Friday, June 25, 2010

Shivanasamudram Falls to Chennai - The return trip

The trip to Shivanasamudram Falls was an awesome one. It something that'll stay with me forever and the 610km trip was worth its salt for all the effort involved in it. Okay, the journey to the falls was awesome. But would the return trip be as good as the trip to the falls? We were about to find out.

Me and Raghu started from the beautiful campus of SDMIMD. The memories of the campus is something we'll cherish a lot too. To be honest we did get a bit of admiration for taking the trip to Mysore on bike from Chennai. :) Thanks to the students there for those compliments. That made us fly! And so we started by 1200.

We took our first break at Mandya at 1300. Drank up on Gatorade and coke of course :) We somehow were quicker on the return trip than the 'to' trip. Probably we got a bit familiar with the lifebreakers. We reached chennapatna by 1500 which would mean we'd covered it at an average of 60 km/h. Chennapatna to Nice Road ramp took one more hour and we were on our way to Electronic City via the outer ring road by 1600.

We reached E.City by 1700 thanks to the Outer Ring Road. We were famished and decided to grab our so called lunch at Domino's in E.City. Our butts were hurting big time thanks to the backbreakers on the outer ring road and the arterial road that led to e.city. To rest them we took an extended break there and feasted on the pizzas like a bunch of hungry wolves. Plus we drank up all the coke we could to keep dreariness out.

Started from E.City by 1815 and covered the 40km stretch from E.City to Hosur in about 45 mins. By 1900 we were smoothly covering the vast expanse of the Golden Quadrilateral towards Krishnagiri. Crossed Krishnagiri by 2000. We took a break at Vaniyambadi at 2030 to tank up fuel. From there we decided on a long haul till Vellore. Our speed was pretty good considering it was pitch dark. We were doing close to 70(being safe here yes) and we reached Vellore by 2215. Time for a coke break again. Start time from Vellore:2230.

From Vellore to Chennai it was a real joyride, less traffic made us real fast. We covered the 130km journey in 2 hours taking two quick pit stops in between. Bid Raghu goodbye at the Kathipara Flyover and headed home with with a heavy heart. One of the best weekends had come to a close. But I cheered up knowing that many trips were yet to come and we'd still go on bigger and better rides in the future. My mind was already in full swing dreaming of the next trip when I fell asleep to one of the best night snoozes I've ever had.
Tips For Night Time Bike Rides (India Specific):

1. Make sure you have a clear visor, or a yellow tinted visor. Yellows work better than plain visors, scientifically proved. I won't go into the details here, google can give you that. NO Dark Visors, very, VERY dangerous. You can so easily lose sight of medians and jaywalkers.
2. Bikers, please stay left, there will be tons of vehicles faster than you, and trust me, pretty reckless. Higher chances of getting run-over or run-into. Safety reasons et-al.
3. Brakes, please double check them before rides. Very important in the nights, stray dogs run back and forth across. They don't deserve to die.
4. Night rides, if you can maintain optimal speeds, help you raise the overall mileage of the trip. Optimal speeds burn less petrol, and your steed will thank you for that.

Better enlightened souls, feel free to add to the knowledge I've gained.


P.S: Would like to thank PepsiCo and Coca-Cola India for keeping our alertness stable all over the 1220kms.

P.P.S: Learnt that having like minded company and close friends makes the trip all the more enjoyable, solitary ones come next :P

P.P.P.S: If you ask me I'd say everyone should go on a bike ride once in their lifetime. The open air thrills and chills are totally outa this worlds.

Hope you enjoyed the blog. Until the next trip, this is Harsha saying Sayonara & Happy Riding!! Be safe!

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