I left home at 5:12 in the morning on the 23rd of November. I know the exact time because I have a photo of the bike standing in the courtyard, fully loaded, headlight throwing a cone of light across the tiles while the rest of Kochi was still asleep. I'd been promising myself this trip for the better part of a year. That morning I finally stopped promising and just rode.
Ten days later I rolled back into the same courtyard with 2,733 kilometres on the trip meter, a tan line in the shape of my riding gloves, and the particular kind of tiredness that feels like an achievement rather than a complaint. This is the story of that loop — Cochin to Bengaluru by way of Salem, then Hampi, Goa, Gokarna, Chikkamagaluru and the long road home — and what I learned about the roads, the bike, and riding alone.
The bike and the plan
The bike is a BMW F900XR — red, fast, and far more comfortable over long distances than its sporty looks suggest. For a trip like this the XR is a sweet spot: it'll cruise all day on a highway without beating you up, but it's light enough to enjoy a twisty ghat road. I packed deliberately light — one large dry-bag and a pair of soft saddlebags. Riding gear, a few clothes, basic tools, documents, a tyre repair kit. That's it. On a solo trip every extra kilogram is a kilogram you have to wrestle onto the centre stand at the end of a long day.
The plan was loose on purpose. I had a rough route and the cities I wanted to hit, but no rigid day-by-day schedule and only the first night's stay booked in advance. Riding solo, that flexibility is the whole point — if a road is good, you ride it longer; if a town surprises you, you stay.
Leg one — Cochin to Bengaluru, via Salem
The first day was the longest of the whole trip, and I'd planned it that way: get the big distance done while the legs are still fresh. I took the eastern route rather than the hill roads — out of Kerala through the Palakkad gap, past Coimbatore, and up through Salem in Tamil Nadu before turning for Bengaluru. It's a long highway haul, the kind of day where you settle into a rhythm and let the kilometres stack up under you. I rode through Salem without stopping for the night — that was always the plan; Salem was a waypoint, not a halt — and pushed on.
I reached Bengaluru with the light fading and the traffic doing what Bengaluru traffic does. The reward for a day like that is simple and non-negotiable: a hot meal, a cold drink, and a chair that isn't moving at 90 km/h. I found a small place with "you must remember that cold beer is always a good idea" painted across the brick wall, and I sat there with onion rings and a beer and felt the day's vibration slowly leave my hands.
Leg two — Bengaluru to Hampi
This was the day the trip really opened up. Somewhere north of Bengaluru the road runs through wind-farm country — rolling brown hills with turbines turning slowly against a huge blue sky. I pulled over just to stand there for a while. There's a specific feeling on a solo trip when you stop in the middle of nowhere and there's no one to wait for and nowhere you have to be. That stretch gave me that feeling for the first time.
And then Hampi. Nothing quite prepares you for it. You ride in expecting "some ruins" and instead you find an entire landscape that looks like a different planet — giant boulders balanced on each other as if a giant had been stacking stones, and seven hundred years of temples and bazaars threaded through them.
Hampi — a day among the ruins
I gave Hampi a full day and could happily have given it three. I rode the bike right up to the edge of the boulder fields in the morning, parked it beside a small stone shrine, and just walked. The scale of the place is hard to describe. You turn a corner expecting another rock and find a temple older than most countries.
The other thing I'll remember is the roads around Hampi. There's an avenue lined with enormous old rain trees, their canopies meeting overhead to form a green tunnel, and riding slowly down it in the dappled light was one of the gentlest, prettiest moments of the whole trip.
Leg three — Hampi to Goa, and a riding partner
From Hampi the route turns west and drops toward the coast. The land gets greener again, the air gets heavier and saltier, and you know you're getting close to the sea long before you see it.
I rolled into Goa after dark and found my way to where I was staying — somewhere quiet and green, lit up at night, that felt a long way from the Goa of the postcards. The best part of reaching Goa, though, wasn't the place. It was the person.
My friend Varun Jose was already in Goa for Motoverse, Royal Enfield's big annual motorcycling festival, which had just wrapped up that week. Varun and I go back a long way as riding buddies — we've done trips together to Nelliampathy, Varkala, Munnar and plenty of roads in between — so having him join the loop from here felt completely natural. From this point my solo trip became a two-bike trip, at least for a while.
And his bike was something special. Varun was working with Royal Enfield at the time, and he was riding the all-new Himalayan — the adventure tourer Royal Enfield had only just launched, at that very Motoverse. It was about as fresh off the line as a motorcycle could be. So our little convoy was an odd, happy pairing: my BMW F900XR, a fast road-biased tourer, rolling alongside a brand-new Himalayan barely out of its launch week.
The next evening we rode out to a red-dirt hilltop above Vagator and watched the sun go down over the Arabian Sea — his Himalayan and my F900XR parked side by side on the headland, the coastline curving away below us. Two very different machines pointed at the same horizon. That photo is probably my favourite of the entire trip.
Leg four — down the coast to Gokarna
Goa to Gokarna is a short, beautiful leg, and a complete change of pace from the long highway days. The coastal road rolls and twists, the sea appearing and disappearing between the trees.
Gokarna itself is what Goa probably felt like decades ago — slower, quieter, more temple-town than party-town. We parked the bikes and walked down to Om Beach, found a shack on the rocks with a view straight out over the water, and ordered two cold beers. Fishing boats bobbing offshore, palms overhead, nowhere to be. After days of riding, sitting still in a place like that feels almost unreasonably good.
Leg five — into coffee country: Chikkamagaluru
Turning inland again, the route climbs toward Chikkamagaluru, and this was the surprise of the trip for me. The road winds up into the hills through dense forest and coffee estates — tall trees closing in over the tarmac, the air suddenly cool and smelling of rain and earth. After the coast, the green hush of it was lovely.
We stopped at a roadside spot with a big red I ♥ CKM sign and a cloudy, dramatic sky stacking up behind the hills, both bikes parked outside. Then we found a stretch of empty forest road and just stopped for no reason — two bikes against the trees, no traffic, no sound but the forest.
The long road home — Chikkamagaluru to Cochin
All loops have to close. From Chikkamagaluru the route turns east and then south, back toward Kerala. At Krishnagiri, Varun and I went our separate ways — he turned off for Chennai, and I carried on south, passing back through Salem on the road home. From there the trip was solo again for the final stretch, which felt strangely fitting. It started solo; it should end solo.
The last day was a long one. The closer I got to Kochi the more familiar the air felt — humid, green, smelling of home. I pulled back into the same courtyard I'd left ten days earlier, a little after two in the afternoon.
What the numbers said
Before switching the bike off, I took a photo of the dashboard, because some things you want to keep:
Forty-three hours of riding sounds like a lot until you spread it across ten days — then it's just over four hours a day, which leaves plenty of time to actually see the places you ride to. That balance is the thing I'd most want to pass on. A trip like this isn't an endurance test. The riding is the thread; the stops are the trip.
If you're thinking of doing this
A few honest things I took away, in case you're planning something similar:
- Pack lighter than you think you need to. You'll repack on day two anyway. Everything you carry, you carry up onto the stand every single night.
- Book only the first night. Beyond that, let the road decide. The flexibility is the whole reason to do it on a bike.
- Start early, every day. Cool air, empty roads, and the best light all happen before 9 AM. Evenings are for arriving, not riding.
- Solo is not lonely. Riding alone gives you a kind of quiet you can't get any other way — and the trip is yours to change at any moment. But a friend joining for a leg, the way Varun did from Goa, is its own gift. You can have both.
- The stops matter more than the kilometres. I'm proud of the 2,733. But what I actually remember is a green tunnel of rain trees, a hilltop over the sea, and a quiet forest road. Ride to places worth standing still in.
I've already started sketching the next loop. If you've been promising yourself a ride like this — stop promising. Set the alarm for 5 AM, load the bike the night before, and just go.
Ridden in November 2023 on a BMW F900XR. Route: Cochin → Salem → Bengaluru → Hampi → Goa → Gokarna → Chikkamagaluru → Krishnagiri → Salem → Cochin. If you've done this loop or are planning it, I'd love to hear from you — reach me through the contact page.
