Kawasaki ZX-10R goes touring: 10 days, 5 states & 1 mega road trip

The bike performed flawlessly throughout the ride and was an absolute pleasure to ride.

BHPian TheCelestial recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Introduction

It's been a while since I posted here. The last time I started a thread (My Mean Green 2015 Kawasaki Z800) was almost a decade ago talking about my Z800.

Since then, I sold my Z800. Upgraded to an N1000 which was lost to me within a year (a story for another day) and now to my current 2020 Gen 5 Kawasaki ZX10R.

I got the bike in late 2019 and then COVID hit. This meant almost no rides for almost a year and a half. In the meantime, I also bought the Xpulse 200 BS6 in 2021 and did a few long tours on it. The 10R was mostly doing weekend blasts (its intended primary purpose and an occasional track sometime)

I was itching to do a long ride on it, to let it breathe and explore some good roads (meaning I needed to get it out of MH). As it turns out, we planned a ride that would have been a bit boring on the Xpulse. This was the perfect chance to take the 10R. At the same time, I was a bit concerned about how comfortable the 10R would be (for me) over long distances with luggage on a multi-day ride. I decided to back myself and went for it.

As things turned out, it was a great decision and was a memorable ride. I will detail my experiences with the ride in this thread.

But for now here are some teasers

Planning and Preparation

I had been wanting to do a ride down south for a while. In 2021, I rode the Xpulse in some interesting routes around North Karnataka so this time I wanted to head a little further south. @nav75 and my friend Deep ride regularly on weekends around Pune. On one such weekend ride, a high-level plan was discussed.

Eventually over several rides and coffee meets the plan was slowly fleshed out. Initially, I was planning to take my Xpulse along but the route we had decided on would mean Xpulse is not the most ideal choice. However, the only other option for me was my 10R.

There were some areas of concern for the 10R on this ride:

1. Comfort over long distances: As you may expect the 10R is not the most comfortable ride for long distances. I had only done a few long-ish rides on it. I decided to take this on faith and in the worst case if it becomes unmanageable, I could switch bikes with one of my co-riders who were riding relatively more comfortable bikes. Nav would be on Street Triple RS and Deep on his Gen2 Duke 390. I was hoping it was an offer they couldn't refuse
2. Luggage: The 10R is homologated as a single seater in India. It comes stock with the racing cowl and no passenger footpegs. This meant there were not many points to fix luggage on the bike so that also needed to be sorted out. I tried a few options using Rok straps and bungees but none inspired confidence. Fortunately, I was able to source non-OEM aftermarket passenger seats and pegs. This helped in two ways, the racing cowl would be spared in scratches as part of the luggage moving around and I could use under-seat straps to secure a tail bag. The footpegs also provided additional mount points if ever it was needed (Spoiler: It wasn't). I decided to get the Viaterra Pod 22L based on Nav's recommendation as the tail bag (I retaliated by making him buy the SENA). Apart from this, I would carry my backpack to carry some extras which did not weigh much.
3. Exhaust: There was another problem with the 10R, it ran an aftermarket exhaust and it was loud. There had been reports of this being an issue in a few states. I checked with a few friends down south who said it's not been an issue recently and as long as I am not reckless, things should be manageable.
4. Safety: The 10R attracts a LOT of eyeballs wherever we go (this was painfully reinforced throughout the rides :( ). This meant places we stayed should have good secure parking above all. So we decided to book most of our hotels upfront (except day 0 since we were not sure how far we would get) after thoroughly reviewing the location and checking user reviews.

Now that all the areas of concern were addressed, the 10R was all set to begin its journey.

Day 0 Friday: Pune - Haveri (501 km)

We had decided to start in the second half and cover some distance towards our first destination. We had a fairly long distance to cover towards our first real destination. Since we had pre-booked our hotel for day 1, we had to reach our destination end of day 1.

The meetup point was the McD near Khed Shivapur on the Pune - Bangalore highway. I was the first to arrive (anxiety and excitement ). Nav followed soon and Deep was last to arrive as he had some late meetings in the office. We tanked up and had some Americano to fortify us for the journey ahead. We started around 3:30 PM.

The first stop was the McD (again) near Kagal. There was a fuel pump next to it so we could tank up as well while we had an early dinner. The traffic was mostly light and we were lucky to quickly (relatively) pass through the dreaded Karad diversion. We wanted to make the most of the daylight available to us.

We reached Kagal McD around 6:15.Had a quick meal and tanked up before pushing on ahead.

The going was gonna be slow after this as we would be riding in the dark and the road is full of diversions till Belgaum. Also unlike the stretch before the diversions are not well paved and full of speed breakers.

This part of the journey was getting to be painful. Apart from the mental stress due to riding in the dark on poor traffic-filled roads, the physical stress was also now beginning to show.

Thankfully as we neared Belgaum the diversions ended and we were on open roads again. We were able to make some good time here but the ordeal of riding before Belgaum meant we needed to take a break at some point. We also needed to check on time and decide where we would stop for the night (and look for a hotel in advance). We decided to stop for a tea break near Dharwad.

