Ride to E-city, Chandapura, Anekal

My colleague and myself had planned for a early morning ride. With Bangalore Bicycle championships round the corner, and being a MTB race I was gearing up to hit the trails near Sarjapur and didn't want to miss the ride but due to the bad weather and coming home late in the night, that ride never happened. Slept an extra 2 hours just to kill time. Got up by 8 and again slept for another 2 hours and finally woke up by 10am.

A peek outside the window, a thought raced across 'how about a ride?', then dismissed the idea thinking that the weather was very deceptive. The sun might be out while riding and if I attempt a ride then I would be drained within 2 hours.

knowing that I had missed the ride, frustration was beginning to build. Had my breakfast. I had downloaded the videos on my handy cam onto my comp and thought it would be a good idea to edit those. During this time, a thought was running through my mind saying 'you can later come back from a ride and do the editing stuff', sat down turned on my comp and....the power went off!!

Immediately got into my riding gear, poured water into the hydration pack, pulled out some chocolates from the refrigerator, stretched a bit, and in about 20mins was on the saddle. Checked the time it was 12.45.....

Headed towards my favourite destination bannerghatta, near JP nagar thought it would be nice to ride towards electronic city and check the status of Flat which I had purchased from Concorde housing group around 1.5yrs back in electronic city, and due to recession and other problems the project was being delayed.

Rode till country club, took a left turn to Electronic city. The ride was pretty fast and the clouds were closing in. Thought it would rain, but thankfully that never happened. The initial plan was to go to electronic city, have a look at my flat and head back home. Reached the construction site, checked the status and headed back via Hosur road. Instead of taking a left at electronic city, took a right. It was as though my bike resisted going back home.

It was a fast ride averaging about 25km/hr. Stopped at a chai shop to hydrate myself. When I was having badam milk, was surrounded by locals, who were asking question like 'Does the cycle have a motor?','Do you need to pedal?'....cleared all their doubts and was back again on the saddle. Took a right and headed towards Chandapura.

From Chandapura onwards the head winds gave a visit and never left until I reached JP Nagar. It was real pain, my average dropped significantly by the time I ended my ride.

Reached bannerghatta national park, took a right to Bangalore. Reached home by around 5.20pm.

Total Distance : 81km

Ride Time : 4hr 10mins

Avg Speed : 19.44km/hr

After reaching home, realised that I didn't do a off road ride :). But was satisfied that I could at least ride.

Flickr Photos : http://www.flickr.com/photos/modi-kumar/sets/72157622001140512/

Technorati Tags: Bangalore Bikers club,Bikezone,Time Trials,Monthly Races,Cross Coutry race,MTB race,Road Bike race,Road Race,volunteering,photography,blogging,riding,Bangalore bicyle Championships

Tattekere

It was a long weekend and didn't want to miss a chance to ride my bike. Called up Sree late in night to find out if he was free on Saturday. And luckily he had an off. Tattekere was the first long ride I had done about 2yrs back when I had purchased my Trek 3700 from BOTS. And it was a long overdue, and wanted to ride again.

Left my house at 6.30am and was joined by Sree near JP Nagar, headed towards Harohalli had breakfast at Adigas on kanakpura road, and without a stop reached Harohalli. Harohalli is a small town about 15kms before Kanakpura. Had a small pit stop, loaded ourselves with some refreshments and Turned left towards Jigani, from the turning near Harohalli, Jigani was about 22kms.

 

The road through out the route was awesome, hardly any pot holes. But after the turning near Harohalli for about a kilometre or two, the road is pathetic but after that its a pleasure and its completely rolling. At one point we on our MTB's touched 57.8Km/hr (Imagine on a road bike, I bet they can easily touch 80 or may be even 90km/hr) . Reached Tattekere the odo read 45Kms. 

The previous day when I was talking to Sree, I was telling him about taking this route i.e. starting from Kanakpura side and ending the ride on bannerghatta road as the route would descend down making the ride easier and then later on ride through bannerghatta road which is almost flat.

After we reached Tattekere did I realise that the actual climbs were just after Tattekere. The lake was completely filled, it was an simply superb sat down for about half an hour and started our journey back. From kanakpura side, we descended to about 690m and then we had our mammoth climbs a head of us. It was torturous, with very little water and one orange with us all we wanted was to find a place where we could get some water. 

During the journey to Tattekere I had my helmet on, and by the time we reached Tattekere my forehead was throbbing and had mild headache. And during the climbs removed my helmet and just wore a cap and the pain subdued. I think it must have been the helmet that caused headache.

Reached the junction where Bannerghatta road meets Koppa road. Took a left turn towards bannerghatta. The Temperature was unbearable, I think the time must have been 12.30. There were a couple of things I was worried about as we reached bannerghatta, I thought I would bonk (but till now i've never experienced it) and secondly was a bit worried about my leg. But luckily nothing happened, Sree broke off near Arekere and I head back home, the last 5kms literally crawled back.

Flickr Photos : http://www.flickr.com/photos/modi-kumar/sets/72157617500441065/

Route Details : http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/india/bangalore/584124128007052831