics of the overjoyed kid, posing on my zma :)



We then found out that the kid and his father owned a farm house, which was bang opposite to the spot from where we were standing! We got invited by his dad to their farm house, it was beautiful, acres of land with coconut trees and mango trees! Kid's father was very humble, despite being a big shot in bangalore, he was very friendly and treated us to N number of tender coconuts! plucked fresh from trees! I had never had such tasty tender coconuts! We all had rounds of it and soon got full!
Santoosh managed to get one "mileage" tender coconut, which was going on and on! Looked like the tree had dumped all the water in to his single tender coconut! :P



We relaxed under a coconut tree in their farmhouse chatting with the kid's father and not to mention, answering the innumerable questions by the kid :P His father also was kinda surprised at our ride for no reason :P He found it difficult to believe that professor at his age was riding a bike :) It was well spent time there, after more than 2 hours of chit chatting and consuming many tender coconuts, we had to move on, We bid byes to our hosts, who had treated us very well. The kid's father even gave his contact number to us and gave us an offer to use the farmhouse if we wanted in future! :P Advantages of being a biker i guess!



Everyone was happy at the turn of events. It was totally unplanned ride, which was throwing up pleasant surprises. We soon headed towards ramnagaram, enjoying the curvy road and we hit mysore road. We stopped near Kamat hotel for late lunch. Found it too crowded, so Professor suggested that we check out "jaanapadha loka" which was right next to it. We found a Canteen inside. To our surprise, we found out that it was Kamat Hotel's canteen and the rates blew us away! Rs 15 for full meals! while the same meal costed Rs 90 inside Kamat! We immediately grabbed our plates, we were given Ragi ball meals (Ragi muddey) Santoosh was trying ragi ball for the first time :P We had to give him instructions about eating it and even demonstrated couple of times :P He gave up on eating it after few bites :P

Enjoyed our meals, with ducks for company, found the ducks amusing coz they were literally poking us for dropping some food for them like domestic dogs! trained ducks i guess! We then spent few more minutes relaxing there and pondered over the way this ride had turned out. All of us felt that this was a perfect lazed out weekend ride. We decided to move and hit mysore road towards bangalore. I lead, with santoosh as tail. The highspeed ride came to an end just before we hit bangalore, bumper to bumper traffic welcomed us. Santoosh and murugesh parted ways. While me and professor decided to hit CCD in jayanagar to meet up with Sachin and his friend. After struggling through the traffic for close to an hour, we hit CCD.

Met up sachin and his friend for a loong chat session. Decided to do some rides together in near future. Professor bid adieu after sometime, while me and sachin stuck on in CCD for some more time. Finally, i left CCD and reached home by 9 pm. It was a wonderful weekend ride, the overall pleasant surprises made me smile at the end of the day, bumping in to professor after a loong time was one among them :)
The trip meter read "165 kms" it was 165 kms of pure joyful ride!