Anakulam was was my first long ride with CR. Since I have been on a few short rides with CR before, I know that it will be a wonderful, well-organized long ridee other riders to assemble, I feel a gnawing unease rise. The same that I’d been pushing down for the past week.

On day 1, we started exactly on time from our assembly point Aladipattiyan Coffee Shop Guduvancherry. I was been part of the second group which led by our dynamic lead Abhi followed by co-lead Rahul, Mama Kutty, Myself, Group 2A (Blue Armor Boys), then the gang of superbikes. We almost reached our breakfast point when all of a sudden, I heard a zoooiiiiin sound and all the higher CC bikes were into a separate formation and overtook us the guys in the front. For a second I was like, suddenly what happened to the group? Our dynamic lead Abhi continued riding like nothing happened and we 3 (Rahul, myself, and mamakutty) followed him. Then when they went inside a fuel station that was ahead of us, I realized that all those people were going for fuel top-up. When we stopped at our breakfast point, all those guys were already joined back at the end of the group. They were connected via intercom and formulated everything on the fly it seems. That’s my first WOW moment in the ride. Once I was into that feeling rest of the ride went just like that until we reached Bodinayakkanur

Now comes the new challenge.! GHATS..! We took a small break and briefing from Rolex before we started climbing on the mountains.

Everybody is now in extra cautious mode about safety.! We will start climbing the mountains shortly. Since I didn’t have any intercom the person who went before me was compelled to show hand signals for my convenience. So there is a slight change of riding positions. Guess what.! The person who is going to ride before me is none other than Rolex himself.! He gave me a clear instruction If I ask you to overtake, overtake. If I ask you to stay, stay.! Simple plain vanilla statements. I was like sethanda segaru.! But jokes apart.! It was a mesmerizing experience for me to follow Santo. Wow..! I never felt any stress about riding on the ghat section, overtaking vehicles, just enjoyed the ride. In between he was showing his hands at places to singalling me to have a look and enjoy the view.

But for me, I have been to these roads before to Munnar in a car and even on my bike once. But I never rode behind a person who rode his bike like this on the ghat section. So all I did was watch Santo and what was he doing at every turn. In certain turns, I noticed that he was keeping his legs at the pillion pedals but the bike was slowing down. He was like playing with this bike like a toy. Since Rolex was sweeping too, he stopped at multiple places to help others who were in need. That’s when I noticed one more amazing dynamic (group awareness) in the ride.When Santo peeled off from the position to attend to other situations, within 10 seconds all of a sudden one bike gave me a two short beep horn and overtook me. This time it was Srini who came for my assistance. He took Santo’s place and showed me a clear hand signal for my convenience.

The way they think about other riders who come with them is amazing.! Then Mamakutty, whenever the higher CC guys need to split from the group and fuel up, I will be the last person in group 2. Mamakutty immediately asked me to overtake him and became my tail ?. Finally, after a day-long ride, we reached our stay at Anakulam. We had an amazing view of a herd of elephants drinking water at the riverside. That vision was worth every mile we rode on that day.

On day 2, we were completely occupied with the fun-filled adventures offroad and forest jeep rides, river crossing, sightseeing, waterfalls, etc., neatly arranged by our marshalls. It was like a boys’ day outing.

Day 3 – Return ride.! The hardest part of every trip. This time we took a different route to experience new locations and areas. Because of the tiredness we already have from the previous days and thoughts of returning to the daily routine. But the overall vibe and the mood of the ride/trip are always heavily dependent on the people whom we go with.

On the courtesy of the wonderful group, and with the same formation and group dynamics we tackled every hurdle thrown on our way and reached safely to our peel-off point at Chengalpattu.