Looking back at 2007

What a year it was!


I matured as a tourer this year, When i started out, i always used to wonder why most of the tourers like Ghat roads compared to the easy straight roads! I always felt that ghat roads were Pain in the ass! :P you have to concentrate so much in each turn and it's no fun bending the bike at each turn, watching out for oncoming traffic, taking the curve, lots of calculations going on in head etc. While the Straight roads (especially the NH4 types) with 4 lanes were bliss! full throttle, sit back and watch the world go by in highspeed!
I had to eat my own words, 2007 showed me the bliss of ghat roads and the fun in riding curvy roads, am no longer worried about getting the "chicken strips" on my tyres :P

Another problematic area was Night riding! Dang, that was hard, what fun is it when you have the truckers flashing all their 4 * 100w headlamps at you and you are temporarily blinded! I always used to ensure that i never end up riding in night in any of my rides. But this year, most of my rides ended with night riding! rather unintentionally! But i learnt a thing or two about riding in nights this year, can't say iam comfortable, but if iam forced to, then can manage pretty well. Thanks to the Headlamp upgrade from lousy 35w candlelight to 55/60w tubelight. More is never enough i guess, it's time to upgrade to HID i think :P

Looking back at 2007, i had a pretty good time riding with few very talented riders. I kicked off my first ride of 2007 with Sachin whom i had met in Xbhp's gtg. I had never imagined that i will find my ghat section guru in that gtg! Even though i had spent more than a week in Kerala during my Loong Kerala Ride at the fag end of 2006, i was not comfortable taking on the ghat sections/twisties. Then Sachin and me planned our ride to Waynad in kerala and with in one day, sachin taught me the technique to take on ghat sections and i started getting the hang of it, albiet the ride was cut short and i ventured towards belur and halebeedu, but i had got my first lesson in tackling ghats and i was sure that practice will make me more confident.

Practice session did come in May, during our Ride to mangalore to calicut and to bangalore This time we had more riders, i had the pleasure of riding with excellent riders like karthik ayyar and balaji, the fun we had in this ride was simply too much :P This ride made me laugh so much in those 4 days! all thanks to Santosh, the legendary iron butt pillion of balaji! This was my first ride with a large group where i was just out of the learner phase and thanks to sachin's guidance, again while returning for calicut to waynad, i could take up the learning lessons and i got a hang of taking on twisties.
Balaji and karthik ayyar got added to our permanent list of riders after this ride :P
Also, two large hearted Xbhpians Sujay and Zahin from mangalore became our very good friends, they really saved our ass in mangalore, when we were stranded with out getting a room to stay. Their large heartedness humbled us.

Then came the monsoon season, the dreaded season for me. Am yet to start to get the hang of riding in rains. Soon plans were afoot for a ride in october, We had a new rider this time, it was Professor Nanjundappa Nisarga of Christ college! Must say, this ride was one of the most memorable rides for me! Professor's down to earth attitude coupled with balaji's company made me enjoy the ride. Also, i cannot forget the two xbhpians who joined in for this ride, two guys whom i had never ridden with or known earlier, but they turned out to be the most decent riders i have ever come across! Venu and Chetan were excellent on road and off road too, they mingled very well among the group, Professor was the common bonding element i guess!:P
Also got introduced to balaji's pillion Nandeesh, who was santosh's replacement from earlier ride and he was no less in ticking our funny bones!
Jogfalls was misty, the foggy road through honnavar was unforgettable. The ride through back breaking Honnavar to Gokarna stretch was unforgettable! Gokarna's laid back atmosphere was a treat, also big time treat was booze sessions with fish side dishes and professor for company! I missed out on Yana, it was just too much for me, while balaji, venu and chetan went through the ordeal, on our part, prof, me and manas enjoyed the leisure ride back through scenic haveri route and then the rip fest from chitradurga.
Sachin was sorely missed in this ride, he couldn't make it due to office issues, but later, even he regretted for not joining us. No problem, there's always next time.

