Nov 12 first ride!

Inaugural ride; The inaugural ride on the 12th of November ’06 saw five riders and their motos line up for their day out in the sun! There was Hemant on his Honda-CBZ, Omi on his RD350, Santosh also on a RD350, Samarth astride his BMW F-650 and me on my Honda-XR! The chosen route this day traversed in and around the Bannerughatta National Park [B.N.P] area before intercepting the Kanakapura road at Harohalli from where its all tarmac run upto Bangalore city! The surrounding forests of Bannerughatta were lush green post all the downpour of the past several days which infused new life into that otherwise bushland which also is elephant territory with lakes aplenty! The rough, bumpy ride, up the “Doddi Betta” hillock returned amazing eagle-eye views of the BNP vastness. The descent from atop had us un-expectedly knocking at conservationist Vishnu’s out-post for a presumed tea-stop-over but eventually, we all ended up tucking-in into hot wholesome breakfast instead at his private spa but not before he gave us plenty of ‘gyaan’ on forest ecology and his principles of live and let live, that was very enlightening! Bidding adieu to our new-found friendly host the fivesome rode out towards the Shivanahalli village and into the wilderness beyond tackling the winding, so called, roads traversing the Shivanahalli quarry area post which the bone-shaking pounding of the path was hammering away on the motorcycle’s suspension. The lone CBZ and the two RD350’s weren’t built for this kind of ‘off-roading’ but just the sheer guts and never say die attitude of ‘em riders saw them through that stretch traversing thru the other small and smaller villages enroute before we all eventually intercepted the town of Harohalli! Samarths F-650 as also my XR took that pounding in their stride as these are but very capable ‘off-highway’ machines which feel at home off-road! Astride those, the fun begins, literally, where and when the road ends!! The hardy part of today’s trip having completed without any spills, luckily, it was time to ‘chill-out’, like they say, so brakes were applied in front of a wine-shop(!) to procure coupla ‘chilled-ones’ to be relished sitting under the shady trees in Omi ranch adjoining a lake which felt like paradise away from this metropolis called Bangalore. Stories of past rides, jokes, pun et al saw us through a bottle of chilled beer each post which it was time for the all important meal so leaving Omi’s ranch at Mudennahalli we headed towards Bangalore city and stopped by at Somanahalli town to tuck-in some traditional fare at the military hotel serving ‘raagi-balls’ along with assortments of heads-legs-brains-livers(of goats!...Geeeez!!) a.k.a “spare-parts” which were readily ‘demolished’ by us…..as also relished as was evident from loud burps! Then on the ride on the smooth road brought us back to city and the ever so chaotic traffic so we decided to pull-over at the Corner-House outlet in Jayanagar to whollop some creamy ice-creams and coffee! A day well spent in the outdoors in the lap of mother nature, taking lung-fulls of fresh clean air of the green countryside, riding together, sharing a meal together with like minded ‘biking’ buddies, talking about past on-road and travel experiences, and sitting back and reflecting whilst also admiring the all enduring motorcycles now resting post the day’s battering sure seemed like the best ever day spent out under the sun as the curtains downed on the ‘first’ 1st Sunday Rides! What an amazing day!!