Himavad Gopalaswamy Betta - Masinagudi Ride

A month had passed by from our previous bike ride which was towards yercaud, and still our next bike ride had not been planned. One fine day, at office, i was watching a video of ride towards himavad gopalaswamy betta, which i had dreamed of going, for years. I talked to asim about the place and even he too felt the place would be good and informed atul about the place which he too agreed. Date was finalized to 20th of September 2015 which was a Sunday. We decided to start by 6 in the morning.  We also included Masinagudi in our itenary just to have a ride through Bandipura forest.

Ride Planned to : Himavad gopalaswamy betta and Masinagudi.
Date : 20-Sep-2015
Route : Bangalore - Kanakapura - Kollegala - Gundlupete - Himavad Gopalaswamy Betta - Masinagudi - Gundlupete  - Kollegala - Kanakapura - Bangalore.
Route Map - https://goo.gl/maps/mim3thNg7C52
Total Ride amounts to - 500 Kms


It was 20th of September. Woke up at 4:30 got ready by 5:30 and left home at 5:50 reached konankunte cross at 6:00 AM sharp. Atul and Asim arrived at 6:30. We left at around 6:45 after discussing about our pit stops.

Sunrise at kanakapura

Kanakapura road(NH-209) was not that great till kanapura. After which it was really well maintained.

NH-209 after kanakapura.

We could easily ride at 80 to 100Kmph. There were small but deep potholes which come out of no where. We were cautious enough to avoid that. We had our first pit( pee ) stop near shivanasamudra which is around 100km from Bangalore.


 We reached Kollegala at around 9AM, had breakfast at a hotel opposite to bus stand, It was really superb. (Forgot the hotel name. Will update the name once i remember).



















Now we still had 100km to go. En route Asim used to capture some beautiful photos, so he used to stop a lot of times. Me and Atul went ahead. But immediately after kollegala we had to continue on NH209 itself, instead unknowingly me and atul took a diversion towards the Mooguru road. This road was simply superb, lush green all around.

 

Green till the end of horizon!

 

 
Me and Atul stopped for a while, Clicking Pics and waiting for Asim. He didn't show up even after 10-15mins. We called him, he said he's 20kms before Chamrajnagar. Then after seeing maps we realized we were out of course. We decided to meet at Gundlupete itself.

After 45min of riding..

We reached gundlupete and the place were Asim was waiting. Took a break of around 10min and started our journey towards Himavad Gopalaswamy Betta.

Just before Gopalaswamy Betta checkpost, we stopped for sometime as the view of the hills were just incredible from here. This was the point where i always wanted visit.

 

Peace!

We continued towards the checkpost bought entry tickets. From the checkpost till the temple it's the worst road possible. Couldn't even drive at 15-20kmph. After driving for around 20min we reached the top and the time was around 11:00AM. There was a empty area just 50m before the temple. We parked our bikes there and thought of taking some pics. In the mean time few forest officials came towards us took our bike keys and started accusing us for entering the forest. They were asking us to pay a fine of 1000rs per bike! We tried to talk it out, but in vain. Finally after lot of negotiation they told us to pay 500 for all three bikes together. With no other option we paid and continued towards the temple.

I visited the temple while Asim and Atul told they would be waiting outside. Took around 30min for darshan. Finally we left Gopalaswamy Betta at around 12:00PM, heading towards Bandipur forest and finally Masinagudi, We decided to have lunch there.

View from temple

It was my first time riding though a forest. Few places Elephants were on both sides and also on the road. It was a scary but awesome experience riding in between them. I wont forget this anytime sooner.

 

Towards Masinagudi after deviation from Teppakadu

   

Karnataka side of Bandipur roads were superb but Tamil nadu side had a lot of pot holes. We reached Masinagudi at around 2:00 in the afternoon. Our stomachs were rumbling, we went to a nearby hotel and had meals, food was not that great.

View of Madhumalai hills from Masinagudi

We left Masinagudi at around 3:15PM and were out of bandipur by 4:00PM. Had a tea break as we had planned not to stop any where after this. After having around 2 cups of tea we left for bangalore.

We didn't stop anywhere for any break until shivanasamudra were we had to stop as there were lot of insects on our visors and it was becoming tough for us to see the road. Cleaned the visors. Had some water, and planned our next pit stop at kanakapura for dinner. Driving on NH209 at night was a nightmare for us due to the amount of high beams. But few patches of the road were there used to be no traffic looked like a haunted place. As planned we reached kanakapura by 8:00PM. Had dinner. After this it was just 60Km to bangalore. We'll reached our respective homes by 11:00 PM.

To summarize, this was one of the most memorable ride for me as i always wanted to visit Himavad Gopalaswamy Betta and it was a dream come true.

