Praveen (Moonie) ZMA Black
Sojish (Aero Nomad) ZMA Red
Praveen K.M. CBZ
Trip Log - Praveen on ZMA
Thursday - I am all fired up for the trip. Hectically trying to finish
off all the work, I call up my friend to take my bike for oil change,
a new Dunlop 100/90 tyre and my custom exhaust.
I am riding his Bullet 500 and was so awestruck by it, that I even
contemplated (for a moment) taking it for the trip and dropped the
idea instantly after I had to spent 2 hours on it in the city.
Leg 1: Tvm - Ernakulam (Cochin) 217kms Riders(1) - Praveen on Zma
8:00pm 19328km 0km I am all packed up and blast off for Ernakulam to
meet up with Sojish. I reset my trip meters (Sigma & Zma).
9:43pm 19415km: 87km @80.6km (trip) my bike goes into reserve, I
reset it there and after 6.4km I fill up with 13.82 litres of Xtra
Premium from Indian Oil
11.15pm 19545km: 217km Reaches Ernakulam
Sigma Readings
Max Speed 117kph
Ride Time 3hr 5mins
Average Speed 71kph
----
Total Avg Speed - 67kph
Leg 2: Ernakulam - Sathy - Mysore - Banglore 580km
9.20am 19606km: 278km Stops at Trichur for breakfast. The sigma
display is all screwed up. I have to reset it again
11.00am 19698km: 37km Stopped nearing coimbatore
11.48am 19715km: 387km: coimbatore 307
3pm? 19784km: somewhere near sathyamangalam(sathy) I fill in
200/- worth of fuel since they dont have any petrol with additives. We
reaching on top of Ghat section and watch the rain pouring in the
distance.
Only to realise that it was coming in our way. The rain
never stopped till we reached banglore on the potholed mysore road,
thoroughly drenched. No timings for this section :( Moreover, we
missed a turn to Kollegal and ended up before mysore thus doing 40kms
more.
9.15pm We reach Banglore dead-est tired, and call up to see who all
will join us. At 1am we are still chatting -promising ourselves to
wake up early.
NB. This is a promise that we (me& sojish) make n number of times and
have never kept it as Praveen on Cbz found out very soon :D
Leg 3: Banglore - Manglore (380kms)
We wake up early (at 8am). Praveen from Banglore on his CBZ was
waiting for us. We are really tired after the last journey. We decide
to give the bike a wash and take it a friend of ours Mr.Venkat who has
a Bajaj Service centre @ bhansankari. He directed us on the route and
had the bikes send to a nearby shop to be cleaned up and polished!!
Thanks a lot Venkat.
We decide to cut the next leg and stop at Manglore. I managed to
nudge the bike to 135kph (126.3kph on sigma). I kept it at full
throttle but the speedo needle wouldnt budge after that. The Cbz was
able to keep along with us and we did speeds of 90-100kph.
Leg 4: Manglore - Udupi - Kamta - Gokarna (250km)
8am to 3.30pm
This was a good stretch but very hot one. We visited the Malpe
beach.
Since there was no hotels open there, we pushed off. We passed
a long stretch of road that was between the sea and the river.
We get off the road into a pine forest towards the beach on the side.
Sojish does a burnout in the sand and as expected he was stuck in the
sand with his bike pointing to the sky. We couldnt put the bikes on
the sandy surface so we watch him and Vivek trying to push & pull the
bike free.
We reach Gokarna beach. The place is full of devotees and very
crowded. The roads thru the town are very narrow. The beach is shallow
and clean but the place is too crowded. We decide to move on to Ohm
beach.
The road to this beach is nonexistent. Full of red dust. No wonder
there are very few people there. The beach is superb and we get a view
from the top. It is shaped like the Ohm symbol. There is a paid
parking lot! 10/- for a bike. We had to bang the gates for 10mins till
some one came and opened it. There is only one hotel there Hotel
Namaste and its full! Seems that the foriegners have occupied the
whole room. Two of the guys go searching and end up after an hour.
They seem to have found a 'resort'. They describe the room as so big
that they doubted whether the table we had in front would fit in it.
50/- bucks a night. We spend some great time in the sea and dump our
bags in the 'resort'.
