Chennai to Bangalore & back via Chittoor: Road conditions & traffic

The Chennai ORR from near Kundrathur to Tambaram is a thing of beauty. It's not well-lit, but you can use cruise control pretty much throughout this road!

BHPian rkv_2401 recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

I took the Ranipet-Chittoor route, joining the Katpadi-Chittoor road via NH40. I started at 3:15PM, and the 11 or so diversions meant that I only reached Murugan Idly shop outside Kanchipuram at 5:40. I was stuck behind a slow moving truck in the well-lit sections before the ghats, passed him 20 mins later only to face HEAVY winds and moderate bursts of rain on the Ranipet-Chittoor ghat sections. The crosswinds were heavy enough to sway a loaded car w/ 4 pax, but the bikers and cyclists were somehow able to keep it on the road even in these conditions and despite being blinded by the rain (no helmet ofc) - tremendous respect to them.

Google Maps randomly redirected the route without informing us, so that instead of continuing to Chittoor on the NH40 route, it turned right at a random point (with loads of concrete walls on the road acting as a barricade) before the RTO checkpost. This was the only scary moment of the ride, the road was not lit at all, moderate rains, there was next to no traffic and it was narrow + two-lane so I couldn't turn around either. Found the "suggested" route back to NH40, which was literally abandoned and only suitable for bikes in the best of times, used it to take a U-turn, then hightailed it out of there.

Then, after more rains and some bad roads for 10km until meeting the Katpadi-Chittoor route, it was good for a while until around 30 mins after crossing Chittoor. At this point, we got pelted with extremely heavy rains, visibility dropped to <10m, and some other vehicles stopped altogether, but I was able to soldier on at 50km/hr. Even with the fog lamps on, I could only just about make out where the end of the road was at this speed.

I only hit 100km/hr in the last hour and a half of the journey.

Eventually reached Hoskote around 10:30PM, much later than I'd anticipated, with my Carbon Steel Vento resembling the Toffee Brown colour more than black. It was quite an eventful first drive on this road!

On the way back (Bangalore-Chittoor-Ranipet-Chennai):

i) There was a great restaurant, VVR Sri Srinivasa Grand (not affiliated in any way), just before the Nangli toll plaza when going from Mulbagal to Chittoor. GMaps inexplicably tells you to cross the toll and then take a U-turn, costing you an extra ~150Rs. for no reason.

They had great service and some delicious paneer butter masala, the best meal I've had in a few months now, but they don't accept card payments AFAIK - only UPI and cash. Other dishes may be on the spicy side.

ii) There are some high-speed downhill ghat sections where everyone is racing around in, located about an hour - 1.5 hours from Mulbagal that suddenly, and with no clear warning, turn into rumbler strip territory. I guess these are the Mogli to Palamaner ghats that BHPian ravib warned me about in his post.

These rumblers are very intense, I had to take them at ~10km/hr in a sedan (Vento). A truck had also broken it's wheel on these rumblers. I don't understand why they need to be so intense.

I saw a Baleno racing with a Thar go over them at 50, and while the Thar kept pushing, the Baleno slowed down to normal speeds soon after.

iii) There's a section after Chittoor where the traffic suddenly becomes two-direction. I guess this is the Gudipala to Chittoor section. I'd read about this in earlier posts by BHPians, but it still catches you by surprise because there are no warnings or markings on the road AFAIK. Stay careful on the blind curves and the hilly section here!

iv) I only encountered this on the day I came back (16th April), but there were some sort of concrete barricades on the NH40 ~10kms from the RTO checkpost on the Chittoor-Ranipet road, near the section where the road is completely dug up for some infrastructure work. The gap between the barricades was just about sufficient for commuter cars to squeeze through, with the ORVMs closed. A Fortuner got stuck here for 5 mins.

v) The Ranipet-Chennai section is much better than I remember it being. There are still diversions, but there are also some beautiful, well-lit 6-lane expressways between the diversions. And there are no serious potholes in the diversions either.

Took the Kundrathur route to escape the Ayyapanthangal-St.Thomas Mount metro work. The Chennai ORR from near Kundrathur to Tambaram is a thing of beauty. It's not well-lit, but you can use cruise control pretty much throughout this road!

Read BHPian comments for more insights and information.