Ah, the month of october seemed to be raining rides :P
Just 2 weeks after i returned from Gokarna ride, i was to attend wedding of my close colleague all hopes of going with office people got ditched after all my colleagues pulled out of the proposed cage ride. Now it was back to my trusty zma, i was in two minds whether to do this solo ride or go by bus (Yikes!) Thats when my close friend Girish joined in. Now girish was no stranger to rides with me, after all i started my touring with him as pillion during my first loong ride This time though, i had my cramster saddlebags, so my pillion need not worry about being the cramster :P
Also this was to be Girish's last ride with me as a bachelor, he's getting hitched in April 2008. So, we set off towards shimoga and surprisingly, we covered lot of distance in shorttime including breaks.
The ride was a beauty, My 40K done Zma took the abuse, she managed to go through the punishment of hauling me and fully loaded saddle bags with 80kg pillion pretty well. My colleague's place which is 60kms from sagar was heavenly, we thoroughly enjoyed the stay there, soaking in nature, early morning life in a village etc. Attended the wedding, Came back riding through the night! NH4 at night was so sleepy! Thoroughly enjoyed this ride, after this ride, my respect for my trusty zma went up, Am truly amazed at this bike's capacity to endure punishment! Good going girl :)

The month of november was time for annual meet of Bikenomads
Plans were afoot in community about finalising a place for the annual meet this year, Last year's meet was in Goa
Voting was done and most favoured Hampi and Goa. So it was decided as hampi for this year.
Along with Sachin, i volunteered for managing the logistics. It was one heck a exercise! right from making google sheets of riders with their complete details to the number of rooms to be booked in hotel etc. The ride was memorable and all the excel sheets were worth the pain :P
Met members from mumbai/pune/hyd and it was gala time there. I was for the first time leading the pack of riders from bangalore, i had the pleasure of meeting and riding with few wonderful people like Aditya bhelke, Lovejoshi, Ashishchamoli, Gaurav and many more.

Apart from the above mentioned long rides, i also did few chota rides over weekends. Those were
Ride to bheemeshwari with bull gang of dada jsr, Kam and boodie

Kam's send off ride
Bangy guys rode up to say bye bye to kam bhai, who was shifting to Noida :(

Rangantitu ride
Memorable ride to rangantitu bird santuary, Met and rode with Venkatsir for the first time and had loads of discussions with him regarding biking scene in india.

Ride to Himavad Gopalswamy Betta
With sachin, it was a well deserved ride after a looong time indeed!

Ride to Gaganachukki and K kudi
Ride with old friends santoosh, pradeep and Renu. What a ride! Ride through forest area in K gudi was superb!

So overall, i had a gala time during this year, i hope 2008 too has many rides in store and places to see and ofcourse, lots of people to meet.

BikeNomads Hampi Meet

Pics of the meet: http://picasaweb.google.com/vaas2000/BikeNomadsHampiMeet

Finally Am starting to pour in to words about the hampi meet which happened exactly 1 week back.
It was an awesome ride to Hampi which saw 40 plus people and 30 plus bikes all riding down from various parts of india and meeting up in hampi.
This was the largest turn out compared to previous Bikenomads annual meets!

It was great to meet legends and members from other cities, email ids which were seen on group were given a face finally!

It all started some 2 weeks prior to the meet and with Vibhu asking for volunteers and coordinators for organising the meet. Since this was hampi and i had previously been there in March 2006 Meet i pitched in for organising things, along with fellow nomad Sachin whose native is Hospet (just 13 kms from hampi)
Then the planning started, city coordinators were appointed for pune, hyderabad, mumbai and bangalore. I was also the coordinator for bangalore. Cut off date was announced for confirming the hotel room booking. That in itself is a long story....

The google sheet started to become very active, with riders confirming, few dropping out, i made an offline excel sheet and started updating the status of riders.
We realised that this time we need to fit in all people in a single hotel, as only then people will have time to interact with each other. The only big hotel near hampi was KSTDC Mayurabhuvaneshwari Hotel in Kamalapur (3 kms from hampi)
Cutoff date for confirming for ride for assured accomodation was announced and till the nth moment, there were changes! Finally the list came up and I booked 11 rooms by calling up hotel, but i was skeptical as the hotel chaps needed advance amount for confirmed booking. Then sachin pitched in, he was in hospet for diwali, he drove down to hotel and rebooked the rooms also paid the advance.

