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.

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.