Each ride influences the way we look at our lives as we see new faces and places. I particularly love going places on my motorcycle. It moves me over miles and towns and states over highways, county roads and even through woods while in touch with the nature. I feel closer to people and places than while travelling in a car. So each time I get a chance to get on my Bull for a long ride, it makes me happy.

Valparai is a hillstation in Coimbatore district of Tamil Nadu. It is a small township and is part of the Western Ghats. We decided to take NH 47 up to Angamali and then deviate to Athirapalli, Vazhachal, Anakkayam, Malakkappara Tea Estate and reach Valparai covering around 400 km. There were eleven members to ride this time (including Raj as a pillion and a another guest rider). Of which ten were from Trivandrum and our new member Bejy Mathew from Kochi.

I started by 4:20 in the morning. I had to pick Raj from home and I headed to Manacaud. He was ready and already started twitting (he was the “official” twitter and photographer of this ride). We were planned to meet with the rest of the group at Kazhakootam junction. We reached there by 5:50. The sky was so beautiful with fabulous moonlight (as the moon the day before was the largest full moon of the year). The gang arrived and we started off at 5:20.

There is nothing like enjoying day break on the saddle a motorcycle; that too in crispy weather. This time too, it was no exception. We regrouped at 7:00 at Kayamkulam. The next regroup point was before the Cherthala bypass and we reached there by 8:45. I gave a call to Bejy, our host at Ernakulam. We were supposed to meet Bejy after Aroor bridge. The first rider in the group found him by 9:15. Bejy’s home is in a nearby beautiful island called Kumbalam. We reached Bejy’s home and there we were greeted by Bejy’s parents and his lovely four-year old son, Aron. Bejy’s mom prepared very homely breakfast for us (thanks Aunty!). We ate enough and more of idly, appam, cake and other stuff. She was kind enough to prepare and serve hot appams on-the-fly.

Bejy’s planing was meticulous! He prepared four copies of riders’ list along with required details to be handed over at check posts (we usually end up spending lot of time at check posts as each rider fills in data in their registers). His Bullet was loaded with everything we would require in such a ride.

We refuelled at the IOC pump near Edapally and headed towards Angamali by 10:55. NH 47 was not that crowded as it used be. And the weather was sunny which added up our spirits and enthusiasm. We rode at around 70 kmph with occasional burst to 90-100. We reached Angamali at 11:25. Our next leg took us to Athirappilly. We passed Athirappilly by 4:05pm. We had a short stop there for a few snaps. The fall looked awesome from the
highway. Immediately after that we reached Vazhachal . After Vazhachal the road was empty as it entered the forest and traffic was low–I hardly remember seeing any other vehicle on the road. So if you have plans to take this route, be prepared to handle a breakdown and have water and food to eat. There is nobody out there to offer you any of these.

That leg of the ride was not bad though the place was not scenic, the roads were mostly good but there were some bad segments as well. At around 5:00pm we entered a tea plantation area known as Malakkappara. We had tea at a rod-side tea shop. The people there were talking Funny Malayalam with Tamil accent. There were 20km ahead of us to reach Valparai. The roads were very twisty and narrow. At one particular downhill left-hander (a horribly designed one which appeared to go straight to a first-timer), I made a misjudgement and I narrowly escaped from falling down.

We reached Valparai and it was not difficult to spot the Hotel Green Hill Resort where we reserved our rooms. Bangalore gang led by Jayan SR reached around an hour later. I was meeting Jambo, Jawahar and Udhay for the first time. We had a great dinner party together and Jay (our club moderator) was presented with a memento, as a token of gratitude by the club members. Party went on well and entered with a philosophical discussion between Dr. Gopu and Jambo–I can see those who were present in there, while reading this, laughing their heart out

Valparai is a very small township with a strip of road with small shops and restaurants. I was told that the government do not entertain tourists there. There is not much choice for stay. Our hotel was not all that bad as a bikers’ stay and was bang-for-the-buck. The weather was cold but bearable.

