3) Maddur & Kanva: (4/4/2011)

SLIDESHOW:

Chapter 3) A meal to remember

PLAN:

Before I start yapping, salutations to Team India, they’ve made us feel more proud of being an Indian. I had been on a 200km trip on Sunday to muthati, but not with my fellow Black Saint. And there was a need for the Black Saints to hit the road, since the exam season was round the corner. The whole trip started with this conversation:

Around 4 am,

Zethu : “yo macha, hungry?”

Karthik : “yeah”

Zethu: “ Maddur for breakfast??”

Karthik: “cool(t) ... lets hit it yo !!”

That is how spontaneously we go on trips. Karthik had a sore back, after all the celebration on Saturday, and I hadn’t slept in nearly 40hrs, as I was still running high on India’s victory, and I was also tired from Muthati trip, but it takes much more than sore back, and exhaustion to stop us from hitting the road.

RIDE:

This time though I was tired of sneaking out, and told my parents that I was going out to play cricket with friends, and left home, and reached our usual place of departure, Karthik’s place. We left his place at around 5 30am, once again, an early morning ride, and it was good as usual. We zoomed through the Mysore Highway (SH-17) at 60’s – 70’s speed. I’ve begun to fall in love with this road. It’s just so smooth and offers very little trouble to a biker. We made our first stop after Ramnagar, to fill our tanks. The ride, on the whole was good, except at the town of Chennapatna, where the road humps were a big bummer, and really pissed us off. As we were leaving Chennapatna, I just turned towards the rear view mirror to see the sun slowly rising. We had to make a stop by the side of SH-17, just to get a glimpse of the orange-ish sun. A few kilometers from that stop we reached our destination, Maddur Tiffanys.

MADDUR & KANVA:

We had nice breakfast at Maddur Tiffanys. Maddur Vada, is a specialty there. It was just around 8am, when we finished our breakfast, and were roaming around there, in the near-by fields. We didn’t want to go home so early and Karthik came up with an idea I couldn’t resist, re-visit Kanva.

Kanva was just around 20kms from Maddur. After a nice breakfast, our adrenaline was pumping, and we raced away to Kanva. This time though we wanted to explore bit more of that place, and so we rode along the reservoir to get to the other side of it. The terrain initially was good, it was green like a cricket field, and then it got very un-even and kinda unstable, but we continued riding, until we reached a nice stop to cool off our machines. The Black Saints got a nice welcome from a Black bird, and it kind of felt good. We parked our bikes, and started roaming around, and sat at the rocks and were discussing about the future of The Black Saints, i.e. it’s future trips.

RIDE BACK:

After staying in Kanva for a good 30-45mins, it was time to hit the road, and get back to Namma

Bengaluru. While coming back, we wanted to take an alternative route from Kanva on to SH-17, and that got us on an awesome ride through villages. The road was too good, except for few patches along the route which were not good. There was lot of greenery all along the route, and the road was empty for quite some distance, and it feels really good, as a biker to go on roads like these. That road took us to Ramnagar, and connected us to SH-17. We made a final stop at Ramnagar, to refresh ourselves, and rode in full speed on to Jnana Bharathi where we’d split. The ride back, was awesome, as the sun was up, the highway was pretty much deserted, and ours were the only two bikes roaring. Once again, it was a pleasure riding with fellow Black Saint, and my bro, Karthik, as we made this meal, one to remember.

Album link:

33) Maddur & Kanva - A meal to remember : (4/4/2011)

Distance: 200kms

Bikes: Avenger > Pulsar.

MAP:

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2) Kanva : (27/3/2011)

SLIDE SHOW:

Chap two : Kanva -Riding that extra mile.

PLAN:

Manchinbele was technically, the Black Saints’ first outing, but we were not satisfied with that, and

wanted to go on a really long ride. We had a very ambitious plan of going to Pondicherry, but that plan failed due to various reasons. Now, the need for a bike trip intensified and we went back to our old plan of going to kanva reservoir. The plan was simple, leave at 4 30am, early again, since my parents are against road trips and stuff, and I had to sneak out again. Anyway, leave at 4 30am and be back home 9 am tops. I have it really tough when it comes to getting up that early and I didn’t want to let down my bro and fellow black saint, Karthik, and so I decided to not go to sleep and anticipated my first ‘real’ long trip on my Avenger, all night.

RIDE:

At around 4:45am, we roared through the ring road and connected to the Mysore Highway. I had started to enjoy these early morning rides, as the highways are less crowded at that time, and the weather is pleasant too. Once again, Karthi and I shared perfect sync, as we vroomed along the highway at constant 50’s speed. All along the highway we could spot aftermaths of car crashes.

After driving along for a while, we reached Ramnagar, after passing through which, we decided to stop for a small chai break. Karthik was pointing to me that Kanva wasn’t that far away. Another thing about early morning rides is riding along as the sun rises. As we took a deviation off the Mysore Highway, although we couldn’t see the sun, as it was covered by few clouds, it was slowly getting brighter. The ride to kanva off the highway was fun. It was a small road, and not really a bad one with nice scenery all along the road. After driving some distance we caught a glimpse of the reservoir. I was really excited; as it was the time I had got there. We went off road for a few meters and there we were, finally! at kanva.