Our initial plan was to stop at Davangere, but it meant we would reach there quite late in the night and we had a long day again tomorrow. We considered Hubballi but it would be too close, so we decided Haveri would make for an ideal compromise.

We checked a few hotels with good parking in Haveri. We also wanted something not too far from the highway itself. We saw one very close to the highway and seemed to have good parking: Hotel Shiva Residency.

We called the hotel and asked them to hold a room for us. They had availability but it took a lot of verbal convincing for them to trust us that we would indeed show up as promised.

Now that we had a destination for the night, we pushed on. Apart from the 30-odd km dual carriageway between Dharward and Hubballi, most of the journey was very stress-free. Being able to ride freely also meant less physical stress while riding the 10R.

As we neared Haveri, we started looking for the right exit using Google Maps. As it turned out, we missed the right exit and had to take the next one. Thankfully, it was quite late at night, so there was no traffic in town and we were able to make it to the hotel.

It was quite a relief to unload luggage and get out of riding gear after a long ride.

Since we arrived late, the bar and restaurant were closing. Here I got a good trailer of things to come. The bike was parked right outside the restaurant and a few people coming out of the restaurant tried and take pictures of the bike. I decided to stick around until the restaurant was fully closed. The staff assured me of the safety of the bike and there were CCTV cameras around (not that it would help if someone were to drop the bike).

Finally went up to the room (which was air-conditioned, spacious and quite good). Being tired meant sleep came easily and we got some much-needed rest.

Day 1: Saturday: Haveri to Rameswaram (950 km)

After a good night's sleep, we woke up to an overcast morning. Rain was forecasted along the route today and it wasn't good news. We had a long day ahead of us and rain will slow us down.

We got ready and moved out as soon as we could. We decided to have breakfast along the way near Davangere. We tanked up just after entering the highway. The highway between Haveri and Davangere was a joy to ride. Smooth and great visibility meant we were able to reach Davangere in a quick time. Found a good place with a good view of the parking just next to the highway. Decided to stop here for breakfast. We had the famous Davangere Dosa here.

As we closed in on Tumkur, the road got narrower and traffic got heavier and slower. The plan was to enter NICE road from Nelmangla and take the Hosur road exit. Nav led the way as he had been recently along this road and knew the exit to take.

The road between Tumkur and Nelmangla was all slow-moving traffic. We took the exit off Nelmangla onto NICE road. The traffic on NICE road was not too heavy (probably due to this being a weekend) so it was fairly good progress throughout.

We soon reached the Hosur Road exit and immediately entered the chaos of Electronic City traffic. It was an absolute pain to go through. Vehicles coming from the wrong side, cars cutting too close and vehicles swerving without indication, there was total madness. I am scared to think how things would be on a working day. On top of that, it was late noon and the heat was adding to the troubles. There was no respite from traffic to Hosur.

Thankfully after crossing Hosur, the traffic opened up a bit. However, we had crossed close to 400 km since morning and the last 70-odd kms had taken a lot out of us. I was getting tired and had soreness in my shoulders and knees. We decided to stop for a late lunch at McD just before Krishnagiri for a quick bite. However, here again, we ran into the weekend crowd and the break took longer than we wanted. We were still not past the halfway mark for the journey today. There was still a long way to go.

The roads were really good here onwards with light traffic. However, the highways are dotted with village/town crossings with barricades. The locals cross without any regard for highway traffic so we had to be vigilant. To the credit of the authorities, these markings are very well-marked and visible from a fair distance. Here the intercoms between riders also helped keep each other aware of upcoming crossings and other potential hazards on the roads. We tanked up somewhere between Krishnagiri and Salem.

Roads till Salem were good. There is a bypass to Salem, but it seemed the city had grown around it as well. There was fairly heavy traffic as we crossed Salem.

The road forks in multiple directions a little after Salem. There are two routes to Rameswaram from Salem. One goes through Trichy and the other through Madurai. Google recommended the Trichy route for motorcycles and Madurai for cars. We decided to stick to the Madurai route as Google sometimes may recommend not-so-well-surfaced roads for motorcycles. We started looking for boards to Madurai/Dindigul

We took a quick coffee break after Salem. We had covered 600 kms and another 350 kms to go. The sun was about to set soon. In the distance, we could see some clouds and weather apps also indicated rain from Dindigul to Madurai. We were heading into the worst possible combination of night and rain. We held off putting on any rain gear for now.

The road between Salem and Dindigul was more of the same as we had seen since entering TN. This was a good thing. Free highway speeds meant less stress on the body while riding a sportbike. It's easier on bike and rider both. But in spite of this, having covered close to 700 km I was feeling the need to take breaks more often. But unfortunately, we couldn't afford to take too many breaks. I decided to push through it.

The Dindigul bypass thankfully was very good and we quickly bypassed the town and headed towards Madurai. It was close to dinner time but we also needed to tank up. We tried to look for a fuel pump with a restaurant nearby but couldn't find one. So we decided to tank up and then look for a place to eat.