Then the task of grouping Bangalore guys came, i again formed an email chain with ids of guys from bangalore who had confirmed. We were around 10, at the last moment Prabul dropped out as he was to go to USA. Then there were quite some additions/deletions. I was worried as the D day neared, This time neither sachin nor prabul were there to lead the pack and i had to lead. I have always been the sweep guy in all rides or somewhere in middle order, always comfortable following someone, but this time, i had to lead this totally new group of 10 bikes! So viola, there was a CCD meet arranged for collecting the hotel amount from bangy guys and i could finally put faces of the email ids of bangy people. After the interaction, i was confident that most of guys are sensible riders.
But i had never ridden with them, so i had to see how things would go.
Just 1 day prior to ride i came to know that the number of bikes will be 12
Number of people will be 16. That is 4 bikes with pillion out of which 2 would be couple. This was gonna be one heck of ride, i told myself this time i don't have any one to fall back on in case of any problems on the road as i was to lead the group, so i had to be prepared to handle any incidents or fuckups, as my usual ride partners were not riding with me in this ride. But with people like Adityabhelke, Lovejoshi, Gaurav, Chamolibhai and last but not least Renu, i reassured myself that this group doesn't have any juvenile riders and this is gonna be a safe ride.

I left my office early (for the first time before any ride!) as i had pulled in a double shift. Reached home comfortably by 6Pm. Packing things is a huge task for me, i first go through the list of things i need to carry, then categorise it, then pick and choose from the lot, then finally cram things in my cramster saddle bags. This was gonna be my first ride with my own proper camera! Thanks to sachin, i got his KodakZ650 Camera for a good buy from him. By the time i was done with the ordeal of packing, it was 10 Pm! I knew that i shouldn't be wasting time in morning and i should be on road in max half and hour after i wake up, so did my morning rituals at night itself :P and bathed and got ready and slept! sleep i did! like a log!

Day 1 : November 23rd 2007, Friday:

I woke up at 3.45 Am, i was to be in nelamangala crossing (our consolidated meeting point) by 5 Am. So i took my stuff and started mounting the saddle bikes on zma and i was ready to roll by 4.25 Am. My parents did their routine stuff, did a neat pooja for the bike, broke coconut and ran over lemons by 4.35 Am and i was on road.

The excitement was too much, i could feel the butterflies in my stomach, but all that drowned when i saw the truck traffic in yeshwantpur! i was dodging and making way through the trucks for atleast 10 kms and well past jalahalli circle. I had estimated that it would take me 30 mins to reach the meeting point and i was right. I rolled in exactly at 5 am on zma's clock at nelamangala crossing. The weather was too cold, even though i had worn gloves, i could feel the coldness in my fingers. Stopped at the chai shop in junction and waited for other guys to roll in. It was 5.10 Am and still no sign of other guys, i was the only one waiting there, much to the amusement of few truckies who were amused at my riding gear and loaded bike!
Well, another ciggy smoked and finally by 5.20 Am, Chamoli bhai rolled in with his avenger, along with him was gautam sharma and Gaurav All three avenger brothers were there :P After the hi's and hellos, we settled down for another cuppa tea, then at 5.30Am, The Koramangala folks rolled in, Aditya on his P220 with his wife Sapna, Lovejoshi on his Bull "red eye" with his wife Tanya and other stags like nfsnfs aka santosh, Sunil dhummi and otehrs, the crowd was growing!

But still no sign of our great sweep, my good old friend Mr renukumar and his pulsar 180! I got a call from prasanna, he's shot past crossing and is waiting ahead near the toll gate, i tell him to wait there for us, so he can join the brigade when we start. Question was when to start! it was 5.45 Am, all the junta were accounted for except the sweep, i tried calling renu, but he didn't answer, so i decided to wait till 6Am and see if he catches up. Meanwhile the entire junta got talking, i was just standing and observing the entire junta. Wow! i had never imagined that one day, i would get to ride with some many guys, We were a total of 12 bikes and 16 people! and i was the one who knew the route, so i was technically the lead. It was a great honour indeed, but also thoughts of whether i can lead successfully and maintain the composure of the group cropped up, i told myself, what ever happens, happens for good, so let me go with the flow and see.