KANVA:

Kanva reservoir isn’t a huge reservoir, it’s a small one, which I guess is the reason, not many people know about it, but it offers an awesome view, with mountains at its back drop. There wasn’t much water in there, but we could spot a fisher man, trying his luck early morning. A few minutes later, we would be in for an awesome sun rise. I guess the sun had just risen then, but was covered by clouds. Some of the clouds were dispersing, and then started a sort of a hide and seek between the sun and the clouds. The view was absolutely wonderful, as we could see the reflection of the sun rays from the reservoir. It was picture perfect, and unarguably the best sun rise I have ever seen so far. Quite unwillingly, we had to leave after a while, and so we did. We bid adieu to that wonderful place and vowed to go back there soon.

RIDE BACK:

The ride back to Bengaluru was kind of fun. Karthik has a weird affinity with dogs. As we were passing through a village, since it was morning and most of the dogs then had woken up, they were giving karthik ugly stares, which was really funny if you were in my place. Some even seemed like getting ready to chase him. Overall, the ride back was pleasant, as we cruised with full speed to Namma Bengaluru.

SNEAK BACK:

As I was reaching my place I just noticed that I was a bit late, and there was a chance I would be busted by my parents. As I was trying to sneak back in, I saw my dad sort of like investigating a crime scene, trying to find me in my room. I quickly snatched a pajama from my room, took a bucket and cloth and raced down to pretend as though I was cleaning my gaadi, and thus came clean with my parents, as they had no idea that I had been on a 120kms bike ride.

PICASA ALBUM:

32) Kanva - Riding that extra mile : (27/3/2011)

MAP:

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1) Manchinbele : 6/3/11

SLIDESHOW:

Chapter 1 ) Manchinbele - Black saints identity : 6/3/11

PLAN:

It had been around four days since I bought my new Avenger 220cc. Karthi and I had been planning on a bike trip ever since I bought my gaadi. We were very keen on going to Kanva, and so we planned to hit kanva on an early morning Sunday, since I had to sneak out and be back before my parents got up :P

No surprises, I couldn’t get up at 4am, the scheduled time for our departure. I got up at 5am and rushed to karthi’s place. The original plan of going to kanva was scrapped, since I had to get back home before 9am tops. But we really badly wanted to hit the road, as Karthik is a regular when it comes to going on bike trips, and he hadn’t been on one lately, and I had just bought a new bike and wanted to hit the highway. We unanimously decided to go to Manchinbele, 35kms from there.

RIDE:

So wasting no time, we turned on our engines, and hit the road. It was an early morning ride, the weather was fairly cool, well, at least I felt like it was cold, while Karthik had got used to riding in such conditions. The best part about any ride is well, the ride itself. We were going at constant 40’s, mainly because it was a new bike and didn’t really wanted to eff up the engine, and with a pleasant weather, we rode through the Mysore Highway. Karthik and I had a perfect sync when it came to riding along the highway, which added a lot of flair to an already superb ride.

MANCHINBELE:

As we approached Rajarajeswari Dental College, we had to take a diversion off the highway. As we took that road, the sun slowly crept up, and made our ride even better. Imagine this: A nice empty road, pleasant weather, and sun rays slowly starting to graze the road, damn! It was an awesome ride, one which I wouldn’t forget for a long time to come. After driving further, we reached the place. The part about manchinbele, is that, as you ride, you wouldn’t get a glimpse of the place, until one place where you take a left turn and suddenly you’d see this wonderful reservoir with mountains at its back drop.

This was not the first time we came to Manchinbele, but this was the best view of manchinbele we had ever got to see. I’m sure it’s a view every photographer wishes to see. We got to see an awesome view of the Savandurga hills, being hit by early sun rays on one side. One side of the hill seemed like gold.

We spent some time talking, as we didn’t want to go hit the water, as it was pretty cold, and I had to return home without any suspicion. One important conversation:

Karthi:”macha, we should give ourselves some name da”

Zethu: “yeah”

Karthi: “It should start with Black, since our mean machines are black”

After a few names,

Zethu: ”How about Black Saints?”

Karthi: “awesome \m/”

And that’s the story of how Black Saints originated!

RIDE BACK:

After a while, we decided to leave manchinbele and head home. The ride back home was good, as the

sun was back up, and shining with full might. We stopped at a spot just to observe something amazing… there was clouds trapped amidst small mountains.. What a wonderful sight tat was …after that we headed back in full flow…I reached home on time, left no traces of me gone.

To me, Manchinbele, would always remain a special place, and I’m sure I’d come back to this place again as soon as possible.

BIKES:

Avenger > Pulsar.

PICASA ALBUM:

30) Manchinbele - The Origin : 6/3/11

MAP:

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