bangalore to ooty

Ride date: May 13-14, 2017

Riders:

Vijay - Thunderbird 500

Niranjan - Himalayan

Myself - Dominar

The Trip:

Onward journey was:

Electronics City -> Nice Road -> Kanakapura Road -> Mysore ORR -> Nanjanguda -> Gundlupet -> Bandipur Park -> Masinagudi -> 36 hairpins -> Ooty

Return journey was:

Ooty -> Pykara -> Gudlur -> Mudhumalai -> Bandipur -> Gundlupet -> Chamarajanagar -> Kollegal -> Malvalli -> Kanakapura Road -> Nice Road -> Electronics City

Total distance: 600 Kms

All 3 of us sync’ed up at Electronics City by 6.30AM and our journey started. The Nice road was Nice and it was a good warm-up cruise… Then took Kanakpura road exit and our first stop was Vasu’s hotel at Kanakpura.. This is our routine stop, a nondescript hotel with good breakfast and place to park your bike… It is crowded on all days as lot of locals come by and is a buzzing place… The nameboard is in Kannada, so watch out for missing it…

On Kanakapura Road, Niranjan, Vijay and Myself.. The Dominar in the middle.. 

From Kanakpura road (some road construction was going on), we crossed Malvalli en route to Mysore ORR. This stretch i.e: from Malvalli to Mysore is absolutely amazing.. Single lane road, perfect road, less traffic, covered by trees on both sides… and you should be here early morning on a bike… :)

From Mysore ORR, the road took us to Nanjangud, Gundlupet and then to Bandipur national park.. This is second best part of our trip through the national park.. The road was awesome, single lane, forest on both sides… The road winds around the forest and we could spot Caribous and lots of deers…  My wish of sighting an elephant or a tiger went unfulfilled… :(
Nevertheless, it was pleasant ride.. Although, lot of speed breakers for obvious reasons, and here is where the Dominar is irritating to ride…

After lunch at Masinagudi, starts the third best part of the on-going journey..

The 36 hairpins

I had read and watched videos of 36 hairpins roads, but nothing prepared me to what I actually experienced.. The road is relentless about the hairpins and turns and keeps on climbing… The stretch will be pleasurable for all and here is where Dominar let me down with uneven power delivery at times… especially on the turns… Luckily, the traffic was less else it would be an ant-walk up the hills.. The left hairpins are particularly tricky due to smaller turning radius, the right handers were fun to accelerate through.. Throughout the section, there are boards counting the number of the hairpin, it counts down from 36/36 to 1/36 from bottom to up.. The terrain was bit dry, but should be green during and after the rains… We saw few cars stopped with their hoods up, possibly due to overheating, and few bike breakdowns (one bike, not ours, had its chain broken)...

We made it… finally at the top and into the resort.. Very nice place to stay…!!!

At 30/36 hairpin.. 

DUDES .. !!!

By evening we visited Ooty commercial street, by Charring Cross and strolled about a bit.. Vijay and Niranjan did some purchasing of Ooty chocolates and we got some dinner packed.. The Ooty streets are jam packed during peak season and we were lucky that we did not take our bikes out.. We hailed an auto which was driven by a colorful charactered person and kept us entertained throughout the traffic… Came back to resort, had the dinner and crashed for the night.. An unforgettable day..!!

Off to Ooty Center .. 

Munchies for Vijay and Niranjan ... 

I swear I could hear them snoring.. The TB 500 the loudest.. :)

Return journey: 

We had nice heavy breakfast so as to push out the lunch as much as possible. We started by 10AM and our return route was down the 36 hairpin road and we were looking forward to it… It would be incredibly difficult and the element of danger spiked our interest.. However, alas, the route was closed for going down and we were redirected to different route.

All set for ride down.. 

Vijay, raring to go... 

