Over the past 2-3 years, the ride to Cloud Valley, Coorg by RTMC, has become more of a tradition than just a ride. So it was decided that the ride to the place this year would be during the third weekend of May.

According to IMD, monsoon would hit the coast approximately on the 29th of May and we were expecting a wet ride. It was cloudy when we got to the start point at Jnanabharati Gate, Mysore Road, and that's how it stayed for the rest of the ride. We put our bags into Conrad's Scorpio and hit the highway.

It was a pretty peaceful ride all through to Mysore with photo stops and video shoots on the move. On one of those over-enthusiastic moments when I wanted to take a video of the beautiful green paddy fields in the backdrop of the dark Grey clouds (while on the move), the battery holder of the camera opened and the batteries tumbled out! Damn, now that wasn't good at all considering that Abhi likes to take quite a few pictures on all his rides. Braced myself for an earful which I did get to hear at the next break. :) Sigh! Anyways, because of this we don't have many photos to share of this ride.

On we rode, through the bypass of Srirangapattana, Ilavala and Hunsur and entered Periyapatna. The expressway was almost complete, except for the road within the town of Periyapatna. By the time we crossed that one kilometer stretch, our jeans and shoes looked like we had done some heavy off roading! duh!

We rode on through Kushalnagar and Suntikoppa and got to General Thimmaiah Circle, Madikeri, which was the regroup point. Once everyone got there, the directions to Cloud Valley were given out. We took a left into Bhagamandala road and got to the steep hairpin curve at Talathmane, where I heard someone break really hard very close behind our bike. Junaid, hadn't realized that we had to take that turn there and almost took us! Oops! 8-|

The rest of the ride through the ghat sections of Appangla, Bettageri, Kargunda and Cherambane was awesome since Abhi rode as though he dint have a pillion :)

We got to Cherambane, stopped at Mitra Wines, where the owners of Cloud Valley gave us further directions to the home stay. We stocked up some essentials (RTMC ishStyle from the wine store) for the stay and got to the house. Bike after bike, the veranda of the house was filled up, with a final count of around 26 bikes.

The stay was superb by all counts: The place, food, weather. It was complete unadulterated fun all the way into the night (And, I have recounted it in another write up, soon to appear here). We got a dome tent for the night to ourselves and we had a good slumber under the stars or rather the clouds :)

I am not really sure whether its the good part or bad part of sleeping in a tent, but once the Sun is up, its hard snooze in there! We were up quite early and started to pack. Most of the guys were busy either fixing their bikes or wiping it clean for the ride back to Bangalore.

After some breakfast and group photos, we bid goodbye to Uday and his cousin. The ride back was through Sidapura and a substantial part of the lot of the route was through the forests. It was a nice cool ride to Periyapatna, after which it was back to riding on the expressway.

A lot of watery fun just before some awesome pandhi curry!

It was a race weekend and Abhi wanted to be back in Bangalore to watch the race. We reached Bannerghatta road by around 5.30pm, but got stuck in a major traffic jam (which we later figured was due the opening of a mall). We reached home only an hour later, just in time to catch the last few laps of the race. Nonetheless we had the solace of a good ride and a weekend well spent.

All images are shot with a Sony Point and Shoot Camera