Back to the sea!! We had a splendid time there. We decide to spend the
night on the beach. It was a very clear night too. Back at the hotel
we find Sojish deep in thought playing chess with a foreigner Luigi
from Italy. After an hour or so Sojish cheerfully resigns from the
game. These guys where friendly and some even motorcylcle riders. we
chat with them and finally end up with gate crashing a birthday party
on the beach around a bonfire.
There a guy came with two balls on a chain. Sets the ball on fire and
does some simply awesome stunts and tricks with it.
We sleep on the beach only to find that the sea was rising. We
finally sleep on the platform outside our resort.
Leg 5: Gokarna - Jog Falls - Shimoga - Banglore (530kms)
Early in the morning, me and Praveen have a dip in the sea.
We all carry our luggage and trek uphill where our bikes are. We
stop at Honnavar and have some break fast.
Jog Falls was a no-show, the water there was just about trickling,
we called it the Joke Falls and pushed. There was really amazing
scenary of the fields near Shimoga.
5pm We take some movies of us on the bikes. By night fall we are
back in banglore. We take the outer ring road covering most of
Banglore, while the banglore guys Praveen and Vivek try to find the
way back into the city.
Leg 6:
10.00am Me and Sojish have some breakfast at Coffee Day.
12.45pm Out from Banglore, gets really stuck in traffic.
01.25pm 21286km: Reaches Hosur at lat 8.97ltrs
02.00pm 21338km: fastest stretch! I did a 127.5kph. Sigma speedo
showed average speed of 94kph!!
6.05pm 21614km: Coimbatore. We wait for the sun to dip, so that we
are not blinded by the oncoming vehicle's light
7.30pm Fills up with 12.38ltrs at Trichur
9.15pm Reaches Sojish's flat and drops to sleep
Leg 7: Ernakulam - Trivandrum (217kms)
8.50am 21776: Leaves from Ernakulam
10.25am 21864km: Stops for tea
12.20pm 21983km: Reaches Office
Ride Time 3hr 18mins
Avg Ride Speed - 66kph
Total Distance: 2654kms 5 & 1/2 days
regards
Praveen - Trivandrum
Black Panther - ZMA
Praveen K.M on Cbz
Hi Gyes,
warning long mail - very long mail.
this being my first really long trip the whole of three days and the
preceeding one week was really exiting. Wanted to give a
detailed trip log for the blr-gokarna-ble part cos i know this is one
place where people would be interested of such stuff.
Well it was some 10 days before the ride that moonie proposed the
divali dash. i was like ummm too big for me naaaa. Then i
caught cold, which usually last for a month - me havin some sinus
problem. cos of which cant stand movin air on my face.
Friday one week before the ride i see the list of people for the ride
growing. then i remembered my sharavan belgola trip
where i did 330 Kms in one day. Then just thought how about i give it
a go. The hair on the back of my head stood stright. i
could feel that i was already getting better from my cold. First
thing i did was visit my doc. give me something to get rid
of the cold. saw the doc for 2 more times in between. Sat - went to
get my bike serviced in anticipation. bought banjee
cords. venturing out means risking more cold. weather was cold too.
well i go or not wanted to prepare myself for the ride.
Monday - weather being unletting. i checked up the forcast for
bangalore, mangalore, gokarna which promised sunny days from
sat. just then saw moonies post of post poning the trip by one day.
was boost and i announced i was interested though
tentative. mentally fighting cold all the while. some flat
renovations were being scheduled and was also will people in my
home would let me do it. thought it was all over. still kept the
hope. thru - went for new helmet that would let less air
onto my face. steelbird sb13 - uh uhuu to big for me. finally got
steelbird br85 which fit me snug. evening broke the news at
home. took a lot of centimental cajoling to let me go. my cold too
was in controll.
