Suzuki V-Strom 650XT Travelogue – Ride To The Mountain Of Death

We spent the evening there with a mesmerising sunset and brilliant weather too. Kolli Hills is a beautiful hill station but it is not fully developed with a lot of hotel options. You get the raw feel of a southern village and the food options are limited but it just feels good to be in such a place. We are crazy people, the only reason we did Kolli Malai(another name for Kolli Hills) was for the 70 hairpins rather than the hill station itself. We took the same route back to Bangalore which had those 70 hairpins and as it was early morning, the view was captivating. There was no traffic as it was a weekday and we took our own sweet time to enjoy those hairpins.

The Suzuki V-Strom returned a magnificent fuel efficiency all the way

As we headed out of Kolli Hills, our group split into two. The Ninja and the Ignis headed further south while the V-Strom and Street Triple RS headed to Chikmagalur, a hill station in Karnataka known for its coffee estates. After crossing Bangalore we took the split towards Hassan from Nelamangala and the roads got even better. There was barely any traffic and we were cruising in triple-digit-speeds without breaking a sweat. The weather was quite unstable but we were lucky to encounter the least amount of rain even with an overcast. A quick lunch break in between while we encountered heavy rain reduced our pace and we reached Chikmagalur right before sunset.

The plan for the next day was to either visit the touristy places in Chikmagalur and leave the day after directly to Mumbai or else leave for Hubballi while visiting the necessary those specific points and make it for a home run with a shorter distance to cover on the last day. As we were just the two we agreed on the later and checked-out early in the morning again. Packing and unpacking wasn’t really a task for me at all! The humungous topbox acted as a proper luggage carrier while I wouldn’t have to bother about the stuff inside as everything was right in place and a click away. The topbox didn’t bother at all during the whole ride except I had to keep a tab on my speedometer and stay close to the early triple-digit mark for safety reasons.

We left our stay by 7 am and headed straight to one of the most peaceful lakes in Chikmagalur. Followed by breakfast we moved towards Baba Budnagiri but then thanks to Google Maps we got a quicker and shorter route. The road, however, was in its worst condition and I wasn’t complaining at all. The well managed low-end torque of the V-Strom kept me going even with a 15-degree gradient. The Street Triple RS struggled quite a bit over here but we got through without any hiccups. All this while I was amazed by the suspension setup on the V-Strom and the rear being adjustable I would change the damping according to the road ahead.