Bangalore – Thrissur Bike Trip. Review on Kerala, General

Here I am going to share my nice experiences during bike trip from Bangalore to Thrissur.

Date of Journey: 23/12/2006

Bike: Hero Honda Joy

Bikers: Sterin & Jeijo

Startup

“Are u mad?” This was the first response that I got from most of my colleagues and friends. Actually I love bike trips. I really enjoy the speed and thrill from them. I own a red pulsar 180 cc which delivers more power and speed than I need. I have gone for lots of short and long (up to 400 km up and down) trips with my friends. But the idea of this 400+ km bike trip in single stretch was too much for them.

My old bike was Hero Honda Joy which can only provide short and comfortable city rides with good mileage. When I started my life in Bangalore on September 2004, my Hero Honda Joy also got exported from my native Thrissur to this Garden City via a Volvo Bus. After the arrival of Pulsar I had to take my old bike back to native since it will be a luxury to have two bikes to ride at the same time.

The natural and beautiful scenes on the way from Mysore to Nilambur are really famous. So I decided to go for a bike trip with my cousin. We packed started our journey at 7.00 am sharp. The total expected time for the journey was 12 hours. We fueled our bikes with 8 liters of petrol before heading to Bangalore Mysore Highway (since the tank was almost empty).

Bangalore Mysore Road (135 km)

We tried to maintain 60 km/hr speed till entering Bangalore – Mysore Road. After that we set our speed 80 km/hr to keep up with other vehicles. It was really a nice experience to ride on such a smooth road. We had our first pit stop at 9 am in Mandya for having breakfast. We reached at Mysore at around 10.30 without any peculiar happenings.

Mysore Gudalur Road (105 km)

This way includes two national parks. Bandhipur and Mudumalai. The road which intersects the national parks is very scenic and deserted. You can see a lot of animal name boards as well as deers on the way. Thick bamboo forests on the way make the journey really cool and awesome. After mudumalai, the road divides into Ooty and Gudalur directions. We have to choose the later since we had to reach our native place that night itself. We had our lunch at 2 pm from a Malayalee restaurant at Gudalur.

Gudalur Nilambur Road (80 km)This road gave me one of the great riding experiences I ever had. Road is narrow but is in a good condition. It follows a zig zag alignment from beginning to end with beautiful views of mountain and valley on either direction. I tried maintaining a speed of 50 km/hr through out the journey to reach at nilambur at 4.30 pm.

Nilambur Shornur Road (75 km)

Road is in a worst and pity condition. Traffic is also very high. It passes through Pattambi and it is almost impossible to travel at a speed greater than 30 km/hr. I don’t know how Kerala government is spending money for road maintenances. I really got irritated at road management system of Kerala after traveling this distance. The road I traveled before and after that was far better than this stage. We got really tired due to the condition of the road and reached at Shornur at 7.30.

Shornur Thrissur Road (30 km)

This distance was a great experience indeed. We were almost flying at 80 – 90 km/hr, having a race with a Honda Unicorn and Bajaj Discover. We were successful in overtaking both of them two times. Road is in great condition but it is not a one way, so a little bit dangerous. This road was better than all roads after Mysore. We reached at home safely at 8 pm after a long 430 km journey.