Elagiri hills - Excellent ride

The clock was ticking 4:08am. I heard some sound ringing in my mind. I thought it was in my dream (yes, I was sleeping). But I had to wake up with that sound just to know that it was my alarm, and what I saw was a note in my phone said - time to get ready for Elagiri hills ride. That was how my day started. Yes, today we planned to go for Elagiri hills ride and I was very excited about it. 

As planned, we had to be there at Electronic Phase 2 bus depot by 5:45am which was our meeting point, so we could start by 6am. I went to Jeevan Bheema nagar around just past 5am to pick up my pillion rider Harinath. It was cold outside, but with my jackets, I didn't feel much cold. I picked him and started to Electronic City. The roads were clear with very less traffic, and we were there by 5:30am. There were two people already waiting, Swateek (Honda-Unicorn) along with Sunita. We met them and waited for the rest. We were waiting for Virander who is our coordinator today. One of after the other came the rest, Arurag (Pulsar 200NS), Deep (Honda-CB Trigger), Ranjan. We had some get-to-know-each other talks. Then came our coordinator Virander on his bike - can you imagine, IT'S Harley-Davidson :-). Unbelievable. I have seen his pictures in Google+ posing on his same bike. But I didn't think he would bring it for this ride and riding along with Harley-Davidson (1,600 CC, 300 kg) was going to be an awesome experience. We exchanged hais and names, but I was just staring at his bike, probably others as well :-P. Then finally came Sandeep with Shwetha. We were 10 in total with 7 bikes. We had a small official intro. It was first long distance ride for most of them. We had discussed and agreed on safety rules that must be followed through out the trip. Vinander being in the front to lead and Anurag took the responsibility of sweeper and would come at the last.
 

Ready, Steady, Po - At Meeting Point

 We started our ride exactly at 6am. The electronic city road became busy with traffic. It took some time to cross the border of Karnataka and to reach Hosur. The climate was cool, the Sun was trying hard to come out of the clouds, but clouds weren't allowing. We crossed Hosur and stopped at A2B restaurant to have breakfast.

Breakfast time - On the way near Krishnagiri

 
We took left at Krishnagiri towards Chennai. We had stopped in between to take some pictures, especially some pics with Harley-Davidson :-).

On the highway

Virander on his Harley Davidson

At last time has come for the Sun to come out to show his face. The weather became hot, and this was the last thing I expected. We then took a final stretch, got off from the highway and rode through Jolarpet and some villages to finally reach the base of the Elagiri hills by 9:20am.

Finally reached the base of the hill

The roads were awesome. Mostly it was highway, and even after we got off from highway, the village roads were also good. We didn't feel like we rode this long. Thank god, it was cold at at least at the hill. The view is fantastic, the hill looked so greenery, and we were able to see the U curves that we needed to take on the way to the top.

Heading to the top of the hill

We took some pics, and immediately started riding through the ghat roads of the hill. The riding through the ghat road was excellent and fun, especially when we took turns at U curves, we could see a full view of all the villages around Elagiri as far as we could see, and at the end of sight where it looked like a meeting point of sky and earth, a lot of hills surrounded, it was beautiful. We stopped somewhere in the middle of the ghat road and spent few minutes, took pics. We resumed our ride, finally to reach a village, which is at the top of the hills.

Elagiri lake

Enjoying the cool breeze at lake

A small island

We parked our bikes there and went to Elagiri lake which is in Children's park. We spent some time there chatting, walking and taking pics. The lake wasn't full of water, but it was enough to have a visit and enough for locals to wash their clothes (yes, there were washing clothes there). Another strange thing was there were small red ants everywhere in the walking area around the lake. That was the reason we didn't sit at any place. We came out of that park then went to Nature park which was exact opposite side of the road. We spent most of the time in this park, just chatting and sharing each others experiences in their different trips, cracking jokes and laughing. It was around 12:30pm when we decide to start our return journey. We planned to have our lunch at Krishnagiri.

Inside the Nature park

We started our return journey, we enjoyed riding down through the ghat road than going to the top. In no time we came down to the base of this hill, and rode through the same route that we had come from.
 

Riding down

At Jolarpet, we decided we will go to Krishnagiri in one stretch and have lunch there. We all agreed and started after the railway gate opened at Jolarpet railway cross. Once we came off the Elagiri hills, the weather became too hot which made our journey difficult. The hot sun and on the huge highway, especially the cross winds made us very tiring and exhausted. The winds were very fast and hitting us hard as if it was going to take us with it. At that time, on the way to Krishnagiri, Harinath felt exhausted and uneasy. I stopped beside the road when he asked them to stop. Anurag also stopped with us. We took rest for sometime, till Harinath felt good and started our journey again. We met the rest of the members at Krishnagiri, and immediately we searched for a hotel to have lunch. We felt very hot and exhausted, the Sun was burning at it's best. We rushed inside the hotel, had lunch and took rest.

It's me with Street Bob Harley Davidson

My bike

We came outside the hotel to resume our journey. The hot weather looked like frying pane, as if it was going to roast us. We realized Tamilnadu always would be the same way. But we had to start anyway. We rode through the highway from Krishnagiri to Bangalore. As we were heading towards Bangalore, it started become cooler. Harinath stated feeling dizzy again, so we stopped near Hosur to take some rest

A hill with a temple at the top - On the way back to Bangalore near Krishnagiri

 
The weather became colder and slowly started raining. After rain stopped we went ahead and stopped at a place after Hosur to have juice. It was around 4:30pm. We had a final feedback session and started back to Bangalore. As we were reaching towards Bangalore, it started raining again. It was as if finding a water pot, no no, finding a lake in a desert. I always like to be in rain, and I enjoy riding in rain. All the exhausting, tiredness had gone. We were almost reached to Bangalore outskirts and we were welcomed with huge evening traffic. We stopped before electronic city, to say bye to everyone. Then each one took their routes. It was almost 8pm, by the time I dropped Harinath and reached home after I drenched in rain.

It was an excellent road trip, the roads were fantastic through out the journey with mostly the highway. It was around 350+ km ride. We fully enjoyed the riding than the destination, especially in the ghat roads of the Elagiri hills. However It would be better to visit this place in late monsoon or winter.