Woke up nice and early this morning, headed out to get my Shell coffee. They open the coffee area at 6 and I popped my head in at 6:05. Had my coffee shot, met a fellow vulcaner, and had a small chat with him, which turned into ownership review comparisons and so on, you know how that works.
Headed back to the hotel, packed, had breakfast and finally headed out by 9:15. Plan was to get to Kozhikode, but not the direct route. Wanted to go inwards a bit, cross into Kerala, then back into Karnataka and take the bhadra wildlife sanctuary forest area, my favorite route.
Ok so for starters, let me take back everything I said about the bike yesterday, except maybe a couple. And we start over. I’m thinking it was the bas roads and the heat, and the fact that I wasn’t wearing my shades all day without realizing it, and the heat got into my head, and it all poured out on the Vulcan review.
Back to my trip part, the road from Mangalore outwards was pretty damn neat. Atleast until kasargod, a lot of it is still under construction but the alternate service road is pretty good too. Couldn’t really believe it after yesterday’s experience. But the ride went really well, the bike was happy, I had my sunglasses on, and the half litre water breaks were pretty frequent. Made good time, and left for virajpet from there via Coorg. That was when the fun started.
The roads got narrower, better, winding and 100% green on both sides. Traffic wasn’t the bad, maybe because it was Sunday. The bike took on every single turn – it was a beautiful light footed dance. Banking was superb, handling was superb, balancing was top notch. The bike, and I .. were looking forward to every single winding turn, tilt it a bit this side and the bike takes on a beautiful side pose. All it needed was a tiny nudge if that. Haven’t banked low since my school biking days, can’t bank like that now, but hey, I did what I could, and the bike bends it’s turns like nobody’s business. I don’t know how else to put it. if this was my classic 500, I’d have to be a little careful turning on speeds. The 500 is not nimble by any standards – it has “2 left feet” during turnings, and the Vulcan does not throw it’s momentum sideways. You have to ride it to believe it.
So bike mounted chargers – I have a wireless charging and wire enabled charger mounted on my handle. Was super thrilled when I got it , thinking all my travel charging worries are over. Here’s the catch. Put your phone on charge while that transparent cover of the charger is on, and the phone heats up, the charger case traps heat inside, and the phone decides to throw notifications at you saying phone too hot, cannot charge. Now if you switch on gps and all, the phone still gets too hot in the sun even if not charging and shuts down all apps to “power down”. No maps, no camera, nothing opens until the phone cools down. The only other option is to keep the phone tucked away from heat – defeating the very purpose of having a phone mount. Now this whole setup works fine if you are riding at night, well it charges for longer and then gives up and gets too hot if you are using the phone (even for maps). You probably need a fan cooled copper tube leading out of that case – which is designed to protect the phone from rain and so is pretty air tight. You keep the cover open and your phone will fall out. Next project is to figure out a cooling setup like in laptops – will fabricate one for the next trip. For now tried using the mount as a dashcam, works great !
Back to the ride… Reached Coorg, fished around for a coffee day, but turns out they couldn’t survive the “coffee capital” of India
And shut down. The heat seemed very high by 1pm. So I parked myself in a Domino’s which had a front parking so I could watch the bike mounted luggage while eating. By the time I was done, I was all fresh and charged up, and cooled down. Headed to the bike and the seat was hot enough to fry an egg. Poured water on the seat, it dried up in about 10 seconds but the seat became usable. Headed out again.. virajpet in no time. Had to tank up with whatever normal fuel was available. And started out again.
Landed at the entry to bhadra park. Beautiful mountain side ride, trees creating the umbrella for a late evening experience at 3pm in the afternoon. 20 kms of sheer riding pleasure. Ever since I did this road in 2014, I’ve made it a point to go via here. The first time I went through this stretch, visibility was about 2 feet, my high beam looked like a candle, all it did was illuminate the smoky fog, and my eyebrows were dripping with fog condensed… At 6pm. Have been here 4 times after that, hoping to experience it again, but hasn’t happened in the last 10 years, atleast not at the times I’ve gone here.
Crossed all the forest area and hit the highway again. Showed 75 more kms to Kozhikode, and I don’t ride after dark, so landed at koylandy, a beach town 25kms before kozhikode.
Got myself into a decent hotel, hogged on some beef roast, and sitting happy.
Tomorrow’s route changed – a kind office friend from Kerala did some research and gave me some super routes, so will take those starting tomorrow. Can’t wait !