We had a nice breakfast and packed our stuff and hit the road by 9:30 in the morning. As soon as I turned into the main road, I got a hitch hiking request from a police man! Folks, the real story begins now!

I love giving ride to local people. I get to give a ride to at least one person every trip. This time it was a police man. He jumped over the Bull and I started catching up with the rest of the gang. Until I passed a few curves, I was not sure how he would react if I leaned my bike a little bit more and enjoyed the roads. To my surprise I got overwhelming response from him. He started saying some cheering up words in Tamil. So I started riding faster That was fun of a lifetime–speeding with a police man! He started shouting to on coming vehicles to give way for us. For the rest on the road, it appeared that we were on an emergency. He wanted me to over take every vehicle in front of me. We were climbing the hill and got way ahead of the rest of the team in a few minutes time. We were negotiating curves at peg-scrapping speeds and he was enjoying all along. We negotiated a right hander and he made the sound “hum” which meant go faster. I took the immediate right turn at speeds above 50+ and before we could realise the bike flipped on its right side with both the riders. There was spilled diesel on the road! While falling I looked behind and saw Akhil too had his bike flipped and fast nearing me sliding on the road. Luckily we stood up and cleared the road. Thanks Akhil, if you didn’t stop (and fell down), probably you would have run over me.

The police man stood up and started praising God for such a safe fall. He appreciated me for my riding skills and he said he enjoyed sitting behind me. He asked me to give him my address and phone number (I was afraid that I would receive a summons for speeding but I haven’t received anything as of this writing ). There came a shuttle bus and he continued his journey in that.

There were some minor problems with the bike and me and Ahil had some small bruises here and there. Jayan’s first aid box came handy and Dr. Gopu convinced everyone that having a doc in the team is worth a million! Thanks Gopu for your valuable help.

This leg of the journey was more scenic than expected (see the links below). Roads were well paved and marked. The valley had a fantastic view from the top. Dams on the way looked fabulous. We spent a lot of time taking photos and roaming around.

Trivandrum and Bangalore team parted just before Pollachi. As the Banaglore team proceeded to Pollachi we took a left turn and hit NH 47 at Vadakkancheri. The traffic in NH was maddening till Chalakkudi and we zipped through after that till Vyttila, Ernakulam. Bejy said good bye there and left for his home. The sun went down as we passed Aroor and rain was kind of on and off after that till Alapuzha.

It was a very normal ride after that till Trivandrum. We had a regrouping at Kazhakootam. By that time the group led by Raghu and Bala reached homes ahead of us. I dropped Raj at home and reached home by 11:45pm. My Bull performed very well in this trip; thanks to Crank for tuning by bike. I guess it returned very good fuel average as well.

Over all trip was fantastic and I am looking forward to the next one.

***

Links:

0. Silver Bullet’s Twitter feed.

1. Bangalore to Valparai by Udhay (Picasa)

2. Crank’s album (Picasa)

3. Jayan S.R.’s album (Picasa)

4. Raj’s album with 300+ snaps (Smugmug)

[Correction 2: Thenmala is around 10Km ahead from the KTDC restaurant we had lunch at. This restaurant is exactly opposite to the Palaruvi road in NH208]

We at Silver Bullets have been consistently riding on all one-day holidays for the last one year. The latest in the series was May 1. One-day rides normally covers a round-about distance of around 300Km.

In Kerala you can choose to ride along the coast lines (straight Highways and a deviation at any point towards the east will take you to some beach) or through the eastern sides of Kerala which are full of twisties and hills. Most of the time we choose to ride through the eastern side called Western Ghats. This ride was no exception.

By Wednesday we kind of finalised the route: Trivandrum, Ayur, Anchal, Punalur, Achancoil, Shenkottai and decided to choose the return route along the way depending on the road conditions and mood.

