Trip Report

I'm back from my weekend bike trip, alive and kicking!
Myself and my friend did this on his bike yamaha RX135.
We took turns in riding and this made life easier (or miserable, since i found the pillion riding to be painful in rx135!).
The map is in the previous post or here.

Bangalore to Yelagiri (Route 2 - 210Km)
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Home - KR Puram - ITPL - Hoskote - Malur - Bangarpet - Betmangala - venkatagirikota (vkota) - Pernampet - Ambur Road - Vaniayambadi - Yelagiri Hlls

This route was very good in the aspect that some stretches were scenic, we were almost always on some kinda village roads and we saw hardly any vehicles on most of the routes.

We decided we would do Route2 on the onward journey as we would be fresh for the country roads. We planned to start at 5.30AM so we could beat the sun and reach yelagiri by noon atleast, and we almost started on time (5.45am). Map suggested us to take highway road to reach hoskote and then Malur. But I thought there would be some straight road to Malur via ITPL. But after ITPL, we were directed by the autowalahs to turn left and connect to the highway and go to Hoskote. We reached the highway and took tea-break at a roadside shop. Light was barely out when we reached Hosekote. From there we found the right turn to Malur. Malur was around 25 kms and we did this comfortably without any problems. Again no vehicles whatsoever on the roads. We reached Malur by 7.15AM and we found the road to Bangarpet which is around 30KM from there. This is the worst road that we would do in our entire journey. After a while, there weren't roads at all in many places particularly when you close in a village. For some reason the roads were pathetic going in and out of the village. But the scenary was good. There were some mountains by side which were fully made up of small small rocks (I'll upload photos later). After clicking some photos we continued and reached Bangarpet, our breakfast destn by 8.15AM. After filling our stomach with some idlis and dosa, we started towards Betmangala. In Bangarpet, we saw a poster for movie "Drugs and Aids: A Sex Education film". We were tempted to break our journey for the movie as it may be helpful, but decided to press on. After getting on to the road to betmangala we realised that we forgot to feed our bike and on enquiry found that there ain't going to be any pumps on our way for some distance. Thankfully, a mechanic shop was selling petrol (at slightly higher price) and filled in a litre so that we could go some distance. After betmangala, road continued to v.kota. No one here knows the full name of the place venkatagirikota. Karnataka gave way to Andhra somewhere on this way, but it wasn't noticeable (at by us). The road was good and again not many vehicles to be seen. From vkota, we found the turn to Pernampet/Gudiyatham. This is the best part of the complete ride. You'd have to go through ghats section to reach pernampet. The road was good and scenic. Bang in the middle of the mountain road, andhra gave way to tamilnadu. We reached pernampet, filled more petrol and were on our way Ambur after quenching our thirst. On the way we saw a turn to directly go to Vaniyambadi and decided to take that road. After a bumpy ride on this road, we crossed the water-less Palar river and reached vaniyambadi. From vaiyambadi, we took the road to Thirupattur and after 7KMs found the turn to Yelagiri hill road and started our last leg of our journey. The 14 KM hillroad consists of 14 HairPin Bends(HPB), spaced almost equally! The road was smooth and apart from the HPB's, there weren't any turns at all.

We reached yelagiri by 12.30, found a cheap room and refreshed ourselves. After lunch, crashed straight into the bed and slept through the afternoon. In the evening, did some boating and walking around. There weren't any places to see close-by. We had our dinner early and killed time by playing cards.

Yelagiri - Bangalore ( Route 1 - 170 Kms)
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Yelagiri - vaniyambadi - krishnagiri - hosur - madiwala - home

Once we got down from the hills, it was just speed game on this route. Vaniyambadi - bangalore is part of golden quadrilateral, so its all 4/6 lane all the way.

We started at around 7AM so that we could beat the sun and planned to reach home by 11AM. Descent was good and early morning added to the beauty of the hill. Once we came on to the highway and after side-crossing three bridges that are still under construction, we were just cruising through. speed was between 70-80kmph, which we considered safe given that the bike is stressed so much for the first time and we wanted to play safe. Road was plain and uninteresting for most part. After taking breakfast at krishnagiri, joined NH7 ad continued towards blore. Entire stretch is completed barring the three bridges. I could see cars and suv's flying through at 120+ without any effort. Oops..speed thrills and doesn't kill in this road.

bangalore welcomed us with red-light at madiwala and we rode through the b'lore traffic to reach home before 11. We beat the clock and the sun too. It was just starting get to hot outside when we found safe haven inside home.

All in all a great ride. This is my first for such long distance ride and has sure made me comfortable and confident for more such rides.