Coastal Karnataka ride – Friends, freedom, fucktardery!

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Coastal Karnataka Ride – Day 3 – Udupi to Banglore (450 kms)

5 in the morning, everybody was asleep. I, on the other hand, was running around the house, getting ready to bounce, trying my best not to step on anyone’s feet. Had a cozy hot bath, put on my lenses, and packed up to ride! Opened the door to mount the luggage on my bike and the angry dog from yesterday went ape shit again.

The Sun, the scare, and the shit:

Max and Puneet got up to help shoo the little doggie away and send me off. It was still dark, around 6:15 I think. I had the clear visor on my helmet, and was wearing clear goggles as well. Got out of Max’s bungalow, took 2 turns to get on the main road, and the sun came up! I was like WTF? Stopped just before the highway, changed the visor and the goggles while school kids stood and stared, and then got going again.

Udupi to Manglore road kinda defines the road infrastructure in India, it’s getting there, but it’s not there yet. Roads are being made, but will probably take decades to complete. I am all for progress, and I understand you can’t change an entire country overnight, but the problem with half-done stuff is that it’s more dangerous than having nothing to begin with. You’ll be on a butter smooth stretch of road, doing 80 kmph, and suddenly there’ll be no road in front of you, vanished! A scared look around will reveal a diversion asking you to go into the high speed lane on the wrong side of the road, where you’ll most likely notice a truck overtaking another truck and covering the whole damned thing.

With a number of such scary moments waiting for me throughout the trip, I was riding cautiously. I was flying solo after a long long time, more than a year, and it was so much fun! I didn’t have to worry about following the guy in front, or losing the guy behind me, or anybody else for that matter. It was just me.

Manglore arrived quick, and after taking a wrong turn towards Solapur, I finally got on the correct route thanks to some helpful public who gave me directions. Took a while to cross the unruly city traffic, but once the road opened up, it was just magical! Manglore to Banglore road via Shiradi ghat is extremely pretty, with dense forest on both sides and butter smooth tarmac, apart from about 20 kms of pothole infested ghats that’ll break your chassis if you aren’t careful.

About half an hour after crossing Manglore, I came face to face with any biker’s mortal enemy, the one thing that’s out of anyone’s control, an evil that can strike any moment, and strike hard.

Shit.

I had to take a crap, and take it quick. Finding a place to shit in India is no easy task, but I was feeling lucky that day! Saw a giant petrol pump on the left hand side, and quickly went in. Turns out it was like the best fuel station in the whole world, with a nice place to eat, and a clean set of washrooms! Of course if I hadn’t been this lucky, I am more than comfortable squatting along the side of the road, which definitely beats going into one of those toilets that give you nightmares for the rest of your life, and possibly depression and suicide as bonus.

Had some idli, vada, coffee and shira, all of which were really really tasty. Here again I could see the advantage of traveling in a group. While I was on the John for half an hour, all of my stuff was just sitting on my bike waiting to be stolen. I was lucky it was not a crowded place and the people were very nice. I was also lucky that as soon as I came back out, a whole bus of tourists stopped at the restaurant. I am a lucky guy.

Why India is the way it is?:

Back on the road again, and I was just in the zone! Speeds never went above 80, turns were being taken like a gentleman, and everything just felt too good. If someone came in too close to me, I would give the left indicator and let them pass. If I had to pass someone, I would push the horn twice and then carefully overtake. It felt like playing GTA after you’ve completed everything, the time when you start following traffic rules and try to be nice.

It didn’t last for long.

As always happens on twisties, some overloaded, ugly, slow as a constipated crap truck will crawl at 2 kmph and trap everyone behind him. There was this huge line of cars backed up behind such a trailer, and I was going from the right hand side, very carefully, letting everyone know I’m there. Nobody was coming from the front, everything felt so right, so something obviously had to go wrong.

A turn was approaching, so I knew I had to get in line. There was an Omini in front, and  I thought I’ll just accelerate slightly and then go the left in front of him. As I was thinking of that, I saw a Sumo coming from the front. Well, no worries, the Sumo is pretty far ahead and I can easily do it, of course unless the Omini guy is a son a bitch.

The Omini guy was a son of a bitch.

The moment I was next to him, the moment I had to make that left, the moment the Sumo was about to cross me, he turned right. WHY? Because fuck you that’s why. He could see a vehicle was coming from front, he could see a vehicle was overtaking from behind, and there was nothing on the left hand side that would’ve caused him to go right, but his son of a bitchiness forced him to do what only a son of a bitch could do.