Signing off
The Duke Man

My first long ride - Yercaud

Just had my duke's first service done. Asked my colleagues Asim and Atul for a short bike ride towards Nandi hills or somewhere less than 100kms from bengaluru, but they had other plans. Few weeks back they had a ride towards Hogenakkal and heard about a place called yercaud, which is near salem and insisted on going there. Since it was 500Km round trip, that too in one day and i had never ridden more than 30km in one day(Yep 30Km), i was skeptical about this one but joined them.

Ride Planned to : Yercaud
Date : 01-Aug-2015
Route : Bangalore - Dharmapuri - Yercaud - Pilleri - Manjavadi Pass - Salem - Dharmapuri - Bangalore

We planned to meet at 6:30AM near our Bommnahalli office. But we left at around 7:15AM. Since it was my first long ride, they explained how to ride on highways, the average speed they are going to maintain and where the pit stops would be after crossing electronic-city.

Hosur road, after electronic-city. Myself and Atul

Hosur road (NH-7) was just awesome. Smooth as butter. Could easily cruise at 100-110Kmph. Since the bike was pretty new i didn't want to stress the engine, was maintaining a constant speed of 80-100Kmph. It was my first time cruising on a highway and the experience was just awesome.

We stopped for breakfast at "Krishna Veg" just after Hosur. The food at this place was really good, would suggest this place to anyone traveling on this route.

Toll booth(Our pit stop), After Dharmapuri. Rides of riders.

Reached Dharmapuri at around 9:15AM.
40km from dharmapuri we took a left at Deevattipatti. The roads were scenic giving a nice view of Shevaroy range of Hills.Took a few pics here.

Stop for photo shoot.

View of Beautiful Shevaroy Hills

Continuing on this road, we reached danishpet where we should have taken a right after crossing the railway track, but some local confused us leading us the opposite direction. After covering few kilometers another local put us back in the right direction.

Note: If you're going by car you will not be able to take right at danishpet as the roads are too narrow for a car to pass. it's better to reach yercaud by salem.

After danishpet we were into some really awesome back roads covered by thick forest. Roads were okay  with pot holes in between but except few bikes there was no traffic on this road.

Beautiful back roads

 

Isn't she just beautiful?

Around 11:00AM we started riding through the yercaud ghats which has exactly 20 hairpin curves. The roads are clearly marked and banked, number of hair pin bends to be covered is indicated at every curve. Riding here was no problem at all. Made a few mistakes while cornering as i was a bit scared of leaning (Had never done it before). Best part about the duke is corner carving, it inspires a lot of confidence in you, mainly due to the Tyre profile and good feedback from brakes.

The awesome twisties

As we rode up the ghats the climate change can be easily felt. There was a bit of mist when we reached the top. Reaching there we realized that we hadn't even had a tea after the breakfast at Hosur. Stomachs were rumbling. We saw a hotel opposite to the yercaud lake, the food was okay. Took some rest for half an hour. Resting our asses.

Now we had four places planned to visit in Yercaud
1. Yercaud Lake
2. Lady's seat
3. Gent's seat
4. Kiliyur Falls
5. Pagoda point

- Yercaud Lake was famous for boating which was out of our interest. We just had a look of lake, took a few snaps and left for Lady's seat.

- Lady's seat (Weird name!) had a nice view of the hair pin curves which we would have passed to reach yercaud and also a view of the manganese mine. The view was awesome and also a warning painted on a stone next to the view point. :D

View of Manganese mine.

Hair pin curves view

:D :D

We had some nice tea and biscuits at Lady's seat. Asked a few locals about Gents seat. We heard that the view was similar to Lady's seat, so we skipped that and continued our journey to Kiliyur Falls

- Kiliyur Falls, To reach here we had to come back to Yercaud lake and take a deviation of around 4Km (Roads were pretty bad.) ,park our bikes, walk another 1.5km downhill and then take around 200 stairs. But reaching the falls, we felt it was not worth it. The falls was all dried up, may be the time of the year we visited was not rite.

Walk towards the falls.

Nice view of the forest

Kiliyur Falls

After spending some time at kiliyur falls. We left towards yercaud but it was not so easy now. We had to climb those 200 stairs back and while we were going back we found out that the height of each stairs were like climbing a rock. At the last step we took some rest sleeping having a nice view at the forest. Had some tea and lots of water at a tea shop near kiliyur falls. Came back to were we had parked our bikes and left to yercaud. We then decided we'll go to Pagoda point and leave to bangalore.

- Pagoda Point, Its around 5 km from yercaud lake. The roads were very good. This was the best view point in yercaud. We spent some time here. Had a look at the binocular view towards the salem city below.

