Huliyurdurga - Where tigers tread!!!

It was a perfect day for cycling - the 23rd of November in the year of the Lord 2013 .... The route was IISc, Bangalore -> Magadi -> Huliyurdurga -> Koppa -> Maddur -> Ramnagara -> Manchinebele -> Magadi Road - IISc, Bangalore. The weather was never hot and it only drizzled a little till 7.30 (post which of course, the heavens opened up and Bangalore recorded highest rainfall in Nov in 44 years). The route is below (Google Maps link is here)

It was challenging for 3 reasons:
1. There was literally no flat surface ... it was slight up gradient or down gradient
2. The route involved a lot of turns and there was a good reason you might get lost
3. The traffic in Bangalore while getting back is horrible, so you had to consider about 45 mins for that!!

I had wanted to do a brevet after my last year's Bangarpet brevet. So this was the first one that I could actually try, since most part of 2013, I was in Pune. I had prepared for this brevet by doing a 120 km ride the previous week. So I had the confidence that I could do this. And also, I had had an active few weeks before (mysore ride, half marathon walk etc).

The Start

On the D Day, I arrived at the starting point and got my bike check done and my brevet card stamped. I had not read the cue sheet at all and I knew I had to follow others at least till I hit Magadi Road. So, I was just blindly following people and we went through small lanes of Bangalore, with quite a few ups and downs - these were kinda foreshadowing the day ahead!. I managed to follow the guys till Magadi Road and from there, they all raced ahead of me. I was riding alone. I am used to riding alone, so that by itself was not an issue. Magadi road had many ups and downs and I was negotiating them by changing gears and going along. I developed a pain on my left shoulder that was leaving my uncomfortable. I thought I ll go till the first control at 48 km and then take a call. I reached the first control well before closure and had a heavy breakfast of thatte idli. I rested for about 20 minutes and the pain in my shoulder eased greatly.

Till the second control at Maddur

It was an absolutely fascinating ride till Maddur. The villages were all very quintessential Indian Villages and they were all amused to see this creature (me) riding with a fluorescent green tee shirt, tight shorts and helmet! It was like a distraction in their routine lives ... I enjoyed all the kids saying "Bye Anna", "eee al nodo" (hey, look there) etc. I knew what an animal in a zoo feels like when people stare at it!!! Overall, this was a smooth ride. I was maintaining a constant comfortable speed. My legs were in great shape and was constantly exercising my shoulder and the pain was bearable. Some photos taken in this stretch are below.

Country Roads ... take me home ... to the place, I belong ..

A water channel somewhere on the way!

The only companion for 200 kms - My bike!

While I was nearing Maddur, I had the company of Sylvester, but he was faster than me, so I asked him to go ahead and not wait for me. I reached the second control by 12.53 PM and took the ATM slip as proof (it was an unmanned control). I had a good lunch at Tiffany's and took a break of about 30 mins.

The Benign Afternoon

Usually, the afternoons are hot, but that it was quite pleasant and it did not rain either. I was riding on the Bangalore-Mysore Road from 1.35 till about 3.10 and reached Ramanagara. I was stopping every 5 km and sipping on the gatorade. I took a break of 15 mins and started again. I knew the Manchinbele climbs were waiting for me and I was ready for it.

I rode continuously at a constant pace and going through peaceful village roads. The beautiful vista kept me good company. Some pics below.

About 5 kms before the Manchinbele climb, I got down and did some stretches - providing free entertainment to the villagers. It was almost like the peacock dancing in the zoo!!! I climbed the Manchinbele Climb on 1x2 gear ratio, and stopped in between for some pics.

Manchinebele Reservoir

Your truly!

The Final Leg

I reached the final control by around 4.55PM and I knew I had more than 2.5 hours for the final 32 kms. I started pedaling and was going at a pace I am comfortable. My cyclocomp showed 200 at 6.05PM - which meant I had covered 200 km in 12 hours - I was quite happy with myself at this point. I thought I ll cover the rest with about 50 mins to spare. But the traffic at Sunkadkatte and inside Bangalore was pathetic and I reached only by 7.14PM!!! So there ended my second brevet. The elevation map is below.

The second half of the Journey had an altitude gain of 200 Metres

Closing thoughts

• The ride was not tough, I did not feel overly tired or my legs did not ache. In fact, I had to force myself to stretch my legs once.
• My average riding speed was greater than 20kmph, but I still did not reach early
• I am perfectly ok riding alone - even in my first brevet I was riding alone mostly
• I need to work on improving my pace - it was quite less compared to the others who completed the same brevet.
• My strategy was constantly sipping electrolytes and not gulping down plain water helped a lot

During the ride, I promised myself I dont want to do any more of these, but 2 days later, I am already looking forward to do a 300 in about a couple of months!!!

And last, I have to thank my wife for supporting me. She was taking care of the 2 girls while I was busy pedaling! Now I have to spend some quality time at home during weekends!

 PS:- In case, you are wondering why this post is titled as it is; that's because the brevet organizers called this the Huliyurdurga 200. Huli in Kannada means tiger.

Pain and Glory - Mysore Conquered!

When I did my first century ride on 9th June 2012, I had promised to myself that I would do a Mysore trip at an average speed of 20kmph+. Well, that day was yesterday (26/10/13) - I did a Bangalore-Kanakapura-Malavalli-Mysore bike ride.

It all started with a regular ride on Kanakapura Road. I stocked up with some chikkis, dry fruit and water. I had only one sachet of gatorade. The initial target was to go as long as possible on Kanakapura road and come back. On the way, around just after kaggalipura, I bumped into Ananth Vishwanathan who on his Bianchi Nirone Roadbike. He was going upto Mysore to stay with his friend and return the next day. He tempted me with an offer - Join him upto Mysore and take the Volvo back ... It did not take a lot for him to convince me :-). So Mysore it was ...

We went upto Harohalli and had breakfast at the Vasu Hotel and I was searching for a medical shop to buy a couple of Electral Sachets. It was just around 7.45 and there was no medical shop open at Harohalli. Decided to go ahead upto Kanakapura and buy there.

It was a great day to pedal - very nice and pleasant. Kanakapura road (NH209) is my personal favourite for biking because of all the tree cover. So, it was the two of us pedaling away to glory. I was able to maintain good speed (of course, it was downhill, so that helped ;-) ). We reached Kanakapura road at around 8.30PM 8.30AM and bought 2 sachets of Electral. It was about 50 kms from home and I had done in about 2hrs 20mins with a breakfast break. So I was rolling and I thought I ll reach Mysore by 2PM - Reality was to have the last laugh!

On the way to Malavalli, I stopped a couple of times and had some good stretches. These were stuff I learned from my previous rides and I followed them rigorously and it sure helped. We reached Malavalli by around 11.55AM and that was around 97km. So I thought this is great going - the weather is great, we have a good riding speed of 24kmph and there was no stopping!

Lunch at Utsav Restaurant, Malavalli
When I had blogged about my 200km Brevet, there was a guy who advised that bikers should have rice for food and not roti, because of the carbohydrates. I had done some research and found that this was the general advice. So, we had 2 Maaza, 2 Tomato bath, 4 cups of curd, 2 half curd rice and 1 bottle of water and the bill was all of Rs 148!!! It was indeed a pleasure! Paid a tip of 10 bucks too!

The Sun shines down on us!
So we started around 12.35PM and it was getting hotter. I thought we can do the 50km in around 2.5 hours and we should hit Mysore around 3PM. The road was a small road with little traffic. It was Mandya district and we had some great views. Sample these pics

The Road and the View

Green!!

My Faithful Companion - As always!

Another green field!

With these views accompanying, I was pedaling hard and and the sun shined down on me hard! I was feeling like sipping water every few minutes. I carry a regular water bottle with a screw cap. So I had to stop the bike, get down and then sip some water. Had I been carrying a regular sipper, I could have sipped while riding. But on second thoughts, that would be effortless and I would end up drinking a lot of water and feeling heavy in the stomach; that happened towards the end of the ride, but a sipper would mean easy drinking and I might get that feeling sooner. But I guess these are choices we take while doing the ride and these small decisions reflect on the ride efficiency.

Just before Bannur, we found a small dam and it was beautiful! Ananth decided to get down while I stayed up in the sun .... Look at these pics to get an idea.

The sun was really cruel and it impacted my speeds greatly. I stopped a couple of times on the way for drinking coconut water and Maaza .... I also was stopping for my regular stretches, but the road not very smooth and there were short climbs all through. I was pedaling on the 2x3 gear and was also feeling the heat. But I have noticed that though my speed comes down during the heat, I am not overly bothered by it. As long as I control my urge to gulp down a lot of water, I am ok to actually sweat it out in the heat.

