The Yercaud Ride

4 riders started out on a warm Saturday morning at 06:15 from SavethaDental assembly point. Riding was in formation.

Goutham (lead)
Roshan
Pritam
Barani (sweep)

Cruising speed was 80km with brief bursts of 100 to catch up.The firsthalt (07:30) was at Red Chili outside Ranipet. The place was justopening and took 90 minutes to get breakfast!The next stretch was to Vaniyambadi turn off and that is when the funreally started. The WINDING road was recently tarred, smooth and withminimal traffic. Riding was at a very nice clip and the curves were apleasure to take. We breezed through Tirupattur & Harur. And thenRoshan's bike came to a sudden Halt. Turned out his rear mud guard hadcome loose and was scraping the tyre. A temporary fix saw us gettingslowly into the next town where repairs and refuelling was done.Stopped for "Lunch" at kuppanoor and of course they were out ofmeals. Had Egg dosa & parota for a grand total of Rs 86/-!!!

The right turn to Yercaud saw us take the Ghats at a rapid rate andfor me this was my first attempt at hill riding. Narrow smooth road,lots of bends, NO indications of U turns was quite a challenge. Madeit to the top without much issues and checked into the Hotel. Everyonecrashed off and woke up around 6:30pm. Dominic joined us in his Innovaat 8PM and we got ready with the snacks for the evening fellowship.Cold dinner at 1am wrapped up the day.

Next morning we were joined by Anthony and Michelle fromCoimbatore. Started at 11am and drove directly down hill which wasvery easy. Decided to do a long ride so continued non stop to pastHarur. Only incident was a bus driver who decided to join ourformation and was tailing Goutham for quite a bit.We then drove intthe heat and stopped for lunch 40km before Ranipet. Decided to headout directly to Chennai post luch. Dominic split of at Ranipet.

The rest of the team reached Saveetha Poit at 6 PM when the sun wasjust setting.
A very nice & smooth ride especially for a Recruit.

Pritam