Nandi Hills Coconut Jumps - Part 2

We (Me and Nelly) were just waiting to get back at Nandi and start all over again. A week seemed like a month. This week the crowd was bigger we had Vasu and Sreenandan along with us.

Had the first flat of the day, before I could start riding. Changed the tube quickly and rode to Nupur's house, where we loaded our bikes onto the bike rack on her Car. Drove all the way to the jump point. Sree came in his car and picked up Vasu near the airport. Apparently Vasu hadn't slept the previous night and watched 3 movies back to back and started at 4am from his house towards Nandi. Had idly's at Nandi base. Nupur had planned to start her journey back from this point, but we convinced her to start from the place where we had built the jumps. Drove up and waited for the other car, while Nupur tested out a few trails.

When we reached the top, the ramp we had prepared last week was completely cleared off. so built a bigger and better one. It was at least 2.5 times the older one. After about an hour later by 10am started our speed jumps. The ramp was perfect and the feel was awesome, the distance we jumped was almost double and we also jumped higher. Nelly was our guru, watched him take the first jump, then I jumped, followed by Sree and then Vasu. After the first set of jumps Vasu quit as he developed back ache. Initially we were jumping one at a time, then started jumping in tandem......ooh god. On the first tandem jump, Sree jumped over, lost his footing and some how managed to control his bike to a great extent until he crashed at a very low speed. I was right behind him, had to brake hard and just avoided crashing into him. 

Met Anand Mulky, Arjun, Shasank, jagannath and others. Anand was on his road bike climbing Nandi for the first time. He managed to climb till the Jump point and watched us jump a few times and after that headed back while we continued with our jumps.

 

Despite his injuries to the shin Sree continued jumping and after about 2/3 tandem jumps, it was my turn to crash.......Earlier, we used to carry the speed off the jump, pedal a little harder enter the trail below negotiating 2 curves and slow down some 500mtrs after the ramp. All the three (Nelly, Sree and Me) started off from the starting point pedaled hard, carried over the ramp and after landing I pedaled hard got into the first turn and just after the first turn realized that these 2 had slowed down, and I instinctively braked. My front wheel got stuck into one of the ruts and was thrown off the bike, landing head first into the mud. The helmet took all the impact and things went flying......First thing that raced through my mind was to figure out if I was blacking out.......got up, guys came running towards me, was on all 4 and realized I could not breathe.....took about 2mins to get back my normal breathing. Had a cut on my forehead and nose and as Vasu said.....I was a leaking boat :). Both my knees, left arm, hip, right shoulder, nose are bruised and forehead has a cut. Hope it heals fast.

 

Sree helped me out plaster the wounds....took rest for about a 45mins and decided not to jump any more for the day. while we were resting, saw Samim climbing Nandi for the second time in the day.

 

Then we decided to ride up the trails, which is about 1.5kms from the jump point and ride the downhill trails till the idly point. Started off, reached the top of the trail, and started rolling down, Vasu stopped midway due to back pain and he took rest near the car as we continued down. Reached the bottom in about 45mins, had lunch and started riding back to the top. This was the first time I was climbing Nandi hills and must say I totally enjoyed it. At the idly point the sign read 12kms Nandi. Then in about 10/15mins it read 7kms...from there on it was a killer, didn't have water to drink or the energy to pedal but somehow managed, after talking to myself not to quit.......

The downhill trail from the top till the idly point is about 5kms, this trail is seriously a hard one and it has all in one package. Be there next time around.....its fun!!

On our way down we saw Samim, coming back to Climb Nandi for the 3rd time in the day. Took a U-Turn, and followed Samim all the way to the top . By this time he had already completed 250Km for the day and had 50Km more to go. Shot a few videos and clicked a few pics.

In the end it was a very fulfilling day for all the riders. My injuries don't seem as bad as they looked yesterday. But hurt a little.

Today morning Nelly sent me a link, answering a few questions about the mind set riders should have while riding their MTB's : http://www.bikeradar.com/mtb/fitness/article/technique-step-it-up--21014

Biking @ Nandi - Part 2

Trail Ride : http://www.flickr.com/photos/modi-kumar/sets/72157616698855532/

Samim's Ride: http://www.flickr.com/photos/modi-kumar/sets/72157616701746280/

Nandi Hills Coconut Jumps

After one and half months of zero biking action, finally it was time to fly....Coincidence, it was the same with Nelly as well.

We decided on Saturday to go towards Nandi Hills, as Nelly was desperate for some downhill action.The next day we dumped our bikes in my Omni started by 8am and reached Nandi Hills by around 9.30am. Unloaded our bikes and immediately started trail rides.One and a half months of no biking sucked the air out my lungs by the time we reach the top of the trail. I totally underestimated the trails and the gradients were too much for me to handle at certain sections. But it was fun.

If going up the hill seems tough, coming down is even tougher and it scares the shit out....All your body parts shake like hell and your arms and thighs take a beating. And if you are tired, damn you are destined to fall....Good nothing like that happened with us. Downhill riding is awesome, and at places I was breathless, the excitement was too much for me.

