Ride date: May,06th,2017
Riders:
Dheeraj - Royal Enfield Himalayan
Myself - DSK Benelli TNT 300
The Trip:
Our onward journey was
Bangalore -> NH7 -> Hosur-> Krishnagiri -> Dharmapuri -> Omalur Road-> Chinna Thirupathi -> Yercaud (210 Kms)
Return Journey:
Yercaud -> Kuppanur -> Harur -> Uthangarai -> Krishnagiri -> NH7 -> Electronics City (220 Kms)
Suggested Return Journey 1:
Yercaud -> Kuppanur -> Harur -> Morappur -> Karimangalam -> NH7 -> Krishnagiri -> Electronics City (216 Kms)
Suggested Return Journey 2: To completely avoid highways
Yercaud -> Kuppanur -> Harur -> Morappur -> Dharmapuri -> Rayakottai -> Hosur -> Electronics City
Total Distance: 450 Kms
The onward journey took 5 hours including stoppage for breakfast (Adyar Anand Bhavan, few kms before Krishnagiri) and couple of short breaks.
Started from Electronics City around 6.30AM and reached Yercaud lake by 11.30AM.
Google Maps shows the route via Danishpet as the shortest route, however, we selected the one that we took since it has 20 hairpin bends. Wanted to have fun going up the hairpins… The road turned out to be much better than we expected, no bad road sections. The bike was a pleasure to ride on the highway, it is very well balanced at speeds of 100+. The gearing is such that you don't have to shift gears much for overtaking or slowing down for breakers, the throttle response is linear from low to high speeds. We expected the terrain to be dry due to summer, but were pleasantly surprised when we saw lot of greenery, many new leaves with the light green color and wonderful trees full of red flowers (google suggests the common name for this tree is “Flame of the forest”)
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| The hairpins on the way up.. Beautiful "Flame of the Forest" |
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| It's me... |
Dheeraj had earlier been to Yercaud and he suggested few good places to stop-by. First was ‘The Regent Hill Side Resort’. It is a wonderful place, close to the lake and the host makes you feel very comfortable in no time. It has a restaurant too, so a quick stop-by is highly recommended. The restaurants has lot of funny and quirky lines written all over the place, keeps you smiling. The owner of the place is also an avid rider, so lots to share over the stay.
The second place he suggested was ‘Kitchen on Call’. This place sells home-made jams, spreads, pickles and more. Picked up few items from there at very reasonable prices. The hosts there have a very interesting background story, find it out for yourself… Had lunch at ‘Salem Heights’ restaurant which has an excellent view of the valley and a small sky-walk.
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| Dheeraj on the sky-walk at Salem Heights restaurant... |
The kind gentlemen at ‘Kitchen on Call’ suggested us to take the Kuppanur route for return journey and was the best advice we could get. The road from Yercaud to Kuppanur via SH188 is bliss for any rider. The roads are very good, few hairpin bends, going through forest with tall trees on both sides and absolutely no traffic. On our way down, the sky opened up and we had to pull up. My bike was running low on fuel, on inquiry of nearest fuel pump, was surprised to hear that 2 shops away, a grocery store sells petrol in bisleri bottles. Happens only in India :)
Had to tread slowly on wet road a bit, but once the roads dried it was smooth riding again. It was 27kms of awesomeness from Yercaud to Kuppanur!!!!
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| Yercaud - Kuppanur Route... Pure bliss... |
From Kuppanur to Uthangari via Harur (67Kms) the road was manageable. There were some good sections and some bad sections with uneven roads. I was finding it difficult on TNT 300 with its stiff suspension, the Himalayan fares better on such roads.
The road from Uthangarai to Krishnagiri (47kms) should be avoided at all costs. Later realized that this section is part of the famed Chengam road to Thiruvannamalai. This section is very bad with no roads at some places. 47kms of bad roads was the last thing we wanted after long day of riding. Somehow we endured through the pain and reached Krishnagiri and back to good roads on NH7.
Our return journey was longer and took more time due to some bad roads.. We left Yercaud by 2PM and reached Bangalore at 8PM.
Yercaud is perfect place to visit on a 1 day trip from Bangalore!
The Bike
DSK Benelli TNT 300
The first impression of the bike by the way of looks was awesome to me. The packing of 2 in-line cylinder engine and 6-speed gearbox is very compact and concentrated at the center to give the bike very good agility in turning.
There are few concerns to use the bike in city traffic. The engine gets hot at low speeds and the inner legs get nicely and slowly cooked. However, this is certainly not an issue at high speeds on open roads.
The gearing is too good for city traffic. Was able to ride on higher gears at speeds of 30-50. This means less gear shifting is required. The clutch and gearbox are very smooth and no worries of skipping/false neutral. This is a very big plus point.
The suspension of the bike, both at the front and at the back are very stiff. This ensures that you feel and are rattled by each and every bump on the roads. However, the same stiffness makes the bike extremely stable at high speeds. And, high speeds is where the domain of this bike lies.
At low-mid speeds (<75), one can certainly feel the weight of the bike. At 200kgs kerb weight, it is unnecessarily heavy, in my opinion. The weight plus the stiff suspension adds to the jarring on bad roads. Still the bike is very easy to maneuver due to its good weight balancing.
The ergonomics are excellent, the seat height of 795mm would appeal to lot of riders in our country. The footpegs are rear placed, giving sports bike kinda position. The best thing is the firm and well contoured seat. It provides very good support to all of the posterior and the well shaped fuel tank can be comfortably held between the knees providing stable seating. The rear view mirrors are big and well shaped and are very adequate in city traffic. The low and high light beams do a decent job.
It is when one crosses 60kmph, the bike comes onto its own. Within matters of seconds the bike crosses 3-digit speed and is a pleasure to ride. The stiff suspension adds to stability and turning at high speeds is a delightful act. The exhaust note of the bike is awesome and gets sweeter as the speed increases. At 100+ speeds is where the bike feels like what it is designed for. All parameters, like the engine, exhaust, suspension, ergonomics, stability are designed on the bike for such speeds only.
Overall very good bike for long highway rides, not ideal for city commute, bad indian roads and off-roading though.
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