It was around 3PM and I was still around 25+ km away from Mysore. I realised that this is not gonna be a cake walk! I was down to average brevet speeds of 15kmph (including any break). So recalculated and set myself a target of 4.15PM; that would mean 10 hours since I left home in the morning. I am glad to say I was able to achieve this and reached the Mysore bus stand around 4.10PM. Here is me all smiles after the journey!

Mysore!!!

I wanted to go the Palace and get a snap in front of the palace with a cycling salute. But I totally forgot about it when I reached the bus stand. While I was about to load the bike into the Volvo luggage rack, I remembered. But I did not have the enthu to go back! I boarded the Volvo bus and came back to Nayandahalli around 7.30PM and reached home by 8.15PM - that was 14 hours of useful time spent and a promise kept!

Now I have to go back to Mysore to get the snap in front of the palace ... I live to bike another day!

Learnings from the ride:
Practice riding in the heat while maintaining good speed. I am gonna do afternoon rides from 1PM to 5PM on the weekends so that I get used to the sun.

Ride stats:

155 kms pedaled!

Almost 8 hrs of pedaling

Average Speed - 19.56 kmph

So overall, an unplanned, but satisfying journey to Mysore! My hunger for long rides is sated and I dont plan to do any more long rides in the near future!

The day after
Today (27/10/13), I did my regular 5km walk and did a 20 minute stretch of all parts of my body - neck, shoulder, back, hip and legs. I seem to be ok - now I am off for some diwali shopping and am gonna have my well deserved tub of icecream with my daughter!

EDIT 28/10/13: Corrected time from 8.30PM to 8.30AM

A Great Weekend - 10 KM walk on Saturday and 95 KM bike ride on Sunday!

10 KM Walk on Saturday
I discovered a great place in Bangalore for your Walks and Runs - something other than the usual Lalbagh. This place is called National Centre for Biological Sciences GKVK and is present adjacent to Sahakara Nagar in North Bangalore. My idea was to cover 10 KM at an average speed of 6kmph or more. I set out around 6.30AM in morning and entered this place. This is an agricultural college (popularly referred to as GKVK) and is a very large campus with lots of greenery (obviously, it was an agricultural college).

The college itself reminded of my engineering college (REC Bhopal or now MANIT, Bhopal) and also of Ammasandra (Tumkur district) where I grew up. It was a huge expanse of land interspersed with Department buildings and hostels. Anyway, I enjoyed walking in this place and also found it to be very popular among the people living around this place. If you live near Hebbal and are looking for a nice place to walk / run, you should visit this place on weekends. You will not be disappointed!

A few pictures below.

The walk stats are below:
Total Distance Covered: 10.55 KM (as per the Nokia Sports Tracker Workout)
Total Time Taken: 1hr 41min approx
Average Speed: 6.23 kmph

The location of this place is shown in the map below.

Happy with my performance.

Learnings from the Workout:
1. Carry Water, Hydrate yourself! I was feeling light headed towards the end!
2. Find great places to Walk - You cannot walk around a park for longer than 10 times - You ll get bored!

95 KM Bike Ride on Sunday
I wanted to challenge myself to do a 10 km walk on Saturday and a 100 KM bike ride on Sunday! So I set out on Sunday. Before leaving, checked the tyre pressure and then filled upto 70psi. Started off the following route: Kumaraswamy Layout -> Silkboard -> Sarjapur Road -> Sarjapur -> Attibele -> Anekal -> Bannerghatta -> Gottigere -> Anjanapura -> Konanakunte and back home. This was a nice elliptical route and I was under the impression that this will cross 100KM. So I started off around 6.20AM (after some initial workouts). My target was to have an average riding speed of 22 kmph or more.

To apply the learnings from my last ride, I carried some Electral packets. I started with good speed and reached Wipro Corporate office in about an hour. I stopped for some water break and forged ahead. I had breakfast in a cafe called Priyadarshini after Dommasandra on Sarjapur Road. I would recommend this place for your breakfast stopover. The food is tasty and the place is relatively clean.

I rode on from there. The roads were smooth with very little ups and downs. Traffic was manageable, though  it was a single lane road with on coming traffic. I was maintaining a decent speed and the electral was ensuring that I was not loosing any salts. Some pics of the ride are below.

My Ratha!!!

No Rains!!!