the day before -
friday was really bad weather but the forcast promised sunny days
ahead. rahul had other plans and could not make it so could
not nithin. sharath and sanjay could not get leaves at their office i
was the lone cbz gye. moonie and sojish planned to
reach blr by eight. but like monie said were delayed and tired. i
called up vivek at 11 in the night to decide the meeting
point. i thought i would be a passive rider and routes all are
decided. Then first time spoke to moonie, he said "Hi praveen,
How are u? Do u have some nuts?" HUH!!! naaa i dont have any. well
his custome silencer nuts had given way. The he said how
to go to gokarna???? well understandbly he was very tired from the
trechours and rainy mysore road. well told would try to
find out and time to do some work. called up sanjay. he sujjested us
to go by mangalore and also told to callup ashok as he
had good idea of alternate routes. ashok was at mangalore sujjested
us to go by mangalore and shivamoga while coming as they
were both completely different kinda roads and could enjoy both.
which was spoton. thanks ashok. gokarna 600 KMs from blr
aaaaaaaaah said to myslef dont tell at home cos i had saidt it was
around 450. meeting time morning 6.30 and sanjay told he
would come to see us off. packed my stuff. tank was already full. the
troop - moonie, sojish, vivek and me. thought would
hold back the ZMAs a bit and which i did too. but the gyes were
patient and encouraging.
Day One - saturday the 13th
morning alarm 5.30. ready by 6.45 and met sanjay and went to viveks
place. well good morning fellas time to wake up. sharat
too came to see us offf. chit chat chit chat. bags tied up to the
bike with bunjees. pushed off to have breakfast 8.30. in
Venkat's place by 9.15. Vivek and sojish left for marathalli to get
their camera. while moonie got hi silencer nuts finally.
and got the bikes washed. vivek and sojish back. time to move 11.00.
all the while the halting places for the night kept
changing from Gokarna - batkal - kundapur and finally mangalore. time
to fill the ZMAs's tummy. the IOC gye claimed that he
put 16 liters in the zma's 15 liter tank. he won. any way 11.45 out f
bangalore. well time to rip rip rip. goods roads nice
speeds. 1.00: butt break and click, click, click. again reached the
top wach on my bike 112 which later moonie said was 107
on the sigma as he was right behing me at that time. at around 2.00
another break at a tea shop. this was the same place
where we had a break on the Shravan Blgla trip. guess this is a fav
route for bikers, cos over heard the tea stall gyes
taking bout people comin on bike and a lady claimed to have seen big
bike with a big tyre. the gap in her hands were about a
foot. all the road getting indications from people that our head
lights were on. planned to have lunch at kamats's near
channarayapattna. lunch at 3.00 pm mangalore 200 KMs to go. phone
update to home. some clicks and moved of at 3.45. after
some time came the ghat section i think (charmudi ghat). my first
ride on the ghats was reall scary at first. tended to get
off the road at turns. the zma riders quite used to it and were
enjoying the twists and turn. but was growing with confidance
with every turn. butt break near the abandned donigal railway station
at around 5.15. refreshed my memories of my trek i
attempted with arun and gyes on the abandned railway track with
bridges and tunnels. rainy, slippery and scary. but this day
was sunny. then i took the lead and and was really enjoying the ghats
and my speeds to increased. over took a M800 at a
straight patch and immidiatly on the turn saw a truck and oil tanker
commin from the opposite direction side by side. was in
speed and had to go right in between the middle of the two bahemoths.
oh boy what was my heart was pumping hard. later ZMA
gyes said they had to go off road because of the trucks. which is
about one foot below the road and a abbys near by. what the
heck was in sprit was again ripping through the ghats. then moonie
overtook me signaled me to slow down. thought may be i was
being too aggressive. only find out later that vivek wanted to take
some moving picks from sojish's bike. gettin dark. took
butt break at around 6.50. mlr still 50 Kms to go. tea stall gyes
celebrating the divali so no tea. and power went in the
shops. a truck pulled over about ten feet from moonies bike and
blinkers were not on. tought was not a safe place and moved
on. moonie guiding us through the dark. reached mlr at around 7.30.
called up ashok, who sujjested a hotel but found one near
by 560 a room a night. mlr hot hot hot. dinner. planned leave
tommorow by 6.00 am. my bike was about to hit reserve and dint
wanna take chances 6 in the morning so went and filled my tank to the
brim. 380 Kms in a day that was my highest ever. but
new would do more in a day or two and then all go
ZZZZzzzzZZZZzzzzzZZZZ.
