1st Adventure Ride – Bang-Cbe-Bang | Venkat (ADDA) Kandaswamy

It has been 3 weeks since I had the bike. Over the weekends I will go for a ride to put kilometers on the bike. But it wasn’t enough. I will hardly add 50 odd kms over the weekend.

I had to do the first service within 45 days or 1000 Kms. I could only touch 250kms max. This was clearly not working. I would not be able to touch 1000kms. This bike is going to take me to Himalayas someday – and wanted it to be set right.

What if we do a trip to Coimbatore? I hesitatedly floated the idea to San and she gave thumbs up. She will drive the car with Amma, Prithvi, Charu, Coco and Sufi. Amma was excited – first trip after 1.5 years to Cbe. So she did not protest much on me coming by bike.

Jan 26 Chutti was coming up. It was a Tuesday. So a quick plan was made.We leave on Saturday. Work on Monday. Return Tuesday. But there was a twist. Prithvi had an online interview ( we were trying for Isha Home School ) on Saturday 2:00 PM to 4:30 PM.

I kept oscillating between, let us start on Friday afternoon, reach Coimbatore and P can take his exam. Or start early morning on Saturday and reach before 2PM.

But San was clear – let P take the online exam from the comfort of his home. So he can play his Piano if needed. One constraint was fixed – so my mind oscillations stopped.

We were to start after P finish’s his exam.

Friday Night – day before ride

People at home were talking about the serial Bharathi Kannamma. This reminded me of the movie Ninaithalae Innikum I saw when I was a school kid. There is a song by that very name. A lovely movie. I played it on youtube and got the urge to see the movie.

Being a Friday night – I started seeing it. All the songs are lovely. And I ended up watching the full movie. It runs for 2.5 hours or so.

Here is the movie if you want to enjoy this. Somewhere in the middle there is a full song with just the words : Ninaithaalae Innikum.

Saturday Morning

Watching the movie was a mistake. I find it hard to sleep after 6AM – thanks to Covid more or less I sleep off by 10 to 10:30 PM and wake up around 6 daily. I was very groggy. Also with the upcoming trip excitement couldn’t sleep properly.

Around 11 AM I went downstairs to fill petrol for both the bike and car. I was moving the bike suddenly remembered I had to fetch something, and I leaned the bike to put it on stand, and dropped it. I had not put the side stand down.

In all my YouTube watching of bikers – they had taught techniques to lift the bike up.

I tried lifting and could manage. Phoo. The same thing happened the day of the Bang-Mumbai-Bang trip. Felt it is a good omen.

Then the day went in running errands for the trip preparation. I had earlier got a riding boot and a pant. Wanted to do a test ride with them so I am comfortable – but did not find time to test it out. Will be doing the grand inauguration of these on the first ride.

Saturday 5 PM

Finally the time arrived. San and the family and our cat and dog – all started in the car and pushed off. I quickly caught and overtook them stuck in the traffic.

This is the Whitefield to Attibele via Varthur. I have travelled on this multiple times – and I breezed through it and soon crossed the Attibele Toll.

Reached Adayar Ananda Bhavan just before Krishnagiri and waited for the car to come. There was a good amount of traffic and the car was quite behind.

Saturday night 6:30 PM – Ride continues

Nowadays I sleep at 10:00 ish and not sure I can stay awake. The ETA is now around 12:30 AM Midnight. In another 2 – 3 hours will be in Salem. Near the A2B there is a small hotel we can crash for the night – so plan B was made that if either of us get sleepy we will stay at the hotel. And we resumed our journey.

I started enjoying the ride. The dimming sun light and the evening cool breeze was putting me in good spirits. The night ride was fantastic. Less variables to drink in – just the dark road ahead lit with the headlight and the vehicles tail lights.

I was afraid I will get a headache or my eyes will get tired. But nothing of that sort happened. The grogginess I had the entire day was gone entirely. Perhaps it was as the anticipation of the ride? I was fully alert throughout this trip.

I have travelled this road – Bangalore to CBE multiple times – so did not have the need to consult a map. In a way it was good – while getting used to the bike one variable if it is less – especially the map.

We crossed the micro Ghat section that comes after Sai Sangeet. I did not try cornering – even though I was tempted. A empty loaded lorry guy was driving like a maniac and was not being able to slow down and was cutting across lanes not wanting to slow down. I stayed behind him and did not overtake till I got out of the Ghat section.

The agreement was whoever crosses the toll – has to wait for the other. Also I had put Life360 app on both our phones – so we could track realtime where the other is.

We kept stopping at tolls – and in one of the tolls fed Sufi and took the dog out for her night walk.

The last section was very boring. Thankfully it was a three laner – between Perundurai and Coimbatore. I started following cars who were going at 100Kmph+.

Finally reached home around 12:30 AM.

The next couple of days the bike was being tested by Achu. Had to tell him to keep within 50kms because my ride back will be another 350 kms and I will be close to touching 1000kms.

On Tuesday, Jan 26th – started back to Bangalore around morning 7AM. Till we crossed Erode it was quite misty.