Mumbai To Chennai On Indian Motorcycles – Travelogue

The one thing I really like about Karnataka is the neatly laid roads for the highway. I never complained except for one instance where I missed the tiny rumblers due to the shiny and bright sun at noon time. We had our lunch and kept our massive fuel-burners drinking too. We had to have a tank-up stop within 200-220 kms while we stopped as soon as the low fuel light would glow on the Indian Scout which was around 180 kms. The fuel range was pretty small for the Scout while the Chief would consume almost 65% of its fuel tank by then. This continuous highway from Belgaum to Banglore gave us the best fuel economy from the whole trip. By the time we reached Bangalore’s ring road, it was dark, we paid the bike toll and took a tiny break just after that.

The extra set of headlamps help the Chief Vintage have a great view ahead at night

We had to finish the complete ring-road and our hotel was located right after that in Electronic City. The ring-road was like a complete downhill stretch with a speed limit of 120 km/hr and everyone else was cruising at 120 km/hr and above. We pushed our massive machines too and we finished the 40 kms long ring-road within half an hour. This was the fastest we had ridden and we never felt this confident on riding the massive bikes we had. The ABS and all the electronics from the bikes were the reason we were confident to push the bike, also the backrest and the windshield helped us a lot. Although the Scout has liquid-cooling, the Chief Vintage was totally air-cooled and would transfer all the possible heat to my legs and the seat, not much of an issue on the highway but it was tiresome in the city.

As we reached the hotel, it was great with special parking space and it was the right place for us and our mad machines to take rest. This night in Bangalore we couldn’t sleep as we were really getting together with our bikes while falling in love with their character. This was almost 1000 kms from Mumbai and we only had about 400 kms left for our ride to complete. Post dinner we decided to go for a night spin and visit a few friends in Bangalore. This time we took the Scout out while the Chief took rest. This was probably the first time the Scout was getting all the attention and we did have some questions from strangers about the Scout. In this whole ride, this was the first time I was on the Scout and yet as a pillion. The ground clearance of the Scout was so low that it would literally hit every speed bump. We had mixed feelings and we actually couldn’t sleep as the ride was gonna end and the last two days had passed flying on tarmac.

The actual flying was on day 3, the day when we left Bangalore for our destination – Chennai. A friend of mine who regularly travels to Bangalore and Chennai said the roads are going to be the best only till Kanchipuram and suggested a way via Hosur. He also mentioned to take care while entering Chennai as the weather is completely uncertain. The third day we got up even later than the last two days as we didn’t sleep on time. Yet it was the day we had the best feeling with the bikes. We left Karnataka and entered Tamil Nadu and the roads changed again. The long straights were now long flowing corners and these bikes would grip even with a great lean angle on speeds above 120 km/hr. The third day we stopped only for fuel and food, no extra unnecessary stops as both the Scout and Chief Vintage didn’t require mandatory 100 kms breaks.

The quality of the roads worsened and so did the climate as we passed the MMRT race track on the outskirts of Chennai. The drop-off showroom was located almost in the heart of Chennai and getting there would take a lot of time. The people in the city would comment a lot but as we couldn’t understand their language, we kept riding and filtering through city traffic. After an hour of craziness in Chennai city, we reached our destination. We handed over the keys to the contact person, took a good look at the Indian Motorcycles and called up an Uber as we had our flight back to Mumbai in three hours and we had to rush to the airport. All this while, we both realised we were so much engrossed in our own bikes that we did not even exchange at all. We were learning the bikes, enjoying the ride and riding them like we own them. It was one of the best quick decisions made for a road trip on the Indian Motorcycles which cost a little over half a crore combined.