Pagoda point view

We asked a local guy here for for the best route to Manjavadi Pass (Well this place was planned once we
reached Pagoda point). The road through Pilleri was the best and roads were in good condition is what he told. We took our bikes and left towards Manjavadi pass. Roads till Kottachchedu were superb. we stopped at Pilleri for some pics. Roads were highly scenic.

Scenic Roads

 

There was actually no road from Kottachchedu till the intersection Kuppanur-Yercaud Ghat road. Only the first layer of road was layed. First few kilometers had gravel on it then only clay (Yes Only Clay!), this is on a downhill ghat road. We could'nt hit on the brakes. Since duke had a omega shaped tyre, it didn't sway while riding on clay. But Atul, riding on FZ lost his balance. Both of them Atul and his bike were fine except mud on both of them. After we joined Kuppanur-Yercaud Ghat, roads were smooth.






















- Manjavadi Pass, This is place where road passes between two mountains, nice scenic place. Grabbed a few clicks and drove towards Salem.

Manjavadi pass

We reached salem through Bypass(Which actually passes through the city! :P) and after around three traffic lights (In the middle of highway! :D ) we left salem.

Around 7:00PM it started drizzling. We entered a Dhaba just after salem and stayed there for some time. Had a tea, waiting for the rain to stop.It was nearly 8:00PM and it had stopped drizzling. We finished our dinner and started to ride at 9:00. We still had around 170Km to ride to reach Bangalore.

We constantly rode the remaining 170Km without a stop and reached Electronic-City at 11:00PM, from where we split up. Reached home at 11:30PM.

To summarize, this was my first long ride and never thought i could ride so much in one single day. Though i had a light shoulder pain due to the riding posture of the duke everything else was pure joy and loads of memories to cherish.

Signing Off.

The Duke Man

Ride Safe.

Thank you.

My first Motorcycle - KTM Duke 200

I always had a huge crush on Yamaha FZ back in my Pre-University days. Just love the looks of Naked street motorcycles. Since i had no license then, i had never rode it. Then one fine day during my engineering days my cousin introduced me to the KTM DUKE 200 which was supposed to be launched that year. Man!! I was in love with it the very moment, It was my DREAM BIKE and the only one, Till then i had never felt any other bike so special. Few months later when it had launched, it had a pretty big price tag of 1.2 lakh (Ex-Showroom). I made deal with myself, once i get a job I'll save for it and buy it myself. Mean while my Dad bought me a activa when i was in 4th Semester pursuing my engineering degree and meanwhile my cousin used to teach me how to ride geared motorcycle on his Discover 125. Everyday when a duker rides in front of me, I'll just think, When will i get this? 

 Got a Job, saved persistently for months. By this time price was up by 40,000. Felt too much but still again my heart was saying, go for it!. Finally on June 1st 2015 entered the KTM showroom and booked the Duke 200 black. Luckily few months back KTM had released the 2015 model with few upgrades over the old versions. While booking, opted for front shock spools as it saves one of the most expensive part of the bike, the front shocks. Yes, each one costs 9K. Wanted hand gaurds but thought will opt for it later if there is a need. By now price was 1.62 Lakhs On-road Bangalore(The next day the price was increased to 1.71Lakhs. Phew, i was lucky!!). My mom was happy but my dad had (Still has!) an assumption that DUKE is ONLY a track bike and no way can be used in cities. On June 4th i received my dream bike. My cousin(The one who taught me ride) rode it till my home as i had to be careful during break in period. I was skeptical about me riding as i didn't like to ruin my bikes break in but still my heart wanted me to take a ride. The first time feel of riding my own dream bike was ecstatic. I just had a big wide grin on my face. The performance, throttle response and mainly the sound of the exhaust note while riding was just awesome.

First pictures of my duke. Sorry for the bad clarity.

Beauty!

Rode the bike for a week near home  before taking it to office. Wanted to have a proper feel of the bike before taking it far. Duke throttle response is pretty quick. If you are a total noob towards riding geared motorcycles then its better to ride a smaller capacity motorcycle, practice on the clutch and gear usage. You can pop a wheelie with no effort at all on dukes, that is how the throttle response is. Also never reved it more than 5000-6000 RPM till first service which is at 1000km. It's important to follow this, your engine life depends on this.

My second priority was to buy a good helmet in terms of safety and looks. Gave a visit to MT helmets dealers at Lalbagh, bangalore. Bought the Spartan - Kranos helmet (Though its manufacture by MT helmets Spain) for 3350/-.
Offers good comfort. ISI, DOT and ECE rated in terms of safety.
Review about the helmet can be found at -
http://www.motogearadvisor.com/aspida-spartan-progear-kranos-helmet-review/

Helmet and bike.

Ride Safe.

Thank you!