There were not many takers for this trip. SB Trivandrum members were unusually busy with work/family this time. There were just me, Sankar (cutcrank) and Bala. But we had a few guests this time: my buddy Binuraj (who originally suggested the route), then Gokul and Shahu (both from Linuxense). Binuraj rides a Honda Unicorn. Gokul rides a brand new TVS Apache RTR 160 (who is running-in the engine as per the MotoTune theory and the reason for participating in this ride) and Shahu was pillion riding.

We gathered at Paruthipara at around 6:00am. Weather was cool and crisp and luckily the unexpected downpour prevailed since last week has stopped just the day before. So we had a very nice morning and we hit the MC Road by 6:30. This time too I was the sweep and cutcrank was the obvious choice to be the lead.

Ayur, the first deviation, was around 50Km from Trivandrum and then another 10Km to Anchal. We reached Anchal by 7:30am. Binuraj is a native of Anchal and we waited for him to join us. By that time cutcrank took out his Canon EOS400D and started flashing. Here is one pic from that lot (which I clicked):

Our next destination was Punalur which is 12Km away from Anchal towards the East. We had a nice breakfast there and headed towards Achancoil. To those who are planning to venture this route: you need to take the Ranni route and take the road that goes to the right at around 4Km (the junction is called Alimukku). It’s very easy to miss this deviation; some of us did.

I used to accept hitchhike requests, when I’m riding, from locals if my luggage permits; especially from aged people. I kind of chat with them and get some geo/socio information from them. I found it interesting. This time too, I offered ride to an ammavan (uncle by age). But this time I was in a kind of trap.

As mentioned above, I missed the deviation at Alimukku. I was riding along the Ranni highway enjoying the scenery and the weather, one aged man in his 70s asked for a ride. I offered. As usual I started chatting with him and a few minutes later I explained where I’m heading. Then he realised that I’m a lost guy heading in a wrong direction! He said with exclamation that I lost my way. And the situation was more interesting because he was in trouble too: I either should get him back to the place where I picked him up or I should take him to the next point where he can get another ride (or catch a bus). I said to myself; well, I’m out here to ride and why not do a social service. And I decided to ride three more kilometres to the wrong direction and dropped him in a junction before I headed back.

That’s one of the good sides of motorcycling I enjoy. We can never do (or we don’t prefer to do) this if we are driving a car. With a motorcycle you are more free, more local and you can afford to show some random act of kindness.

***

Punalur Achancoil is the leg in which we leave civilisation and enter forest. Houses and grazing cattle begin to disappear and the green lush will get thicker. What you would notice while in a forest is the “deafening” silence. We stopped at several places to enjoy that and roamed around to get the feel of oxygen-rich unpolluted atmosphere.

Achancoil is a township in the midst of the forest and at the border of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. People speak Malayalam there. I think they can speak Tamil too. We approached a local corner shop in Achancoil hoping to get some drink. We were totally tired by then. Bala was prudent enough to stock a few bottles of water but the terrain combined with this riding style made them pop out and fell down along the way; leaving all of us thirsty and tired. We found pre-packed sambharam in the corner shop. But that guy discouraged saying that that was not good (it may be of low quality butter milk prepared for local people for a cheap price) and offered Soda-Naranga Vellam (Neembu paani). Surprisingly he has got a Mr. Butlers Sodamaker in his shop and he prepared enough glasses of drinks for us in no time. We were recharged and ready to proceed to Shenkottai.

Achancoil–Shenkottai is more scenic. It has some excellent twisties for those who enjoy it. cutcrank and Binuraj were racing through the twisties pushing their bikes to the limits. And we reached Shenkottai by around 1:30pm. Our next priority was to find an eatery.

Shenkottai seemed deserted. May be because it was May 1. And we found it strange that we could not locate any restaurant. To add to the difficulty, majority of the team voted for a non-veg (read “mutton”) meal. So we checked with the locals for any “non-vegetarian” restaurants around. They said “yes” and pointed us to some direction. But, surprisingly, each time we landed in front of a vegetarian restaurant! Then we found out a small bug in our communication: the “non” in “non-vegetarian” was not understood by the locals and so it was ignored!