Now, there is a saying, “whatever happens, happens for a reason”.. We truly found out the meaning of the phrase in our new route.. This was probably the most scenic route I have ridden on. The route cuts through Pykara Forest Range on its way to Gudlur. The road meanders through tea estates, shooting locations, forest with tall trees on both sides and few hairpins. The road was good and had less traffic, making the trip overly enjoyable. This route was not tricky and ideal for cars and buses to ply down and up to Ooty. If one has time, there are many places along the route to stop-by, there is a shooting location, Pykara lake and few other camping places… Along the way, Niranjan also found Ooty carrots that are shy and should not be photographed, as per the lady selling them… :)

The shy carrots... :P

On the Pykara route ... 

We reached Gudlur and from here, another awesome stretch starts through Mudhumalai and Bandipur forests. This stretch through the forest is longer than the one we took on Day 01. We could not spot any animals this time.. :(

On reaching Bandipur, we needed much required break and we stopped by for some coconut water and stretching.

From here, we made our way to Gundlupet and took detour to Chamarajanagar. This stretch of road was excellent, single lane road, no potholes, and less traffic.. From Chamarajanagar, reached Kollegal and then onwards to Malavalli on Kanakapura Road (via Shivanasamudra).

We skipped visiting the falls at Shivanasamudra or taking detour via BR hills as we were running late, but these can be attempted if time permits.. We hit upon traffic on Kanakapura road and our progress was slowed down.. Then onto Nice Road and finally to EC by 7pm!!!

The return route was certainly more scenic than onward route and an alternative for anyone who is not comfortable climbing up the 36 hairpins.

The Bike

I wanted to test out Dominar.

The bike was touted to be first adventure/tourer bike from the stable of Bajaj. And, the initial reviews were very good of the bike. So, wanted to take it out for long trip that involved highways and twistys, and Ooty was the perfect destination to try out both.

The initial look was good, not mind-boggling, but better than other bikes in the same price range. The ergonomics of the bike were good, the seat, the legs position to the pegs and the grip on the handle were good. However, the seating position was a bit forward for my height (5.6”) and had to lean onto the handle. This eventually gave me right wrist pain when riding it for long time… At the end of the trip, my right wrist was sore and not a good feeling from a tourer.

The best part of the bike was the pick-up on all gears and overtaking was a piece of cake. One can filter through the traffic very well as well, with the good response of the throttle.

The clutch was very smooth and agile and the multiple shifts required were not an issue at all… However, the main issue was the multiple shifts required.. Just think that you are riding on 6th gear and you hit upon a speed breaker (plenty of those on the Ooty route), you have to come down to 3rd gear… Not good.. This is not a problem on Himalayan or TNT 300, where you can glide over the humps with 1 or no shift-downs…. This kinda downshifting breaks the rhythm and somehow you don’t get a good feeling on long rides… In city traffic, these downshifting would pass-by as routine and would not feel as a hassle, but definitely not on the trips… Big let-down in my mind…

The another big problem is the display panel.. It is next to impossible to read the display during sunlight.. Maybe I don’t know whether there are knobs to fix this, but the default settings were pretty bad… You cannot read anything once the sun is up.. Pretty useless…

The braking on the bike is very good, with ABS, and did not get any slide or lock-up while going up or down from Ooty. The Brembo brakes certainly do their job… The balance of the bike is good so that you can tilt the bike in the corners with good speed and confidence…

There was too much spoken about the headlights and its reach, but personally, I was not satisfied with the light being thrown on the road at night.. It can be matched by any other bike such as Himalayan or the TNT 300…

The biggest worry was from the engine performance.. There were instances of uneven power delivery from the engine while climbing to Ooty, the last place where you want unpredictable engine.. The vibrations were high at 100+ speeds and the need to run up the engine to high rpm was certainly not pleasant.. To add to this, the engine felt stressed after long hours at high speeds and was not upto the requirement…

If you are a tourer, you may not like the fact that stock bike does not come with any support for luggage carrying capacity.. There are no carriers at the back or hooks to put on the bungee cords… Personally, why make a tourer without any luggage space…

Overall, Dominar was a big disappointment in all areas that are essential for touring… This is at best a city bike, with aspirations of a tourer, a true successor of the Pulsar series…!! It’s a bit ironic that Dominar was supposed to be what Pulsar was not, but it ended up being what the Pulsar exactly is.. A strict no for and from tourers!!!

Route Map Google Link:
Bangalore to Ooty to Bangalore

Map: