CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A one-way ride of 175 km, Mysore to Wellington - roughly 2 h 46 in the saddle. The stops in between: Bandipur, Gudalur and Ooty. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,700 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 31 km this is Nilgiri Mountain Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Mysuru, still called Mysore in many mouths, is the former capital of the Wodeyar kings and one of the easiest big cities in India to like. With about nine hundred thousand people it is large, but it moves at a gentler pace than Bengaluru, and the centre is built around the Mysore Palace, a huge Indo-Saracenic building that is lit by about a hundred thousand bulbs on Sundays and during the Dasara festival. The wide avenues, old markets and sandalwood stalls give the city its character. Sandalwood soap and silk are local products, and Mysore pak, a sweet made of gram flour, ghee and sugar, was invented in the palace kitchens.
Read the complete Mysuru write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mysuru is where the day begins. Next is Bandipur.
The forest begins quite suddenly. One moment you are in the farmland around Gundlupet, with sunflower and marigold fields stretching to the horizon, and the next the road runs into dry deciduous woodland, and the signs warn you about elephants. Bandipur is a tiger reserve in southern Karnataka, joined along its border to the Mudumalai reserve in Tamil Nadu and the Wayanad forests in Kerala, and together they form one of the largest protected tracts of forest in India. The highway from Mysuru to Ooty cuts straight through it, which is why this ride feels more like a safari than a commute.
Read the complete Bandipur write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bandipur comes up about 76 km into the recorded legs. Next is Gudalur.
Gudalur is the sort of place you pass through without noticing until you need it. It is a busy market town on the western edge of the Nilgiris, in Tamil Nadu, where roads from Mysuru, Ooty and the Kerala coast meet at a crowded junction of buses, jeeps and tea lorries. The surrounding hills are covered in plantations: tea on the slopes, coffee and pepper in the shade, with cardamom and rubber lower down. The air smells of damp earth and wood smoke, and the light has a green, filtered quality, especially in monsoon season when low cloud hangs over the ridges.
Read the complete Gudalur write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 107 km into the recorded legs you reach Gudalur. Next is Ooty.
Ooty is the queen of the Nilgiris in the way that British hill stations liked to be queens, which is to say it is cool, slightly eccentric and wildly overcrowded at the weekend. Its official name is Udhagamandalam, and it sits at roughly 2,240 metres on a plateau in the Blue Mountains of Tamil Nadu. In the nineteenth century it was the summer capital of the Madras Presidency, and the colonial administrators built churches, clubs, cottages and a famous botanical garden in a landscape that reminded them of home. The hills were originally the territory of the Toda people, pastoralists with their own customs and beautiful barrel-vaulted huts, and some communities still live in the surrounding hills.
Read the complete Ooty write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ooty, late in the day. Next is Coonoor.
Coonoor is the quieter sister of Ooty, and most riders who know both prefer it. It sits at about 1,800 metres on the Nilgiri plateau in Tamil Nadu, on the slopes above a deep valley, and it lives on tea. Plantations cover the hills around the town in neat green ridges, with pickers moving between the rows, and factories along the roads sell fresh leaf and chocolate. The army town of Wellington lies right next door, a little under two kilometres away, and Kotagiri is ten kilometres on. Coonoor itself has fuel pumps and everything else you need.
Read the complete Coonoor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Finish at Coonoor. That is the ride.
Mysuru → Bandipur is 76 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Bandipur → Gudalur is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Gudalur → Ooty is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ooty → Coonoor is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.