The roads past Dindigul were wet and it was a clear sign there had been recent rains here. Unfortunately, it was hard to find a good place to eat just after Dindigul. We had passed a few good places but now there wasn't any to be found. We found lots of "bake" places but no proper restaurants.

The search slowed us down a bit. Eventually, we found a small place and decided to stop. We had doubts about whether we would get food at all here never mind the taste/quality itself. To our surprise, the place was a lot bigger on the inside and the service and food were top-class. A lucky find for us. We had some good authentic local food here for dinner. We also had an excellent filter coffee.

As soon as we were about the leave, it started to drizzle. The road between here and Madurai was a mix of wet and dry roads and some intermediate drizzle. But just about 20 kms before Madurai, we ran into a massive rain cloud. There was thunder and lightning and fairly heavy rain. This further affected visibility and the going got even slower. Being tired after riding close to 750 km did not help us much.

A small mercy for us that the rain stopped as soon as we entered the city. It was late evening time and traffic was fairly high. Since we had to pass through the city, we would need to navigate through and find the exit towards Rameswaram.

As we were riding through the city, I noticed RE GT 650 with a pillion riding constantly alongside me. They were trying to get my attention. I initially ignored them but city traffic meant they eventually caught up. So I decided to pay heed. The pillion was holding his phone trying to shoot a video and the rider was asking me to rev the bike a little so they could get it on camera. Hoping that doing this would get rid of them, I did a little blip for them. That did the trick and they turned around at the next break in the divider. Apart from this, there were lots of riders riding alongside, asking to race and riding rashly as soon as they saw the 10R.

As all this happened, it seemed we had taken a wrong turn based on navigation suggested by Google Maps. We decided to stop and I reattached my SENA. Coordination would be needed as we made our way through this town.

We continued using a mix of Gmaps and asking locals for directions to find our way. Sometimes these would conflict, causing further confusion. We ended up missing a few more turns, then missing each other, syncing up and waiting for everyone to be together. We really cut through the town trying to find our way to the Rameswaram road. Finally, we were able to exit onto what seemed like a mini-bypass for Madurai and soon joined the highway to Rameswaram. We had clearly taken a few wrong turns and ended up not taking an optimal route through Madurai.

We reached the 4 lane leading to Rameswaram. The road was great with almost no traffic. The road was very well made. All the intersections were marked with signals, the barricades had reflectors. The road also had embedded reflector pucks at strategic places (flyovers, sharp curves) which made it really safe to ride in the dark.

About 100 odd kms before Rameswaram the road converged from 4 lanes to a dual carriageway. The surface was still good but there was less overtaking room. We were really tired now but decided we would take a final fuel stop and break once we were less than 100 km from Rameswaram. We crossed the mark and stopped at the first decent fuel pump we found.

The break gave us some much-needed respite and we were ready for the last leg of the journey for the day.

We pushed on and were making steady progress when we hit the final obstacle for the day. We had crossed multiple barricades up till now but the next one turned out to be different. I was leading when we were coming up to the barricade. Since I saw another vehicle coming up to the barricade, I slowed down to let it pass.

As soon as I slowed down, a group of police jumped out and motioned us to stop our bikes to the side. I had a bad feeling about what was about to go down. As I moved the bike to the side and got off the bike. I saw the policemen (along with a plain clothes person), taking a close look at the bike. Then they started speaking in Tamil which I couldn't understand. I spoke in English telling them I am from MH. They started talking in broken English and I could hear the words “modification” and “sound”. I understood what this was about. They were asking if the exhaust was original or modified. I chose to be honest about it and told them that this was a modified exhaust.

I apologized and told them I was ready to pay any fines as required by the law. The police officer was shaking his head when the person in plain clothes pointed at something and said “Sir, camera”. I am not sure if he was pointing at one of the GoPros or some CCTV camera on the checkpost. Anyway, after this the policeman changed their tone a bit and started telling me that such exhausts caused a lot of nuisance etc. I agreed, apologized and said I was driving well within limits so the sound was quite low. I also offered to pay any fines required. The police took a photo of the bike and said I would get a challan for Rs.500 the next day and refused to accept any fines as cash.

I was glad this didn't escalate into anything more. We were tired and wanted to get to our hotel as soon as possible.

After this thankfully, it was fairly smooth sailing till our destination. We crossed Pamban and the Pamban bridge in the dark ( as a side effect, no traffic). Our hotel was quite easy to find.

We rolled in to find a nice, secure, gated parking. It was a great feeling after riding 950 km since morning to finally unpack and get in our rooms. We had notified the hotel in advance that we may arrive late and had no issues with check-in.

We got into our rooms. I had a quick shower and went straight to bed. The following morning was going to be our first real place of interest. Since we didn't have a long distance planned for tomorrow, we didn't set any alarms and planned to wake up relatively late.

Continue reading BHPian TheCelestial's travelogue for more insights and information.