KOLLI HILLS - Hair Pin Ride

20th - 21st June 2009


Dominic, Goutham and me reached Goutham’s house on Friday, 19th June 2009 at around 11 pm as per plan. After relishing a delightful south Indian vegetarian dinner, we chatted for a while and went to bed at 1.30 am. The plan was to start riding at 4 am the next morning. So it was an early rise for the three of us on Saturday, 20th June 2009 as the alarm started ringing at 3.30 am. Goutham’s bed and the A/C was too comforting for us that we didn’t feel like waking up but the very thought that we were riding to Kolli Hills made us jump out of the bed. We quickly freshened up, packed our bags, geared up and were all ready to leave. We left from Goutham’s house at 4.30 am and the actual ride started from Kathipara, Guindy at around 4.45 am. Dominic being the lead, Goutham the sweep and me in between, we opened up and our bikes roared on a deserted NH-4, cruising at a good speed of 100-110 Kpmh inspite of the fact that there were a million small insects hitting our helmet visors. We continued that way and took our first break at a restaurant a few kilometers before Vaniyambadi at around 6.15 am. We had a glass of juice and a couple of cigarettes and left soon from there. According to our plan our next stop was at Tirupathur for breakfast. Everything went on smoothly as per plan till we went off NH-46 and took a left on to SH-18, the road to Tirupathur. Just after we jumped a couple of speed breakers, Dom felt something was wrong with his bike. His bike’s air filter flange came out!!!!! We got it fixed for the moment and rode down slowly to Tirupathur to a mechanic shed to get it fixed.

Soon his bike was ready and we left from Tirupathur. We had breakfast on the way and after covering about 120-130 Kms, we stopped at a petrol bunk to tank up and also have tea. There was a bit of tension here because Dom lost his I-pod and after searching for around half an hour we found the I-pod fallen on the ground in the petrol bunk. Relieved, we started riding again and soon reached Salem-Namakkal road when Dom felt that his air filter was not properly fixed and may pop out any time. The hunt for a mechanic in Namakkal began and after a bit of offroading (the road was that bad) through some narrow lanes we managed to find a mechanic who fixed the air filter. We could see the hills from this place and wanted to get there as soon as possible. We had lunch and started riding towards the foot hills. The ride uphill on the narrow road on the ghats was enthralling. There were 70 bends totally and most of them were blind spots. I was just following Dom’s track and slowly felt even more confident and started enjoying it further.


We reached the top at around 5 pm and went to a place called Nallathambi Resort and checked in to our room. The weather was awesome and the cool breeze blowing across made it feel like heaven. We freshened up, changed and hit the bed. We woke up at 7.30 pm, had dinner and went back to sleep. It was a very hectic and tiring day.

We woke up at 9 am the next morning geared up and were all set to leave. We checked out of the room and started riding downhill. The ride downhill was equally amazing and thrilling as the ride uphill. We soon reached the foot hills and this time we decided to avoid Namakkal and take a shorter route through Rasipuram. We were doing good speeds on this stretch. Goutham was the lead and frightened by the noise of his bike a goat started running here and there as soon as his bike passed through and almost came onto the middle of the road. Myself and Dominic just managed to avoid the goat. Worst part is that all this happened when we were overtaking a bus. Phew!!! Was a narrow escape. We stopped for breakfast and hit the road again. Till now everything was fine. We rode down for some time and suddenly at around 1 pm something went BOOM in my bike and the engine stopped. We spent more than an hour trying to fix it but it was of no use.

The only option was to tow the bike to Tirupathur (almost 90 Kms away from that point) to a mechanic shed. Hats off to Dominic who towed my bike all the way upto Tirupathur, that too at a speed of 80-100 Kmph at certain stretches. Goutham inspite of having an injured leg helped Dominic in towing my bike. However it took us almost 2 hrs to reach Tirupathur. But to our disappointment even the mechanic at Tirupathur wasn’t able to figure out what was wrong with my bike. Now the only option was to take the bike to Ranipet, to Shankar mechanic’s place. It was very kind of Dom and Goutham to offer to tow my bike again till Ranipet but considering the fact that they would definitely be tired I thought putting the bike onto a vehicle would be a better option. So we loaded my bike on a Tata Ace and headed to Ranipet. Dom and Goutham sped away on their bikes and I was sitting in the Tata Ace going at 30-40 Kmph. After a long and bumpy journey that lasted for 2.5 hrs in the Tata Ace, I finally reached Ranipet. Dom and Goutham were already there long back and were waiting for me to arrive. It was dark and late in the evening, 7 pm to be exact when I reached Shankar mechanic’s shed.

Mr. Shankar sat down and started to figure out what might have gone wrong. He noticed that the inlet valve was not working. As he moved down and opened the case, we found out what the cause of breakdown was. The tappet which is in contact with the cam and is responsible for the timely opening and closing of the inlet valve had broken and it was due to manufacturing defect.

By that time Krishna and Sudeep came to Ranipet from Chennai. We left my bike at Ranipet and headed back to Chennai from Ranipet at 9 pm. I rode pillion with Sudeep. We stopped at a Dhaba for dinner and reached the outskirts of Chennai around 11.30 pm. By the time we reached home it was 12 in the mid night. On the whole it was a mixed bag of both good and bad incidents. Even the bad incidents were learning experiences for us. I got some hands on training and information on how the engine works its components etc. So, even the bad turned out to be good. I enjoyed every bit of the ride. Thanks V40!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cheers,
Anand