Wayanad bike trip

I went motor-biking to Wayanad a couple of weeks back with colleagues and Clarissa. I was supposed to go without Clarissa since she could not bunk work on Saturday morning to leave early. But girls being girls, she did not let me go since she did not want to be alone for the weekend.

So my colleagues left on Saturday morning while I went to play cricket :-( . After lunch, I called up my colleagues who had just reached Wayanad. On a whim, I decided to leave for Wayanad immediately. So I called up Clarissa, packed up a few things, picked her up at BMTC and set sail for Wayanad.

Alas, Bangalore traffic did not let me escape and i managed to get out of Bangalore only at 4pm. After that, it was a great drive to Mysore. The roads are straight and well laid. We reached Mysore at 7pm. It was another 120km to Wayanad. It was already dark and we did not want to cross Bandipur forest at night. So we stayed over at a ramshackle motel in Nanjangud.

The next day, we started off at 6.30am. The drive through Bandipur forest was amazing. There are bamboo forests on both sides of the road. We reached Wayanad at 9am. We had breakfast and then went pedal-boating on some lake nearby. After that, we set off for Calicut, another 50km. A brief stop at Calicut beach and then back to Wayanad. By this time, my ass was killing me and I had to ask a colleague, Gabbar to ride my bike.

Back at Wayanad, we could get down to the important business of getting stone drunk. True to form, I passed out early. I was amazed by Gabbar's capacity to hold his booze. He always had a beer bottle with him whether it was 7am or 11pm.

The next day we started back for Bangalore. On the way, we visited Edakkal caves. The roads are very steep and my Yam kept jumping up in first gear.

We had a Pulsar 180, CBZ, Fiero and my Yamaha Rx-135. I tried out all the bikes on the way back. A quick review:

1. The CBZ has absolutely no pickup. It touches 105 but takes an awful lot of time to get there. But, it is very stable and the drum brakes had quite a bite.
2. The Fiero was the only bike which reminded me of my bike's pickup. It pulls really well all the way up to 100. The road grip was better that my bike, but not in the CBZ or Pulsar class.
3. I got to ride the Pulsar after dark so I couldnt push it all the way. But I was very comfortable to ride at 100 on Mysore road at night. The disc brakes are very good. when it comes to pickup, it was in the same league as the Fiero.

The final rating IMHO (very disputable) from best to average:
Stability (Road-grip): CBZ, Pulsar, Fiero, Rx-135
Pickup: Rx-135, Fiero, Pulsar, CBZ
Top speed: Pulsar, CBZ, Fiero, Rx-135
Ride Quality (Bikes I enjoyed riding): Pulsar, Rx-135, Fiero

PS: Another colleague crashed my bike on the way back. Thank God, it was a minor accident. Maybe a road trip is never complete without one.