It was 6.00 Am, still no sign of Mr renu kumar, I call him on his cell and no answer, meanwhile junta start getting impatient, Lovejoshi is frustrated that we all have been made to wait for one guy and looks like he's gonna rain punches on me if i try to talk to him! :P so i keep my distance from the tatoo man!:P Then finally by 6.10 Am, i see our spot come in and stop next to me. I gave him a kick on his butt with my steel toe CAT shoes to show my frustration and collective frustration of the group! Then renu explains his story and turns out cops were checking and blah blah... So after final round of Tea, i brief the guys, Iam gonna lead, you guys stick to your positions as per the sheet (yeah, i had got printout of the details of junta :P) All agree, i see veteran nfsnfs mumbling, i know things aren't going down well with him, he's not used to slow riding :P

Finally! at 6.25 Am We all start the bikes and roll! caravan of 11 bikes to start off with. It was a sight to see! then prasanna joins the brigade from the toll gate ahead and now we are 12 bikes riding in formation in a straight line with me leading the pack, i was just letting this thought in mind when i see someone over take me from left, whoosh! who was that breaking the rules? Well, it was our own nfsnfs! true to his name, he had enough of slow riding and rips ahead! ok, let everyone ride as per their comfort i feel. Then see the numbers in the formation are interchanged in the rear view mirror, i see the avengers are last with few pulsars and me followed by Aditya's P220 and LJ's Redeye. Then after some distance, prasanna goes ahead whoosh! okay so he wants to give nfsnfs some company in fast riding, so I leave the speedsters ahead and lead the remaining 9 bikes.

It's heavenly to ride on wide 4 laned road, early morning with minimal traffic. We gobble up kms and after an hour or so, i give a small pit stop, Then carry on again. We had planned to have breakfast in Kamat near sira, i missed it. I realised that after nfsnfs who had gone ahead of me, tells in sign language while riding parallel to me. So i find the next hotel on the service lane and pull over.



Entire junta decend on the hotel, taking the chaps there by surprise! They have only idly and dosa, fine! anything will do as everyone was damn hungry! We gooble up breakfast and after sutta and teas, we roll on. I decide to stop at Reliance A1 in chitradurga next. So we roll on, we are covering good speeds and tarmac is never ending 4 laned bliss! But all good things come to an end, so did the 4 laned runway! we hit the two laned road just outside chitradurga, i spot the A1 plaza and pullover and wait for junta to regroup. After 10 mins, the entire gang is together and we roll in to A1 plaza at 10.15 Am. We take a relaxed tea sutta break and i brief junta here again.

We decide that prasanna and nfsnfs are comfy riding faster, so they both will go ahead of us, while the remaining lot will follow me. I also warn the junta that NH13, which we are gonna take hence forth towards hampi (150 plus kms) is total opposite of what we had see till then, i tell them that based on sachin's report 2 weeks earlier, the road was a mess, 2 laned potholed road to hell with lots of trucks thrown in. So i tell the junta to be very very cautious and show them the handsignals which i will use to warn the riders while i ride and ask them to follow the same so the riders behind me could get the message. All set, we roll out of A1 plaza by 10.30 AM.



It was getting hot now! the weather was getting too damn hot, iam used to sun, so i enjoyed, i could make out that the rest of junta were really hating to ride in this road at this time of the day! NH13 starts off as a clean road with good tarmac and lots of trucks, hardly after 20 kms, we get samples of potholes, i give the handsignals and never stop till we reach hampi later! The road gets progressively worse as we proceed some 40 kms, the potholes become lunar craters and we have to search for patches of tar to ride on, coupled with the trucks! it was dangerous to overtake a truck too coz you never knew when the truckie would swerve right to avoid a pothole, when you are overtaking him! so i had to watch out the truck's path ahead too and then over take. After an hour or so, the butt aches, the cramps start, all the abuse of riding on potholed road shows up, so i pull over near a tree with lots of shade for a butt break and the junta too pull up. It was a much needed butt break for everyone!



To be Cont'd....