Day two - sunday the 14th,
got up at 7.00 am watched AXN and pushed off to gokarna early in the
morning at 8.30 am. ZMAs turn to fill the tanks. reached
malpe beach around 9.30. some clicks, beach walk and no hotel near by
for break fast. moved and stopped at a ok looking hotel
in kota. 10.30. breakfast idlis in some strange shape. was very hot.
some juice. then moonie suggested chain tightening and
lumbricating for the bikes. got it done for all the bikes. pushed off
at around 11.45 gokarna 150 more to go. could feel the
increased pick up after the chain treatment. then passed the
Maravanthe road strip with sea one side and river on the other
side which never met. clicks. were maintaining good speeds all the
way 100 was common. overtakin every vehicle in sight.
signals while overtakin really helped. but on straight roads cbz
takes long time to over take a speedy car. thats the time
when black zma zipps past me every time hihihihi. my right palm was
lil sore but kept on. CBZ throttle is hard. argh. 1.00:
butt break. on the left was a formattion of trees and after some
distance nothin. thought it was the sea. then got a crazy
idea and we went off road about 6 feet. it was slope. no trackion as
all bikes were swaying. crossed about two foot ball
fields lenght and reached the shore line. was a very pretty site.
clicks. sojish tried some rubber burn out for picks. err
(mud through out) and got stuck. me and moonie could not go to help
cos bikes wouldnt stand on the loose mud. then parked our
bikes near trees where because of the roots stands held on. pulled
the zma and headed back to the road. i was the last climb
back to the road. took a slant path to climb but front slipped and
was goin done and bounced on my bike. took beating on the
groin. ouch. then went perpendicular to the road and climbed up. it
was hot - gokarna where r u. on a downword gredient witha
left turn was takin a leaning turn only to find out being in the path
of a on coming truck. heart was in my mouth and lent
even more and zipped past the truck. gosh would have caused the truck
some real damage. passed honnavar where we saw the turn
to take while going back to blr throught shivmoga. reached gokarna
around 2.15. followed the croud into the narrow and busy
roads and after a struggle reached the beach. very hot. not place to
cool of. place was thronged with devoties for the
temple. where is the exoticity we imagined. none of us being
religiously inclined felt royally pissed. were dissopointed. had
tender coconuts and thought of goin to karwar some 40 KMs from there.
moonie wanted to make some use of the place, stripped
to jogs and went for a dip in the sea. sojish followed for snaps.
time 3.00 me n vivek enquired about OM beach, only to find
out we missed a turn. it was some 8 KMs on the other side of a hill.
no time to waste but moonie and sojish far out at see.
some how managed to catch their attention and were back on bikes. was
really hot. let go my jacket, gloves and helmet. i know
not goood. but trust me was really hot could not go at a slow dusty
pace with all the gear in the heat. took the right turn
and then it started the mother of all bad roads. steep up hill climb
for 3 KMs full of gravell stone and dust. at the top
nice view. clicks. then down hill switched our our enjines but no
repriev from the bad road. ultimately reached the end near
an abbys. no where to go. were really pissed us off all for nothin.
moonie took his bike on some really steap path. nice
picks of the bike there. got a good view of the beach shaped like om.
a tea stall gye said we ther is parkin for vehicles in
compound which we had to knock for it to open for us. then what
trekked on our bikes back only to miss the gate and go
further. then on worker told us to go back. after all this didnt
wanna go the karwar. went to gate and started banging hard.
a gye came after good 10 mins. saw a couple of bullets and RD350s
parked there. one bullet had two fuel inlets at the top of
the tank. The lone hotel was full with firangs. was small trek in
itself to get down there. me and sojish went in search of a
place to dump our things. water so near and yet so far. but found a
place which we dubbed a resort. with tinivini rooms for
fifty bucks a day. no lights nothing. but what the heck should try
something different. reached moonie and vivek who had
ordered our lunch. yummy. then hit the beach and stayed there till
the last ray of the sun. very secluded place. no croud cos
hard to reach. indians were a minority there. dried up and went to
the hotel. no cell signal and waited long time in pco for
calls. then me and moonie went to sleep on the beach which i always
wanted to do. and talked some teckhi stuff. clear sky and
and so many stars could even mark out the galaxy. was very dark with
no lights. we used our night vision sences to find our
way to the hotel and see sojish indulged in a chess match with
firang. then went back to our *resort* where they had prepared
food and was tasty too. then went for party at bon fire. some gyes
performed some stunning fire tricks with props. water
levels always rising find our way back and slept on the platform out
side instead of the stuffy room. planned to hit
bangalore the next day. though wanted to stay some more time there.
then ZZZZZzzzZZZzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZ
Day three - Monday the 15th
up by 6 took a lone walk on the beach. moonie got up and we hit the
water again. 7.30 other gyes got wakey wakey. tea cofee.
was in jeans climbing a rock hit my nee. a small wound. just thought
what a fall on the bike would do. but on the brighter
side got to use my medical kit in my bike for band-aid. took our
stuff trekked up to our bikes and pushed off early in the
morning at 8.45 am. the bad road did not feel so tiring this time cos
we were fresh. Me and sojish were braggin to have
reached 30 kph speed on that road when moonie said he did a 60 over
there. phew. Honnavar 10.00 long break fast. Bangalore
431 KMs to go. 11.00 start. i swaped bikes with moonie. yeah zma
thought would now see how it felt like at 125 speed. but the
the road then on towards shivmoga was very scary. very narrow,
winding both horizontally and vertically. road like this and
also zma new to me. was really holding on to my nerves. moonie
dissapeared with the cbz only to take picks when we rode
towads him. then swapped back the bikes. and was big difference. now
needed to changes gears at 7k RMs to keep up the speed.
after some time got used to it and took lead till jog falls. 1.30.
was devoid of water only a trikle in standards. soon moved
on. were low on fuel. put 100 bucks of fuel at a small pump. reached
shivmoga. 3.00. tanked up. the gye managed to put 12.09
liters of fuel in my cbz's 12.5 litre tank which had not yet hit
reserve. was very hungry did not argue. lunch and hit the
road by 4.00. blr 250 more to go. 5.00 butt break. tried to take some
vedios of us ripping. saw all the vehicles people
staring at us whome we had over taken at 100. was good to see people
staring at us when we were ripping. this route was
different witih lots of trees by the road compared to mlr route. the
we picked up the pace to cover up as much distance as
possible with the day light. reached arsikere by 6.30, cos of the
traffic ate up all our remaining day light. enquired some
gyes the way to bangalore. for which a gye sarcastically pointed and
said yeah right blr this way 150 KMs. but we had to move
one. moonie lead us in the dark and were doin 80. though of following
some vehicle that over takes us. but moonie dint need
one i guess. butt break at tumkur 8.30. tumkur-blr 4 lane expresss
way with a huge divider. what to say. full throttle all
the way. the ZMAs got stuck behing some trucks and i was chargin in
the night at at 110 on the speedo overtakin all thats
movin on wheels and thought i was the king of the road and just then
the 2 ZMAs cooly past by me doin 120. ehh.. ehm.
reached outskirts of blr- butt break. wanted to avoid the city
traffic so sujjested i would take the lead and go by hebal.
was at speed when a cyclewala out of no where decided to cross the
road right in my path. jammed my breaks hard. and my bikes
started wobbling badly. the cycle had good pickup and passed me
centimeters before i hit him. let my body looose thinkin time
to go down after serviving a 1200 KMs journey. but luckely the bike
recoveded and rode on. phew that was close. at signal the
ZMAs wizzed past me where we were supposed to take a turn and missed.
then i had to catch up with speeding ZMAs on the ring
road to tell them about that, which ate some kilometers. finally,
took another route through the ring road and ended up doin
a parikrama of bangalore before reaching viveks house at 10.20 night.
did somewere aroudn 550 KMs my highest in a day so far.
too bad did not see the meter in the morning for the exact number.
trip - the end (for me and vivke. moonie and sojish have 750 KMs
more to munch on)
this was the most craziest, adventures thing i have ever done so far.
joining the bike groups has changed my life and am doin
things which i never thought that i should,could or would do. (as
mike witny says) - thanks a tonne gyes.
u reached here??? hats off for your patience.
praveen.k.m Cbz