Ride 8 - Vagamon

And 2017 came to a wrap and for the first 3 months of 2018, there wasn’t much we can plan. Thankfully, before the rider in us turned rusty, the team planned on a ride to Vagamon. After the BOBMC ride, this was easily our longest and this time, a few of the fellow riders also had their partners accompanying them. Interestingly, this was also my first ride to Kerala. Things couldn’t have gotten better for this ride.

Itinerary

Unlike what we usually do, Vagamon isn’t one of those destinations we wanted to cover in one go. We knew about the scenic routes we’ll be taking and the bends that the roads have in store for us. We decided to play it safe by stopping for a night at Trichy before starting to Vagamon the next day. Thanks to the confidence all the previous rides have given us, instead of choosing places such as Maduravoyal flyover as before, we decided Trichy itself to be the meetup point. As someone who had to work the evening before, I completed work around 8 pm and started to Trichy all by myself. After meeting up with the team late at night and completing dinner, we called it a day. The next morning, we started to Vagamon and we reached there in good time.

Kms covered

I started off from Chennai at around 21,051 and when I got back, my odometer read 22,446. The total distance I covered in this ride was approximately 1395 kms.

What’s new

Unlike my previous posts in which I fill up this category with what all accessories and gears that I had planned and bought before the ride, this time, there’s a twist in the story. During this trip to Vagamon, I hadn’t bought anything new while starting the trip and probably because of that, I had to shop in between.

Long story short, while riding from Trichy to Vagamon, my clutch wire snapped. Thankfully, it happened during broad daylight with my entire gang riding with me and not the night before when I was travelling to Trichy all alone. We managed to ride it by abusing the gearbox without using the clutch till we found a workshop just within a few kilometres. Fortunately, the workshop’s neighbouring shop was someone who deals with RE accessories and I was able to get a longer clutch cable as I had changed the stock handlebar.

What actually happened

As I had mentioned earlier, it was quite a productive day. After completing work at my office in Ambattur, I must have been the last among the group to leave Chennai. I stopped at the usual Haritam for a quick refreshment before heading straight to Trichy. I had to literally wake up some of my friends to accompany me to the bus stop where food was available 24×7. They had started earlier from Chennai and comfortably reached Trichy by evening.

After covering a good distance, we stopped for breakfast and thanks to some brilliant roads, we were able to maintain a good speed before we hit the ghat sections. Post my clutch cable fiasco and a short tea break, we started ascending towards Vagamon. Thankfully, the roads weren’t busy and the picturesque views made us stop a couple of times to shoot pics. One of the guys booked a large guesthouse in the middle of a tea estate — a name that I can’t remember now. It’s easily one of the best properties I’ve stayed at and the area around it, through which we ventured in our bikes are nothing but brilliant memories to think about now.