Cage Drive to GS Hills - Bandipur - KRS and a wedding

Last weekend's ride in a cage to Gopalswamy Betta left me confused and excited.
Confused coz i didn't get the "feel" of the journey like in my bike rides and Excited as we reached Gopalswamy Betta bang on sunrise! It was an awesome view from there. I thoroughly enjoyed the places and my friends company. Only thing i hated was sitting like a couch potato in passenger seat, with my ass strapped to the seat with a seat belt and seeing the whole world through the windscreen "TV"
The frustration increased when i saw 5 Bulleteers on their way towards Mysore, while I was stuck in the cage. Also on the last day while returning at night, i saw a zma and cbz riders on their way back to bangalore. I felt like a smoker with out his fag! :P

My first outing to nature spot with my new addition to my travel kit, Kodak Z650 Camera! Finally i was able to realise my dreams of capturing nature's beauty in my own camera, all thanks to sachin, who generously gave away his cam for a good price to me. Will upload snaps and stuff some time.
The sunrise view and scenic view of Gopalswamy Betta was awesome, on our drive towards bandipur, we spotted peacocks and Deers. Then the customary wedding was attended to and the last day we went to back waters of KRS called Blue lagoon.

Am more exited now about the upcomming BikeNomads meet in Hampi this weekend. This time there are large number of riders and Bangalore leads the list with 11 bikes! Can't wait till friday!

Ride to a Wedding, Jogfalls and NH4

Well, finally found time to update the ride log of my previous post.

This time, It was a ride with my trusted pillion buddy girish. Target was my colleague Ravindra's wedding in his native in Shimoga Dist, Shikaripur taluk.
So me and giri decided to hit the road on my zma and catch up Jog falls, as in my previous ride just 2 weeks back, i couldn't get a glimpse of jog due to extra ordinary fog! and we decided to ride back via NH4.

The stats:

Ride duration: 13th Oct 07 (Saturday) to 15th Oct 07 (Monday)

Riders: ME!
Pillion: Girish
Bike: My trusty Zma

Total Kms covered: 888.9 Kms


Route taken:
Day1 :Bangalore-tumkur-arsikere-bhadravati-shimoga-sagar-Jogfalls-Sagar-Sorabh-Shikaripur

Day2: Shikaripur- Balligavi-Shikaripur

Day3: Shikaripur-Harihar-Davangere-Chitradurga-Sira-Tumkur-Bangalore

Pics:
Will upload Pics shortly.

Retrospection of the Ride:
This was one heck of a ride! I was thoroughly drained out by the time i reached bangalore! First day's ride was smooth, Thankfully weather gods had mercy on us and it was not foggy or rainy, so we caught a good view of Jogfalls.
Next day the Scenic rural beauty of Fields and agricultural land in my colleague's native village left us speach less! The last day's hellish ride back to bangalore via NH4 was simply mind blowing! I never had to fight my sleep so hard ever in my life! It was pit stop every hour at night and freshening up to stay awake and ride back in NH4. Girish's handicap of not knowing how to ride a bike pushed me to my limits. Managed to reach home with out any incidents and slept like a log for full 14 hours! much to the ire of my boss :P

Last Ride before loosing Bachelorhood

Don't get me wrong, it ain't my life that's at stake! :P
I was referring to my next ride's pillion's status!

The last time i did a ride with a pillion was in March 2006 to Hampi

After that i realised taking pillion only abuses your bike and accelerates the ageing process of bike. Now iam back to square one, albiet temporarily.
Iam all set to go off on a relatively long ride to shimoga to attend my colleague's wedding but this time with a pillion, my friend girish.

I started my touring life with my first long ride with girish as pillion towards coastal karnataka in jan2006 this will be my last ride with him, with his status as "bachelor" coz he's getting hitched next year!

Sigh, friends grow up so fast! just reminds me that iam getting old too! But marriage is still no brainer for me at this juncture of my life, i still have some gas left in my tank to go on and still have my reserve to burn up before i hit a petrol bunk! lol

Newayz, all said an done, got the bike serviced and readied for the ride and just one more day to go before we embark on our memorable ride!
This ride is dedicated to girish's soon to be lost bachelorhood!