It was time again for one of the biggest biker parties that happen around here. The 6th anniversary bash of the club that’s grown and matured into one of the best MCs in India, Rolling Thunder Motorcycle Club. Hehe… This writeup has long been over due and managed to nail it today!

Now, when and where?
The last weekend of October, in an estate resort in the serene surroundings of Coorg, roughly 300kms from Bangalore in the beautiful Western Ghats. Too bad Kavitha couldn't join me for the ride as overnight long crazy rides are off limits for her for the time being. She'd wanted to come along all the more as she's a Coorgi (Kodavati) herself and we'd be skating passing through her parents' hometown near Virajpet. Gives me another reason to head back there sometime. 

Am I going to find peace there?
Hello? It’s a biker meet (not a male biker meet, mind you). You’ll find great Pandi Curry, fantastic food, loads of booze, some grass, plants and animals… if you’re looking for peace, try one of India’s new fads, Guru ‘X’.

So, what’s the agenda? Who’s ever needed an agenda to ride?
If you must ask, its:

1. Ride to the venue, Capitol Village, Madikeri. Roughly 300km of national highways, village roads and twisties from Bangalore.
2. Party hard/ Relax
3. Ride on. Some choose to head back home, some onwards to another destination. (I was in the latter group)

It was time again for one of the biggest biker parties that happen around here. The 6th anniversary bash of the club that’s grown and matured into one of the best MCs in India, Rolling Thunder Motorcycle Club. Hehe… This writeup has long been over due and managed to nail it today!

Now, when and where?
The last weekend of October, in an estate resort in the serene surroundings of Coorg, roughly 300kms from Bangalore in the beautiful Western Ghats. Too bad Kavitha couldn't join me for the ride as overnight long crazy rides are off limits for her for the time being. She'd wanted to come along all the more as she's a Coorgi (Kodavati) herself and we'd be skating passing through her parents' hometown near Virajpet. Gives me another reason to head back there sometime. 

Am I going to find peace there?
Hello? It’s a biker meet (not a male biker meet, mind you). You’ll find great Pandi Curry, fantastic food, loads of booze, some grass, plants and animals… if you’re looking for peace, try one of India’s new fads, Guru ‘X’.

So, what’s the agenda? Who’s ever needed an agenda to ride?
If you must ask, its:

1. Ride to the venue, Capitol Village, Madikeri. Roughly 300km of national highways, village roads and twisties from Bangalore.
2. Party hard/ Relax
3. Ride on. Some choose to head back home, some onwards to another destination. (I was in the latter group)

I was really itching to head out of Bangalore as early as possible and Santosh willingly joined in the plan to leave a day early on his BMW F650 Classic. On the way we happened to bump into Sukesh who was riding his Machismo 350 and Sandeep Dutta who was driving the Subaru Forester with his and Sukesh’s families. Sukesh decided to join us and Dutta carried on in the car. After the break, we headed out towards Coorg and wanted to cover as much distance as possible before darkness descended. We did manage to do that, but on the bad broken single lane road, Sukesh’s clutch cable snapped. I had a spare that could be used and fixed his motorcycle. That turned out to be the defining stop for me that ride as my motorcycle started acting funny and I had to nurse it along for the next few days (turned out to be more serious that I thought initially). We hunted for and reached the venue only after dinner time and found our rooms and crashed out.

Next morning was when the hordes of motorcycles were expected and they didn’t disappoint. We had large groups pulling in all the way till late night. Over 140 motorcycles (mostly Royal Enfields) from RTMC, Madras Bulls and a few other clubs rode down from as far as Hyderabad and Chennai to be there. It was great meeting up with most people after a long time. Food was ordered in bucket loads and booze was ‘in the air’ so to speak.

The place itself was a lovely, like this pond facing dormitory, where a lot of the MadrasBulls were assigned to, but the same cannot be said of the manager and other people out there.

We had a bit of a problem and a lot of stuff was stolen from the rooms over the weekend from many rooms. It was a more than a bit of a pain actually, since vital stuff like riding boots and gloves got stolen too.

In the evening, we had a few competitions and lucky draws and also an auction of the event banner with over 150 bikers’ signatures on it. It was won by Mr. Bose who bid a princely sum of Rs.15k for a banner that had cost about Rs.400 to print. But, the event organisers had cleverly planned a few surprises themselves and at the close of the formal bidding session, the banner was given away at the cost price to the person who valued our club banner a lot and had the ‘dil’ (Hindi: heart, courage) to bid and win! Once, the niceties were over, it was music, booze, dance, bonfire, a few bar fights etc. etc. all the way to next day’s sunrise. Let me not term it as good or bad, but just eventful!

Next morning, there was an estate walk planned and we were shown around the coffee estate and its surroundings. It was an interesting walk, managed to see some nice birds, and also visited the pig sty. Man! That piggy was huge with some 10 piglets which were the size of adult pigs else where. Pangs of guilt about having eaten a few of their piglet brethren over the weekend? Too tasty for guilt, bring it on!

This day was a RRR day and we didn’t do much. Except headed out into Madikeri town to just hang around. Arun, who was my pillion on that ride, and myself decided to take a small detour to Raja’s Seat. One of the old monuments from the time of the raj. We had a surprise there, as a musical fountain show was just about to begin. Watched through it and headed back to the resort in time for the bonfire ‘etc.’ We had a bit of a problem with a egoistic resort manager, which was solved by Sandeep Menon.

Next morning we decided to head to Mudumalai and the government guest house there. We had a great ride through Coorg exiting into the forest ranges of Waynad, Bandipur and Mudumalai. These three forest ranges are in the states of Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu respectively. Waynad, I would like to go back sometime as the other two, I’ve been visiting on a regular basis. Most of the route is broken tarmac with wonderful stretches in between. It would be wonderful to do this route on a big bore thumper dual-sport. The route was lined by thick forests thanks to the good monsoon this time around. Only where the little towns are nearby did we see anything but trees. We did hit a lot of rain and was a pretty wet ride till we re-entered Karnataka a few days later.

The only wildlife I managed to see in Waynad was a tame female elephant being transported on a truck!! However, I managed to get some good wildlife sightings in Bandipur this time around. Two separate sighting of elephants, one a wild lone tusker and the other, a whole herd of wild elephants a little calf included! This was pretty much the highlight of my trip, if I let go of the unnecessary fact that my stomach went upset and had to crap in all the 3 forest ranges across three states in one day. And, also that wet wipes rule. See, I told you, unnecessary!

Once we reached our destination for the day, a government guest house in Mudumalai, turned out to be a fantastic getaway and we kicked ourselves for not being there the previous day, according to plan. It's on a flat piece of grassland, facing hills of the Nilgiris. We relaxed most of the evening and had some fantastic food cooked by a tribal cook. Must say that the food and the courtesy outright beat anything we got in Coorg. After a good night’s sleep, we woke up in the morning to find elephant dung right outside our window. Amazing how silent these creatures can be, despite their size.

We went on a guided safari in a bus from Theppekadu, and saw three things, Zilch, Nada and Nothing. Headed back to Bangalore after a while and the Thunderbird engine continued to bother me. It finally gave signs of dying on the Mysore-Bangalore 4-lane and I luckily made it back before nightfall. Rode straight to the garage, bags and all and got it checked and headed home for a good sleep. The bloody Royal Enfields continue to be as unreliable as ever, under pressure.