This was to be my longest ride till date. The best I did before was a 768 km ride in 48 hours, and this one was meant to be 1300 km spanning over 4 days. We were going to pass through national highways, forests, ghats and were also going to do some off roading along the way. I was sick of doing many single day and two day rides and wanted to do a longer ride, so this was my chance and I lapped it up.

We left Bangalore on Friday at 8 AM expecting it would be a long day considering we planned to cover more than 500 km and reach Dandeli by nightfall. We started well but were soon delayed by nagging problems with one of the bikes. Though this meant we lost a lot of time, it also ensured proper rest for all of us. We managed to reach Hubli, which is around 430 km from Bangalore only after sunset and it has also started raining by that time. We headed towards Dandeli which was another 100km of riding through not so good roads but were again stopped in the ranks by a flat tire. After… Read the rest

Many people have asked me that when I decided to buy a bike, why did I choose a Royal Enfield Thunderbird? Well, my answer is – I didn’t decided to buy a bike, I decided to buy a Royal Enfield bike and choose the Thunderbird among its offerings. So what inspired me to go for a Royal Enfield? And how I am finding the experience so far? Discover the answers to these questions in the following paragraphs.

Long Distance Riding
I was always loved traveling and enjoyed wherever I went. But long distance riding on motorcycles was something which always excited me. I have always heard about how adventurous these trips can be, how wind blowing in your face can give you an exhilarating experience. Moreover, on my trip to Mashobra with my 99acres team in 2008, the tour was organised by one such person who used to organise motorcycle rides regularly. A biker dude… u can say!! We hit off somewhere during that trip and since he was also from Delhi and living not far away from my place, we became good friends. So he was the one who inspired me to try this out… Read the rest

Murphy’s Law proved itself to me on two consecutive weekends. First, the plan to ride to Pondicherry with some friends on the Christmas 2009 weekend was cancelled at the last moment. Then, a ride to Lepakshi on 3 Jan with the Royal Indians club started off badly with the clutch cable giving up as soon as I started. So the ride to Bandipur on 9th-10th Jan was awaited with much enthusiasm.

We were 4 of us on two bikes, my Thunderbird TwinSpark and one Yamaha. Bandipur is a widlife sanctuary about 220 km from Bangalore. Just after you cross Bandipur, you get into Mudumalai Tiger Reserve which falls in Tamil Nadu. We got two tents for the one night stay near Gudalur, around 15km after Mudumulai Reserve on the way to Ooty.

We planned to start at 6am on 9th January, and finally started at 6:30am. We took the Mysore Road out of Bangalore and after the initial city traffic, we were cruising at around 80km/hr. We took a break at 8:10 am for tea after around 60km. We left again at 8:25am towards Mysore. The highway towards Mysore (state highway 17) was excellent and we reached Mysore… Read the rest