Bicycle Injustice - Bangalore

Wow!!!!!

 

This is the scene in Bangalore! When on one side there are people like Mr Gaurav Gupta (Managing Director, Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC)) who has shown interest in making Bangalore a biking friendly city, then on the other side are these morons!

 

Cyclists: Rohan Kini and Nikhil.
Place: Lalbagh
Mission: To reduce traffic woes by encouraging people to take up cycling.
Climax: Pushed around and thrown onto the road!

{UPDATE}: After this was posted, the community took notice and reacted in a very strong way...

Check out their reactions on BikeZone and BBC

TFN in Outlook Traveller

TFN has a mention in Outlook Traveller Feb 2009 edition. Get out and grab a copy of it ASAP. The article about TFN is written by rider on TFN. The best part is many of us didn't know that he was a reporter from Outlook until the article came out. Thanks to Hari Menon.

A lot of guys on TFN are thrilled by that fact that the photos they clicked have been printed in the magazine. The photos were clicked by Aravind Teki, Prashanth Kota, Deepak Majipatil, Nelly and myself.

© Tour of Nilgiris.

© Tour of Nilgiris.

© Tour of Nilgiris.

All these pictures are published under the creative commons license

These photos were taken on day 3 and 4 of the tour. Day 4(Sultanbathery to Ooty) I guess was one of the most picturesque routes on the tour.

Now get a copy for yourself and enjoy reading!

Dirt Jumping on 17th Jan, 2009

I Wanted to blog about dirt jumping that happened on the 17th of Jan, but Ravi and Rohan wanted this to on the wiki. The Wiki set up by Rohan is a one stop place for people to get information about biking. So, updated the wiki.....

Click here to know more about what happened on that day.

Check out the entire set of pics here and youtube playlist here

Critical Mass Bangalore - Third Edition

After surveying bikers around town, the Critical Mass event day has changed from Friday to last Saturday of every month. For more info click here

The Third Edition of  Bangalore Critical Mass is on the 31st of Jan, 2009. Riders will start from KSRTC central office where the Bangalore Cycling Workshop 31 Jan 2009 is being organized.

{UPDATE}: Click here for the photos from today's CM.

Bangalore Cycling Workshop 31 Jan 2009

When: 31 Jan 2009                                                                Where: KSRTC Central Office, KH Double Road, Shanthinagar, Bangalore                                                                                        Entry: Open for all. No entry fee.                                             RSVP: contact@rideacycle.org

The cycling inclusive workshop is being organized by Bangalore Metropolitan Land Transport Authority (BMLTA) in partnership with EMBARQ India, Interface for Cycling Expertise (I-CE), City Connect and RideACycle Foundation (RAC-F).

For more details : http://rideacycle.org/?page_id=53

{UPDATE}: Click here and here for the photos of the workshop. Clicked by me and deepak.

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Awesome ad!

Bannerghatta - Ragehalli Bike Ride

It was a long weekend and we didn't want to miss the opportunity to get on the saddle. We (Me, Dilip and Gullu) were supposed to go on a bike trip to Anchetti near hosur with George, Renu and others. Unfortunately we could not make it, as one of our friends was getting engaged on 26th Jan, 2009.

Saturday - 24th Jan, 2009

Partied hard on Saturday and I didn't want to take chances riding the bike next day in the morning. So, told dilip that I personally wouldn't encourage riding in the morning because of the dehydration thingie.

Now a days the topic of discussion around the table is usually about biking and stuff and wonder what we used to talk earlier? We discussed about going to Kanakpura and back, then chunchi falls and back and even contemplated about join George and gang to Anchetti. But as we had very less time, we decided against all these. 

We had once been to Sarjapur at 3.30 in the afternoon and decided to start the ride the next at 3.30pm (It was a horrible decision). Drank a lot of water to hydrate myself. Dosed off by around 1.30am.

Sunday - 25th Jan, 2009

I usually sleep for 8hrs if am sober and anything more than that is always a pleasure. Hadn't slept well the previous night. Got up by around 10.30am. Watched a few episodes of X-Files (Season 4). checked the time, it was 12.30pm.  Had a light lunch by 1.30pm.

Vasu came by around 2pm to collect a couple of sleeping bags for the bike trip to Anchetti. I was too tempted to join him.....

Had a power nap for about 15mins. Got up by 3.15pm. Dilip came home by 3.30pm. As always our dude is right on the dot. Filled water in my bottle, got dressed. Initially we thought of doing some off-roading, but the previous week Nelly had a puncture and he had taken my mini-pump. As we did not have a pump we decided to do a full tarmac bike ride. Started off from Jayanagar, went via East End and joined bannerghatta main road.

Near Gotigere I bought 3 packets of Enerzal. This time around I was fully prepared and loaded with chocolates, bananas and lots of water. The timing was really bad though, It was hot, cross winds and very little shade. It burnt all my energy by the time we reached Bannerghatta National Park.

Made a pit for about 5mins at bannerghatta national park near the police station. I was already feeling the heat, my mouth was drying up real fast. All I did was sip water(with Enerzal) every minute. Stretched ourselves a little bit.

Took a turn towards kaggalipura, went to the place where me, sharath and rohit had gone last month. Just as we entered the park we were kicked out by the park guards, as there were elephants roaming inside the park. So made our exit back to the main road. 

Then went to a hill near Ragehalli, its a monolith rock/hill rising about 50/60 feet. From the top of the hillock the view is amazing. You get to see entire bannerghatta range. Locked our bikes at the foot of the hillock and climbed up and sat there for about 20mins. Ate some bananas and chocolates.

Gullu called up and told us that he was coming towards bannerghatta. Clicked a few pics and we started back towards town. The ride back was pretty fast. The weather had sobered down and we also had our tanks full.

I saw a slow moving truck and started to draft behind the truck for about 4/5kms. Then a cop in one of the BMTC buses saw me and gave me a sound blasting in kannada and asked me to get away from the trucks tail :). It was fun...

Met gullu at Gotigere exit, regrouped and went to East End SLV near ragigudda temple. Had a plate of idly and vada.........

Then we split, me and gullu went to venki's shop, where as dilip went home as he had another othla boys party.

Got my bike fixed.....and ended the day sipping a couple of beers! haaaa.

Statistics:

Trip Odom: 49.9Km

Max Speed: 46.5Km/hr

Moving Time: 2hr 35mins

Stopped: 43mins

Moving Avg: 19.3Km/hr

Overall Avg: 15.1km/hr

Small Intro:

Dilip: He works for Bharathi AXA. He has been a close buddy and my jogging partner. He took to cycling about 6months back. He rides a Merida Sub 40. 

Gullu: Another close buddy working for Vijay Auto Sales and Pvt Ltd. He took to cycling very recently about a month back. He rides a Trek 4300.