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

Long travel suspension and a torquey engine make the Suzuki V-Strom a perfect middle-weight adventure-tourer

After a year full of race-events, it was time to take a break! Being friends with a good set of people who like traveling is a boon, but being friends with a set of people who like traveling to places far and unexplored is even better! Talking about these friends, they had a plan to travel for 15 days and cover the best possible places in the southern regions of India and I wanted to be a part of it. So, I planned out a shorter visit version which would make do within 5 days. For this, I got the Suzuki V-Strom 650XT as I feel it is by far the best middle-weight tourer one could get.

This time around, I was accompanied by a proper litre-class tourer, the Kawasaki Ninja 1000, another was one of the craziest street naked, the Triumph Street Triple RS and a comfy mile-muncher, the Maruti Ignis. We were split into two groups, the 3 bikes rode along the old highway while the Ignis kept a good pace and took the expressway as we left from Mumbai. I could brag that I had the biggest fuel tank here but the Ninja and the Street Triple RS had similar fuel stops and I would refuel at the same time too. Our first stop was right after Pune where we were reunited with the car guys too. Quick breakfast and we headed along the Mumbai-Bangalore highway. By this time I could say, to keep up with the big bikes like the Ninja 1000 and the Triumph Street Triple RS, the V-Strom turned out to be perfect.

While we were headed down south, the plan was to reach Bangalore the first day itself! Being a little optimistic and with the last year’s experience, Mumbai-Bangalore in a day was easy-peasy, but we did not think of the fact that we were riding big bikes and the new road construction would take a case on us. By the time we were halfway through, we reached Hubli and stopped for lunch. The Ignis caught up to us because it required no fuel stops whatsoever but getting through multiple tolls it was left behind. After a sumptuous meal, we left Hubli and kept the pace going but from there till Chitradurga the national highway was no longer a highway. There were too many diversions and the amount of road construction brought our pace down.

The roads after Chitradurga till the Electronic City, the southern-most part of Bangalore city, were super smooth but the time lost during the bad stretch made us ride in the dark. We reached Bangalore, our first stay, at 10 pm after completing over 1000 kilometres in a day. At Motorbeam, I am known for arranging the best possible stays at the most economical costs and our stay was right on the highway with good rooms and a decent service too. I was the only one not having a sore butt because the V-Strom’s seat is very comfortable. It is so good that my friend who was riding the Street Triple RS switched with me for the last 100 kms. The day ends and we had a good night’s sleep as the next stretch was for Kolli Hills, the Mountain of Death, and it was merely 270 kms away.

The roads of Karnataka are beautiful but as soon as you enter Tamil Nadu it gets even better with brilliant scenery around. We reached the base of the Kolli Hills and took a stop for some refreshments as the next 30 kms were gonna be full of vertical hairpin climbs! Kolli Hills is known as ‘the Mountain of Death’ because of the 70 hairpin bends within 30 kms leading to a total elevation of over 1300 meters. As we were entering this place on a weekend we were expecting a typical weekend crowd, but from the first few hairpins, we figured that we had to be super careful. A bare minimum space for two cars to pass and a climb that you might burn the clutch or wear the brakes if riding or driving down. This, with the number of busses and travelers we encountered and the number of near misses we had, it definitely felt like ‘The mountain of death’.

We reached the top of the hill station and the place was beautiful. The exponential increase in the climb led to brilliant weather too. During the climb, the Street Triple RS was flying while the Ninja 1000 was struggling due to its extra weight. The Suzuki V-Strom handled like a naked motorcycle and it wasn’t far off from the Street Triple RS the whole way up. The longer wheelbase led it to take corners a little wide but handlebar had the best feedback I could have asked for. The tyres, however, weren’t the most helpful as they had about a 1000 kms life left while they had already done over 10,000 kms on the odometer. However, to keep things in control, the traction control on the V-Strom worked to the core and kept me safe from losing the rear.

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.

With the efforts being put in we were blessed with another astounding view of the South-India mountain ranges. Until the horizon, all you could see was a green sheet of muslin layered over the mountain range. We had decided to go up to the peak of the Baba Budangari range and one of the roads allowed us to take our motorcycles there too. It was an extra 30 minutes detour but it was completely worth it. At one point we were almost riding amongst the clouds we could literally feel we were flying. This was very different than riding in a dense fog because we were almost on the top of the mountain and we had to be careful as the road had a steep drop on the other side.

After visiting the mountain peaks in Chikmagalur, we headed to one of the very well known coffee estates for lunch. We ordered sandwiches and coffee while our motorcycles chilled at the estate entrance. Everything was okay until we had the coffee, it was the best coffee I’ve ever had in my lifetime! It took away any kind of tiredness I had over the last few days of continuous traveling. Our bikes were enjoying too as the fresh air kept the motor running to the best potential. The Street Triple RS even after being a costlier motorcycle didn’t get as much attention as the V-Strom did on the whole trip.

Post lunch we headed towards Huballi through the internal roads of Karnataka. There were a lot of small villages on the way but the route was as scenic and beautiful as it could get. The road was a 2-lane state highway in the best possible condition going through various farms and over the lakes. By the time we reach Huballi we had already done over 2100 kms in 4 days and if there was any other motorcycle I would have been very tired, but the comfort and ease of riding that the V-Strom offered were just unrivaled.

It was the last night of our ride and we saw the chain were very dry. We got the chain lube out and I was done within 2 mins as I had the benefit of the main stand. We slept the night early and as we had a decent amount of fuel we thought of doing a fuel stop just as we left. The last day commenced, we left the place at 8 am and stopped at the first fuel station we saw. After the refueling was done and as it was the home run the riding pace was above average. We did the 200 kms stretch at one go and within 2 hours and 15 mins. Google estimated this stretch would take a little over 3 hours but it didn’t. We were rather very quick.

The 650 V-Twin had enough oomph to keeps things interesting while still being under control

We managed to finish our breakfast quickly but as we went out the rear tyre of the Street Triple RS had a puncture and we wasted another hour finding the puncture repair guy to fix it. We were running before schedule but such events balance out the pace we had. Luckily we didn’t have any such events in the whole trip and it was just one puncture on the Street Triple. We had our last fuel stop right before Satara and now it was the final stretch to Pune and then Mumbai. The visor on the V-Strom was adjustable but not on-the-fly. I had set it to the most comfortable position where I could see the road properly while it curbed the air well.

We reached Mumbai earlier than expected all thanks to the less traffic during the weekday and the powerful motorcycles we were riding. There was not even once where I felt out of place with the V-Strom. It was easy to park even in the small streets, a gem on bad roads yet can comfortably cruise at triple-digit speeds on normal roads, perfect ergonomics with a very comfortable seat and returned a mileage of over 21 km/l for the whole trip! It definitely is the costliest middle-weight adventure-tourer but it justifies its price as a whole package. After 2700 kms in 5 days I barely had any ride fatigue and that’s something to say!

Further Reading –

Suzuki V-Strom 650XT Review
Suzuki V-Strom 650XT Video Review
Benelli TRK 502 vs Suzuki V-Strom 650XT – Shootout