Ride of many firsts

Life at 115 kmph is fast, freak and bloody awesome if done responsibly. That’s one of the firsts here , riding at that speed , another was Pulsar AS 200 and another was wifey joining me on her first overnight ride.

The ride started with many doubts, how will the bike perform? is it comfortable for the pillion? Can it take the cramster saddle bag? and many , all were pity well answered , the bike performed beautifully , the new age engines are so refined and coming from the stable of royal Enfield smooth engines are something which I was not used to , the AS 200 as said earlier was a great highway performer , but does the AS200 does justice for its tag of a AS(Adventure Sport) , I beg to differ , handling of the bike in bad roads is difficult , with the seating position there is a huge pressure on the hands specially on the palms when doing downhill , but the positive to are the great MRF tyres it comes with and also a very effective disk brakes.

We started our ride on the Independence day , living up to the tradition am following from 2009 and am glad it all started with my 2009 ride to Chikmagaloor , when I look back I feel extremely happy that what in 2009 started as a one of jolly bike ride has grown into a deep routed passion , 2009 independence day ride was followed by 2010 Kudremukh , 2011 Danushkodi , 2012 NH17 , 2013 LEH , 2014 Vagamon and 2015 Chikmagaloor again. The only change was from Std 350 to AS 200.


The ride started early at sharp 6 , the cramster saddle bag fitted perfectly and off we went. We fuelled up at the shell near Jalahalli and took the Nelmangala-Hassan-Belur-Chikmagaloor route to reach Chikmagaloor. The beautifully laid out Bangalore - Hassan NH is a pleasure to ride , I kept a good pace and we were zooming past many cars effortlessly, we reached Chikmagaloor by 11.30am and did not stop at the town as we were expecting to stay at any one of the many homestays there , we inquired more than a couple of homestays on the way to Mullaynagiri but unfortunately all the homestays were prior booked and we were forced to come back and book a room in the town .

We booked a room in the town ,unsaddled had lunch and a little rest and headed to Mullayanagiri , there was a huge traffic congestion on the way up and the roads were patchy , here's where I felt a royal enfield would have done better , we reached the Mullayanagiri top and the excitement in aashu's face was something I cherish , what travelling specially biking does is something only to be experienced , we went to the small temple on the hill top , it rained for sometime when we were at the temple , we descended Mullayngiri and headed to the beautiful Hirekolale lake .

A small temple @ Seetalayyanagiri Top

View Of Hirekolale Lake from Mullayanagiri Top

View from Mullayanagiri

Just to find out that it’s near the same lake we had stayed on my first ride I did way back in 2009 with RTMC , the lake is in midst of lush green chain of hills we spent a good 3 hrs near the lake clicking a few pics and we headed back to our room , a quick dinner at 8pm and zzzzzz for the day.

Hirekolale Lake

We got up around 7am on Sunday , breakfast and headed back home , we started at 9am and 1.15 we were home. What a ride! Nextride on the 2nd 3rd and 4th of October , will be back with my blog. Be happy , god bless