1st Anniversary Trip - Baba Budangiri

11th Feb is the Club's first birth day and what else is the best way to
celebrate than a bike trip? Pops and I were having a chat on bike trips
and it enthused us for a bike trip. Not decided where to go and how many
days to spend we decided to assemble at Rajan's place. We met Shash
there packed all our stuff and tied our bags on to Shash's bike. We had
Shimoga and Chicmagalur in mind. Having heard about some riot may occur
in Shimoga we chose to visit Chicmagalur.

Normally we spend a week gathering information about the routes, places
to visit, activities to do, book the accommodation and so forth. But
this time the whole planning was just 10 minutes! 5PM on 10th Feb 2007
we started from Bangalore, Me (huez) and Pops the pillion on my Pulsar
and Shash and the luggage on his Apache. It's been usual that the gang
gets lost in the Tumkur highway traffic within city limits. We met each
other once the traffic got lessened. We were doing good speeds about 110
km/hr but still our frequent chai breaks slowed us down. We reached
Chicmagalur around 12AM and took a good rest in a decent lodged until
Pops woke us up 8AM the next day. We checked out by 9 and ventured out
to Baba Budangiri after a good breakfast.

Baba Budangiri is a mountain range near the Mulayangiri peak. It is 35
km from Chicmagalur and is famous for its shrines for the Hindus and the
Muslims. There are trek routes as well which spans across the hill
ranges. There is a water falls too. This trip was only of motorcycling
and sight seeing and we didn't have plans for a trek.

It was Shash's turn to take the heavy load (he isn't that heavy though)
and I to carry the luggage. As we started riding up the hills there as a
dirt track detour from the main route. We decided to take this road
that's less traveled as there is either a bad road or no road at all.
The scenery was beautiful; we came across a couple of small villages
peacefully tucked in dense forests. Here the trees had leaves in many
color, violet, purple, brown, yellow...Probably it's because of the
season? Dunno. As we rode we saw a huge lake (forgot the name, It was
tank actually) We had the whole place for us as no one was around. We
spent a quality time enjoying the gentle breeze and taking snaps here
and there.

We continued the ride wondering what nature has on our way and where the
route actually leads to! There were steep climb ups and steeper slopes
and curves on sandy tracks making our bikes to wobble. The ride was
worth it all. Pops had no worries; he was happily sitting behind
enjoying the nature. I wish I get to ride as pillion some day. But that
way I would miss my favorite part of biking. Hm one needs to loose one
to gain one.

Suddenly our adventurous dirt track ride lead to a tar road which
continues to climb up till the Baba Budangiri. The road was bad.
Actually there no potholes on the road, it's the other way round! We
didn't get to zoom on the ghat section. We took a break on a small
stream that cascades near a bridge. We had some snacks and continued our
ride. Finally we reached the peak from where a few beautiful view of the
forest in the valleys below and a falls. Pops decided to shout each of
his girl friends'(girls who are his friends) names and was ecstatic when
the mountains talked back! His list was huge with 18 names. I guess Pops
can pursue selling his mantra to guys as his primary career for living.
Having seen lots of falls we decided to skip the falls to save some
time.

There was this remains of a very old building on the hill where we took
photos the Dill Chatha Hai style. After a pleasant chat we decided to
roll. Its time to start towards Bangalore. We took the route through
Hassan as this route is better than the Tiptur-Tumkur road.

The ghat Section till Hassan was a breeze. We raced with another pair of
bikers on their pulsar. There was a super duper curve near a lake where
I took a very lean turn at about 90-100km/hr scratching my right shoe on
the road. Wow what a wonderful stretch of road it was. Its time our bike
manufactures build bikes with better ground clearance.

We reached home that night at 11PM. We had covered 640KM in 30 hours,
riding through dirt tracks, colorful forests and ghat roads. That's all
for our Club's first anniversary. Enjoy biking!

huez -the Biker
The hiwayREBELS Motorcycling Club