Yelagiri ahoy!

We shall leave at 5.45am sharp.' Those were the words of the ride captain, B.

The objective was to leave for Yelagiri Hills on Sunday (19th March), do some off-roading, gather at Vaniyambadi for lunch and return home.

Six people had signed up for the ride and nine were expected from Bangalore. I kept my plans open; I am riding only if I manage to get up at 5am.

I was able to, but the usual delays made sure I could not leave home before 6.15am. I messaged B that I would meet them at Poonamallee. Taking the bypass at Tambaram will be easier for me instead of making them wait till I reached Guindy.

I was at Poonamallee a little after 7am. To find 2 messages and 4 missed calls. They did not get my message at all and left Guindy only ten minutes before 7! After a long wait, I spotted three bikes riding towards me.

Three? As I strained my eyes to locate the remaining three, B signalled me to start. I recognised D and S as two others who had signed up for the ride, but the remaining...?

Keen to make up for lost time, we rode at 80+kmph speeds. An amusing part was when a fellow on a modified Yamaha RX135 (with a pillion) tried to overtake all of us, whining all the way while we comfortably thundered along. As long as it gave him an adrenaline rush, why should we bother...!

Breakfast was at Ranipet. Over idlis, vada and sambhar, we got to know that the number from Bangalore had swelled to 28.

A message '32, actually' came right then to correct the tally.

They just outnumbered us, S remarked.

We hit the road towards Vaniyambadi and reached the place two hours later. While the rest chilled out, I went hunting for a can of engine oil and a place where I could "mark my territory".

I do not know if the accident or the experience of rearing dogs for 16 years is the cause for using dog-speak in informal settings!

Vaniyambadi to Yelagiri Hills is a road off the highway. As we approached the hills, I looked up at the hills to see if I could see any road. The hills looked brown and greener, and no black roads. Only when we began climbing I realised that the greenery masked the roads.

The temperature began to drop as we climbed and it soon got very pleasant. I love it when roads wind, but when they take hairpin bends, I get nervous. And by the time I get used to taking them smoothly, I reach the top.

To find a large array of bikes parked outside the resort. That explained the stares we got from the locals as we rode uphill. They probably wondered why only four of us. Perhaps they didn't know the power of a commando unit versus a platoon...

Initially there were plans to go off the road onto a dirt track. But that never happened. Perhaps the sun that came out from behind the clouds was to blame. The bikes started, revved and rode down the hill.

The hairpin bends had my hair standing on its end. And memories of the last time I rode down a hill came to my mind. I do not need another fracture, I told myself. I took one such bend very carefully and saw a couple of bikes pulled over. Turned out that the silencer of one bike had fallen out because the clamp that held it broke. After creating a makeshift rope out of cloth, we continued downwards only to stop again. This time, one bike side-swiped a Tata Sumo going in the opposite direction.

Thankfully that was the last incident we had. The next stop was at Hotel Khaja's in the town of Vaniyambadi. By then my engine had begun to emit heat, and so I cracked open the can of engine oil.

Glug, glug, glug. I poured enough oil to last the remainder of the journey.

The hotel must have never seen business like it did that day. We must have taken up all available seats and ate for 60-odd people. The owner got a camera and kept clicking photos of us hogging. Quite likely, photos will adorn the walls the next time we visit them.

Hopefully without a Wanted label beneath them.

A little before 3, we parted ways. The Bangalore bikers went westwards and we rode eastwards. That was when I noticed S' 500cc bike not quite catching up. The others had gone ahead and I made sure I could see S in my rearview mirror. One attempt to zoom ahead had S catching up with me and signalling me to pull over.

S thought he heard a noise. Perhaps it is the oil, I said. We checked the engine oil level and found the it alright. We started moving again and found B and D waiting for us. B changed the spark plug but it didn't seem to help. So S roade ahead and the rest of us kept behind him.

Soon it was B's turn to have problems. His 500cc bike began to choke infrequently. We had to fill in some petrol, which all of us did. B seemed to have less problems after that.

It was nearing sundown when we stopped for tea. My mobile said I was in the Arakkonam region, but I could have been anywhere there. Could have been the outskirts of Ranipet or Walaja town. That was when a young Muslim gent came up to us with his tales of woe. His bike had frequent clutch problems. The cable had ot be replaced 7-8 times in the space of one year!

By the time we reached Sriperumbudur, it was close to getting dark. I had never ridden in the dark on a highway before. And I was trailing the rest of the pack. Was I nervous!

By 7.30pm, we were at Poonamallee. A short break later, we parted ways. I took the Tambaram bypass while the rest rode towards Guindy.

I wanted to take some photos of the bridge near the MIT railway gate at Chromepet. And this is what I got.

In the end, a ride covering over 500 kilometres and in 14 hours.