Nelly had both his tires punctured, pinch flats and we tried fixing it for about 2 hrs finally gave up and fixed the puncture below at a puncture repair shop. Came back to the top and since Nelly had a set of tires not suitable for trail riding, we decided to build speed ramps. Prepared the ramp in about an hours time and started the jumps. Dirt Jumping that we guys had done was chicken s***.........this was even better. The first jump I did was all together a different experience. Its like the same experience I had sitting in an air plane for the first time and when the plane takes off, you feel that weightlessness for a sec, it was somehow the same feeling and this happened only for the first Jump...... Don't know if everyone fells the same or its only me, it a momentary high that you get, the feeling is just out of this world.....

Did a few jumps and as it was getting dark, packed our bikes into the van and headed back. The ramp is at a turning that marks Nandi top 4kms, if anyone is interested in doing these, can easily locate these, all you have to do is locate these 2 coconut vendors and the ramp is on the opposite side of the road.....

We named this jump as Coconut jump, as its prepared out the coconuts shells and also to those 2 funny coconut vendors at Nandi, who just wont stop arguing against each other. Guys Nandi is the place to do hardcore technical trail / down hill ride....practice a few times, get used to trail riding and then its time for a FS downhill bike!

Biking @ Nandi Hills

A Little jazzed up video

A few Pics  on flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/modi-kumar/sets/72157616322524339/

Technorati Tags: Nandi Hills,Bangalore Bikers club,Bikezone,Mountain Bike jumping

The Truth is out (T)here!

Phew! finally after 3months and 220 odd episodes later, finished watching the entire collection of this awesome series. Totally enjoyed watching every episode, some boring, but for the better part, most of the episodes blew me away for brilliance in the story and cinematography. You have to watch it to believe it, these were shot like movies. I used to sometimes watch 5/6 episodes back to back. I must admit I was totally hooked onto it. I've spent many days sleeping at 1/2 am, keeping myself awake just to watch another episode of the  X-Files.

Technorati Tags: X-Files,fox mulder,dana scully

BMXing

TFN has bought a whole lot of changes, but one noticeable change is the camaraderie among all the bikers. Everyone is in constant touch with each other planning something or the other. If one set of bikers are testing their endurance levels going on long rides, others are testing their new found abilities to do crazy stuff. And I must say after what we did on the 1st of Feb, I belong to the latter one.

Friday, Nelly buzzes me calling out for a trail ride towards NICE corridor, and I agree to it with a small sigh. I personally don't like this road because of the headwinds and the crosswinds. It sucks the air out of you. I still wonder how the riders on TFN rode constantly for 7 days on such roads phew!

We met at the Critical Mass event on Saturday and fix on a plan to go towards the place where the Effective group riding workshop was held. It was Nelly's favourite place as he had recognized a few places to practice wall riding. Late in the night I call up Srikanth and Neelesh, and they agree to join us 7am sharp. The time shifts to 7.30am and finally we fix 7.30am as the start time.

The next day I woke up at 7 am and gave Nelly a wake up call. Fifteen minutes later Neelesh calls up to say that he would be 20mins late. Finally Neelesh and Srikanth come over to my house, by around 8am and we ride towards Family Mart junction. By 8.30am Nelly joined us and we start our ride towards NICE. Nothing exciting to talk about our journey towards NICE.

 

After about 50mins of riding, we reach the spot. Nelly surveys the place and he starts of with his wall riding immediately.

Looking at how Nelly does stuff, you feel its easy..until you try doing it. I had my own apprehensions and didn't do it then. After doing the wall ride, Nelly gave some gyan about how this can be done. The first thing, he pointed out, was to learn how to bunny hop. Gave us a few pointers about how to bunny hop and within an hour, we were bunny hopping......wow!

I seriously admire the way Nelly does these, and above all, the way he explains it. He takes you through the process step by step, explaining in detail the things that you have to do and things you have to keep in mind. It was really amazing. If not for the way he explained it, we would have probably taken a day or two to learn instead of an hour.

We then graduated to the next level and practiced Bunny hopping over a obstacle 1foot apart. Man!, we were in the air, flying.....:)

It takes some serious hard work and nothing comes easy, everyone had their share of cuts and bruises.

After a while, Nelly talked us through side hops, lifting our rear wheels without braking. It was fun and we thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it. 

After watching Nelly do the wall ride, I couldn't resist myself from trying it out. Myself and Neelesh, we did the wall ride a couple of times and had a terrible fall once(unfortunately camera wasn't rolling, damn :().....its a little scary after you've had a fall. Neelesh hadn't eaten anything in the morning and wasn't hydrated well enough. You know the outcome, he cramped in his thighs...and we decided to call it quits!

Dilip had an event at his office, and had informed us that he would join us late in the afternoon. But his event got cancelled and joined us by around 11am.

After about an hour of chit chatting, we decided to explore some trails. We set off and had to prematurely end, as it was getting hot and we didn't have enough water. And I had the second fall of the day, I was standing on the peddle, on one leg towards the left side of the bike, when I hit a stone and toppled over my bike. Srikanth had a nice view of me falling from behind :). The terrain was a bit thorny, Nelly had 2 punctures and I had 3....phew! Fixed those and we turned back towards the city. Half way through Neelesh was slowing down mainly because of exhaustion. He took the ride back home slow and easy.

Gullu joined was near Konankunte, bought us some water. Had a nice lunch at a nearby hotel and headed back home.

Now after 2 days, my forearms, shoulders, biceps, triceps, neck....bloody every single muscle is aching.....I guess have to do this more often.

For the complete set of pictures click here and video playlist click here

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