Gradually we realised that we were not going to get non-veg food in Shenkottai. The weather was gruelling; the temperature must be above 35 though humidity felt to be lower than that of Trivandrum. We decided to have some soft drink and head back to the Kerala border.

For our return trip we decided to take the Ariankavu, Thenmala, Madathara, Nedumangadu, Trivandrum route. NH208 takes us from Shenkottai till Thenmala. NH was excellent till we cross the Kerala border. After Ariankavu it was totally broken. It was an acid test for the shocks and an endurance test for our body. At Thenmala we stopped at the KTDC restaurant for lunch (finally we found a place!).

But disappointing some of the ardent mutton fans in our team, they had only chicken in stock. But [luckly] our folks lost their ability to distinguish mutton from nicely prepared chicken. So they didn’t make much noise this time. We enjoyed homely meal there, took a 20-minute rest and we were ready for the last leg.

***

It was around 3:30pm when we started from Thenmala. There were around 80Km lying ahead to reach Trivandrum. We decided that there won’t be any scheduled stops hereafter and we would stop only on as-needed basis.

Kallada dam is located in Thenmala and it was visible from the road we took. We can ride over the dam. There weren’t much tourists there when we reached that spot. So we decided to have a stopover and take some snaps. Here are some: . Bala riding down the dam:

Binuraj said goodbye at Kulathupuzha (5Km down from Thenmala) and deviated to Anchal. From Kulathupuzha to Trivandrum, were almost solo riding. cutcrank and Gokul were riding ahead with considerable lead, followed by Bala and me.

We were safely back home by around 6pm covering around 300Km. Rough roads and lack of physical activities these days made us tired and caused some body aches here and there. But we were totally charged. I found a great way to fight the hang over: plan the next trip! Yeah, we are going to ride through Munnar soon!!!

–
1. cutcrank’s Picasa album.

2. Binuraj’s Picasa album.

Suddenly a motorcycle entered the intersection from my left side. Though it was real quick, I wasn’t surprised as there was ample room for him to pass me. But what surprised me that, he rode straight to me and hit my car head on and fell down!

Heck! Was he mad? Did he try to commit suicide or something? What has just happened here?

***

There is a phenomenon called “Target Fixation.” It helps you most of the time when you drive/ride any kind of vehicle. But it if you don’t know how it works, it can hurt you; just like what happened above. Read on.

Wikipedea defines Target Fixation as:

Target fixation is a process by which the brain is focused so intently on an observed object that awareness of other obstacles or hazards can diminish. Also, in an avoidance scenario, the observer can become so fixated on the target that the observer will end up colliding with the object.

In practice, while riding a motorcycle if you find something on the way and if you panic, you forget about the rest and fix your mind on that object. Once you does this, your body steers the motorcycle (or any vehicle for that matter) straight to the object. There is no law of Physics governing this; it’s a plain and simple psychological phenomenon.

I am sure that you have noticed Target Fixation in action while trying you avoid a pothole or an oil patch in the road. If you fixate it, you will run over that object for sure.

This explains what has happened the other day at the University campus. I hope that that rider will read this post some day
and drop me an email.

Now you know what Target Fixation is. You can use it positively, indeed. Simply take your eyes away from the object which you want to avoid and look at the direction you want to take (in order to avoid that object). This helps you especially when you handle a skidding or when a dog or pedestrian runs across your way, unexpectedly.

This is easier said that done; especially when you are scared (yet another psychological phenomenon which makes you take wrong decisions most of the time). It needs conscious effort in most cases. Then it will become natural to you (through practice).

Once you know the existence of such a danger, you can learn more about it. Learn how to reduce its influence and to utilise it positively.

Safe riding.

PS: Today happened to be the first anniversary of my first real motorcycle accident. It is an interesting coincidence that I wrote something on motorcycle safety on the same day.

Later I heard that I can get one by writing an article in the RE web site. That’s something I could do, I thought. I like writing too. I decided to wait for another bike trip. But you know what: at Silver Bullets, we almost always ride together and in all the rides I participated another fellow rider was present; it’s none other than Babu Tharikh, our web master.

