Mumbai To Chennai On Indian Motorcycles – Travelogue

Indian Motorcycles Travelogue

Total Kms: 1431 kms

Bike 1: Indian Chief Vintage
Fuel Consumed: 85.68-liters
Overall Mileage: 16.7 km/l

Bike 2: Indian Scout
Fuel Consumed: 67.82-liters
Overall Mileage: 21.1 km/l

You don’t need a therapist if you own a motorcycle, any kind of motorcycle

The last time I was on the MMRT race track, I received a call from Indian Motorcycles as they had their bikes in Mumbai for a review and later they wanted to ship them to Chennai. Taking in both the opportunities, I had a call with them and they were happy to let us have two bikes. One was the Indian Scout which was new to us and we got an extensive review of it, while the Indian Chief Vintage served as a purpose for my travelogue. As we had both the motorcycles, I rode the Indian Chief Vintage as my colleague already had his eyes on the Indian Scout. Instead of a doable two day trip from Mumbai to Chennai, we planned it to be a three day trip and Indian Motorcycles would fly us back the third day.

Picking up the motorcycles, so the plan was that the bikes would be dropped at our place and we would leave for Chennai the next day but as the bikes needed extra accessories and a proper service, the drop was getting delayed. So we planned to instead pick up the bikes from the Indian Motorcycle showroom in Andheri, take it back to our place and leave for Belgaum the next day. It was late evening already by the time we left from the showroom with the bikes and the heavy Mumbai traffic was waiting for us. No doubt we were creating even more nuisance ourselves by getting all the attention we could. By the time we reached home with the bikes, we were already questioned so many times on the way and the kids in our society got curious and took our brains out.

Travelling leaves you speechless for the time you travel and later makes you a happy story teller

The night passes by and the bikes are safe from the kids. It was time for our first stretch and the attention seekers (our bikes) were ready to roll. Both the Chief Vintage and the Scout were completely loaded with accessories. Front windshields and backrest for both the bikes while the Scout had a pillion seat too. We planned to leave by 6.30 AM but we got ourselves moving just before 8 AM. Caught up with a little city traffic and we kept losing our pace until we left Pune. That’s about 3 hours later, we had lost lots of our precious time and we had to get ourselves moving quickly. We had our lunch just before Satara and we literally started flying low on these heavyweight cruisers.

We had decided to take a break at every 100 kms to drink some water and not tire ourselves. Every time we stopped for a quick break, we would gather so much attention that we were questioned about the bikes for almost 5 to 10 minutes. Even at the fuel stations, the scenario was the same. Post Satara, we tried to keep our pace at 100 km/hr and the bikes would just cruise like ships on tarmac. As I was riding the Chief Vintage, it was equipped with cruise control and lord almighty, I would just take rest and enjoy the music for the handlebar mounted Bluetooth speakers. We found a nice spot for evening tea just before crossing the Maharashtra border and boy-oh-boy the cops gathered too.

Although they never asked for the papers, the bikes were Delhi registered and they thought we were riding all the way from Delhi. They shook our hands, said the bikes are beautiful, literally clicked selfies and left and so did we. It was getting dark and as it was my responsibility to keep the bikes safe, I had already booked a hotel online with safe underground parking. We spent the night in Belgaum, taking rest as it was a long day and we were getting tired. We’ve ridden on these roads earlier but on smaller bikes and riding these torque loaded massive tanks would take efforts. We ordered for dinner and planned to leave by 7 AM as we knew the next day was a continuous highway run all the way to Bangalore.

We got up early and although we had complimentary breakfast from the hotel, we didn’t want any extra attention on the road, so we got ourselves fed earlier and left by 8 AM. This was a continuous highway stretch of 450 kms. Though the hotel was close to the highway, the time we took from the hotel to the highway, we had quite a few followers luring at the bikes. As we hit the highway, we whacked open the throttle and the massive torque kicked in really hard. The Chief Vintage had the lead but it was the lightweight Scout that had an upper-hand with a better top speed. Now this time we pushed a little, cruising a little over 110 km/hr and going up to 150 km/hr on the empty stretches. The bikes were so heavy that even with a great amount of windblast, we literally didn’t feel anything.