The Road to Heaven
Let’s talk about Bikes again!. Bike rides are always the best to escape from reality to get a piece of mind. As a Biker enthusiast, I have always liked the hilly roads. The green nature and the sounds of birds chirping in the early morning foggy rides always give soulful experience. Picking the right place for the trip is one of the challenging tasks ever. Because it all depends on that, if that place is messed up then the purpose of the ride is gone. So I still remember that this one time I have been called by the rider groups to a hilly ride. As I have always been waiting for the trips, without knowing a place I said ok and booked for the ride. As a Beginner, I never know what’s going to come.
Ride Plan
This is one of the major discussions that happen before the ride. The details about the route plan, travel stay, food, and target km within reach will be discussed in this. So I started to get nervous when I get to know the destination, yes it is one of the most dangerous and notorious rides ever you will take upon the hilly region. The place was “KOLLI HILLS”, for outsiders who doesn’t know much about the place here do your research. There are a lot of scary factors involved in this. And the target was to reach the hills in the morning and return downhill in the evening. Sounds cool? lets talk about details now.
Road to Heaven
Kolli Hills or Kolli Malai is a small mountain range located in Central Tamil Nadu and spread over the Namakkal district and Tiruchirapalli district of India. The mountains rise to 1300 m in height and cover an area of approximately 280 km². The best part is it is comprised of 70 hairpin bends in one way; I repeat 70 hairpin bends in one way!!. Most often referred to as snake roads, the roads are very bendy and no proper instructions are provided. And there are no barrages at the corner to indicate the end of the road. These roads will test any rider to its maximum capacity no matter whatever you ride(Car, Bike, etc). The ride started around 6 AM from the downhill, the target was to reach the uphill completing all 70 hairpin bends within 1:30 Hrs.
The Ride
It was very flat in the beginning but the difficulty level keeps increasing as we move forward. As a Beginner, with very little knowledge without doing any fancy kinds of stuff like cornering, throttle blipping I was managing to keep pace with the other riders. Since the rest of them are experienced, they are piercing through the wind in the bendy roads with cornering around me. To be honest, it was a bit embarrassing at the first, but “every master was once a beginner”. So considering my safety, I was very patient and my target was only to reach the top safe and sound.
The Heaven
As people say, “ A Hard climb gives the best view”. After managing the 70 hairpin bends without any hassles, the view at the top was finally worth it. It was like heaven to me and so to all the other riders. The medicinal smell around us, the foggy roads gave us a soulful experience. We hopped in for a quick cup of tea in a nearby tea shop. Damn! that hot cup of tea in the morning watching those views in the misty climate can never replace anything in life. We refreshed and started our bikes back and started exploring the places.
Attractions
There are only a few attractions around here which include two major waterfalls (Agaya Gangai, Masila). These two falls have the cleanest waters coming up from the hills, just to mention that you need to walk on foot for over 1000 steps to reach Agaya Gangai; whereas Masila waterfalls is a very short one and can be accessible within few yards from parking. These waters seem to be refreshing and believed that contains medicinal uses. It also has a Botanical Garden, Tampcol Medicinal Farm, Vasalurpatty Boat House, and The Siddhar Caves. If you’re considering a stay, you have very good resorts at the top where you can enjoy your stay comfortably at affordable prices.
The Return
After an exhausting day, we felt refreshed after the bath in the waterfall. The downhill was a little easy task and we maintained the slower pace and reached the downhill before it gets dark. The tourism check-post always warns the travelers not to travel during night times by any modes of transport as it is considered as a high risk. It was the most challenging ride for me as a beginner and this ride thought me a lot of stuff that I don’t know before. It’s been almost 5 years since my first ride, I have been going to the hills quite a while now and have recorded a milestone of 45 mins reaching at the top completing 70 hairpin bends. As I learned stuff I was able to corner around the hills with confidence. These roads made a better biker over time. If you’re an adventure tourer and looking for a hilly place, make sure you add this to your bucket list and try it out. If you are confident that You’re good at roads on cars and bikes, try this out as it will test your skills in an extreme situation.
Checkout my small part of the Hilly ride video on Instagram.
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