After every ride, when I sit down to write the story, I get either an Email or a phone call saying that the trip story by BT is already there on the RE web site! He beats me every time!

There is no fun in writing the same story again. More over BT narrates better than I do. I found only two ways to get my T: either I do a trip without BT which I hate to do. Or submit a story before he does which I found almost impossible. So I had to look for other options.

Then came the Ponmudi trip. This time I had an idea: I told him in advance that you write the trip story but I take the T this time. If you do not know what happened in that trip read this blog.

This evening, I got a call from BT. He told me that your T arrived! I said thanks. I went to his place and he was waiting for me with the family on his Bull. I greeted them (but I could not smile at them because of the sutures on my lips, sorry for that). BT handed over the T saying that “don’t fall again, you won’t get anymore T’s”.

I’ll try not to fall again. Thanks for the gift, dude!

***

It’s a regular golf T in dark blue without pocket. Royal Enfield monogram is stitched to the left chest.

RE should start selling RE-branded merchandise. Those who love RE loves to wear RE Ts and use RE stuff. By not selling them RE is making a big strategic mistake.

In my eighteen years of motorcycling I never got injured from a bike in any manner–though I knew that someday or the other I would fall from my motorcycle; I mean every rider will, if he pushes the limits of his riding skills. I used to be that kind of a person ever since with my first motorcycle. And even now I am.

This happened on a short trip organised by Silver Bullets to Ponmudi and back on 24 December 2006. We had a not-so-smooth ride up to Ponmudi hills as we had to stop at several places for Gopu to catch up as his Bullet ran into a seizure besides other problems. Inspite of all these JSR managed to get some very cool snaps on his Nikon.

On our way back we had a simple (but slightly heavy) lunch from Vithura. After a short break we started riding again. This time we were a little over 70kmph with me behind JSR while Jay leading the ride. Babu was about a hundred meters behind me.

We reached Anad junction at around 3:30PM. Traffic was a little high at that time. I was riding at around 50kmph. Suddenly a scootter (if I remember it correctly, there was a child standing on the platform) ran across my way while he tried to negotiate a gutter (probably without watching the oncoming traffic). I turned the bike to the left quickly to save them. But I had to slam the front brake as I could not find enough room on the road for me on my left. The front wheel got locked and bike fell on its right side (I violated a very fundamental rule here; but I couldn’t help).
A little bit of physics here: as I was riding at aroung 50kmph, though the bike had stopped, my body was still moving at that speed. My head, with the body “hinged” on the handle bars through my arms, vigorously struck the ground to dissipate the momentum. All that happned in less than a second. That scooter was saved and so was the kid.

My half-faced helmet absorbed the impact of that fall. But the severe shock which had transmitted to the head put me in total imbalance for the next fifteen seconds. I couldn’t balance myself. Some how I managed to sit on a fencing stone on the right side of the road. My leather jacket too absorbed its share of impact as it was torn appart at seveal stitches.
I was severely injured with cuts on my lower and upper lips and a deep cut on my chin. After the first aid at Nedumangadu Taluk Hospital we rushed to KIMS. All the cuts were cleanly sutured at the Oral and Maxillo Facial Clinic at KIMS hospital by Dr. Surej Kumar. Thanks to him and to his team! They did a great job, indeed.

I also thank the taxi driver who took me to the hospital so quickly through the evening traffic. Jay, JSR, Babu and Ajith were wating outside the Emergency while my cuts were being sutured. Thanks to you all dudes! Your presence turned out the scenario a lot light and joyous.

Update: Read this trip story published in Royal Enfield web site. Thanks to BT.

***
Without my helmet, I would have died on the spot. If I were wearing a full-faced helmet, I would have easily walked away from the scene.

Hey, riders, consider wearing protective gears while riding irrespective of the length or duration of the ride. A helmet is a must. A jacket with protecttive padding is a necessity, combined with this, a pair of knee pads and riding boots would be excellent.