Good thing I had the 390 under me, so downshifted, went to the right, overtook the Omini, and then overtook everyone else. This moment explained to me why all Indians are so pissed off on the road. Even if you try to be nice, somebody somewhere will always fuck up, this in turn will remind you of all the other times someone fucked up on you, and your already eroded dam of patience will quickly spill over and collapse.

The problem with India is that there are too many Indians.

We are far too used to being angry all the time, far too frustrated, and far too much in a hurry. We take out all of our daily irritations on other road users, because somebody always does something. You’ll be going nice and cool at night, everybody will be on low beam, everybody would be happy, but then that 1 motherfucker would show up with high beams, which will annoy you and everyone around you, and then everyone would be on high beams, and everyone would be sad and miserable.

Will it ever stop? Unfortunately no.

So after crossing that Omini guy, I went back to that “Indian” mode, overtaking everyone willy-nilly, being a general douche. It’s not just the people who bring that insanity out of you, it’s also the things these people create that pushes you off the edge. You’ll be doing 120 kmph, and you’ll notice a toll in front, which you always do because there are tolls EVERYWHERE. So you slow down to move through it, only to find out there’s a gigantic speed breaker just in front of the toll. By gigantic I mean even a Dakar spec dune buggy would scrape its underbelly on that thing. You go into first gear, move over that tomb of a speed bump, cross the toll, only to find an even bigger speed breaker just ahead!

Why the hell do you need a speed breaker after a toll?

You have a speed breaker before a toll apparently because people would just run right through it and you’ll not be able to extort money out of them. But could you please just leave them alone once they have done that? We really need to do something about our obsession with speed breakers, somebody needs to make a law controlling them, they are just too many and too weird and someday they’ll become self-aware and take over our entire country.

The unfortunate Fortuner:

Right, so where were we? Ah yes, riding like an asshole. I came back to my senses after a while, partly helped by the beautiful tea gardens around me. It was a splendid feeling riding through those areas, a very calm sentiment goes over you. Of course not everyone is affected by this emotion, and people still went on driving like crazy all around me.

Like I’ve said in my previous posts, riding in India is like moving on from one race to other on a series of overlapping and completely unrelated events. Through the 250 odd kilometers I had done till now, I clearly remember being raced by a Swift, a Polo, and finally a Fortuner. The Fortuner guy deserves special mention, because he was just insane.

The road was perfect, very little traffic, so I was doing some 130 kmph. I saw this Fortuner in my mirror, so went left and let him pass. He was easily doing 160+, and I had no intention of keeping up with him. But he really wanted me to, REALLY.

So we were both doing 130-140, I behind him, watching him filter through traffic like he was riding a scooty. At one point there was an intersection, with huge rumbler strips both before and after the crossing. Everybody was slowing down, there were people going in every possible direction, and this guy didn’t even take his foot off the pedal! The Fortuner flew over the bumps, and I braked. Slowed down enough to make sure he could no longer see/bug me, and then pushed on again.

Overtaking the Bullets, twice:

I have recently tried to tone down my hate for Royal Enfields, but everyone knows I am no fan of them. But during this ride and the subsequent trip back to Mumbai I definitely noticed one thing, REs form the most prolific riding community in India. I don’t understand what it is, but something in that machine inspires people to ride. Saw 2 Bull riders chugging along at 80 kmph and gave them the thumbs up. There was an Avenger rider as well, thumbed him up too. Then the Duke ran out of fuel 🙂

Went to the station and filled her up. Left the bike for a second to use the washroom, and came back to the pump employees wearing most of my gear! Somebody was wearing the helmet, someone else the gloves, someone even playing with the ear plugs. As soon as they saw me everything went back to place, and I couldn’t help but smile.

“How much is this helmet for?”

“Six thousand.”

They just walked away from there like “Fuck this shit!”. I suited up and hit the road again, overtook the Bulls and the Avenger once more, and finally hit the Pune Banglore highway! I knew the road from here, and it always feels nice to get back to familiar areas after getting lost in uncharted territories.

Banglore: The city that is always jammed:

Banglore city always surprises me. No matter what day, what time, what place, you’ll always manage to find a jam over there. Yes all major cities have traffic trouble, but on weekends and holidays and at night, even the most bottled up roads open up like they’ve been deserted for good. Banglore? Never.

Took me a good hour to cover the ORR into Marathalli and make it to my friend’s place. 9 hours of good riding to make it from Udupi to Banglore, not bad eh? Spent the next few days getting lazy and skipping office, all in the name of celebrating new year’s with friends! I sometimes even shock myself by just how much of a sloth I am, and how less I care about others.

Will share the story of my new year’s midnight ride through Banglore and then the return trip to Mumbai in the final chapter, good bye!

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