I started to lose speed somewhere around the 70 km mark I think. My average speed (as per my cyclocomp) was showing around 21 till about that time. Then it started fall. I guess I faced some headwinds and cross winds, but generally I should have pedaled faster I guess! I rested for a few minutes and stretched my legs on the road - providing amusement to bored highway travelers and roadside workers!

When I took this big circle and came near Konakakunte cross, I had done around 85 km and my Nokia battery was dying. I switched off the Sports Tracker App and continued on Kanakapura road to cover the 100 km mark. But my speed had fallen below 20 kmph and I knew it would very difficult to carry on and achieve my target of 22 kmph. I gave up around 95 km and retired for the day.

Ride Stats
Total Distance: 95 km
Total time: 4hr 55min (including breaks)
Average riding speed: 19.71 kmph (as per cyclocomp)
Terrain: Good Roads, with less traffic. Not much ups and downs.
Scenic Value: 3 out of 5.

At the end of the day, I had done around 15.5 kmph including breaks, and 19.7 kmph while riding.

Learnings from the ride:
1. You have to hydrate yourself and plain water is not enough! This time I was prepared and did not face any problem
2. Ride faster, keep an eye on the average speed. If you lose it, its difficult to get the average back up!

Electral: The electral sachets that I carried were immensely helpful, but I wanted to find out whats the difference between the easily available (and cheap!) Electral and Gatorade. I did some googling and found this

So, I think it is safer to carry gatorade and if you cannot find it, then have electral as a backup! I am not sure what happens if you consume more salt than required, but I guess its better I dont find out :-)

In the end, it was a bit disappointing that I did not reach the target - Guess I need to try harder ... miles to go before I sleep!

But I was happy that I could 10km walk on saturday and a 95km bike ride on Sunday! Now, I need to try harder to increase my riding average speed!

EDIT 16/7/12: Changed National Center for Biological Sciences to GKVK

My First Century Ride!

Having bought a Trek 7100 in Mar 2012, I had started biking with short trips. I started with a 40 km ride upto pyramid valley. Did the Turahalli mountain bike range in my hybrid, had a bad fall and injured my knee! Of course, the injured knee gave me bragging rights J.

I had traveled to the US in April for a 2 week period and there I biked on the Golden Gate. Post that, I did  a 50 km ride, a 60 km and 70 km ride. I felt I was ready for my first milestone – A century ride!

I decided to do it on 9^th June, 2012 which happened to be a Saturday. I had my biked primed (with air pressure and oil) on Thursday in preparation for the ride. Come Saturday, I woke up around 5.30 and did some basic stretching exercise and the rubber hit the road around 6.15 AM from my house in ISRO Layout. I started the Sports Tracker App on my Nokia 500 (Symbian Belle) to keep track of the journey.

I decided to go upto Harohalli and Jigani which also happened to be the next BBCh race route. I had no intentions of participating in the race itself, but my sole objective was to do 100 km. I started with full steam and it was all downhill on Kanakapura road. I reached Kaggali pura around 7.10 and had an Idli stop over. With the hunger pangs sufficiently quelled, I set out again.

I reached Harohalli quite fast covering about 31 km in 1 hour 50 minutes or so including the idli stopover. The terrain is mostly downhill, some up gradient biking, but overall very comfortable and scenic. You pass by a couple of big lakes which gives great photo opp – One mistake I made in this trip was not to click any photos!

On reaching Harohalli, I took the left towards Jigani. The moment you take a left, you enter a small lane and I could not believe this is the same road that goes to Jigani. I asked around and confirmed this. I set out on this road. I remembered Murali Katta (Another Biker with whom I ride) had told me – this road is hell – I was about to find out! The initial up gradients were manageable in my hybrid, but it was getting hotter and I was tiring. After biking for around 9km from Harohalli, I stopped at a small hamlet called Kamalapura. Here I had tea at a small hut-like hotel. I was the object of curiosity for all the villagers and we made some small talk. I was told that the tea is jaggery tea (saar, bellada tea saar eekade ella). I had 2 of them and felt rejuvenated. I moved on Jigani and went upto Thattekare. I saw the monstrous up there and decided to turn back. There was no way, I could have managed to climb that!

On turning back, it was a little easy upto Harohalli, as the altitude was dropping. I reached Harohalli, took a right started cycling towards Bangalore. I intended to 100 k today and decided I ll take detours on Kanakapura and ensure I cross my milestone. Near a small, unnamed place, I found a guy selling coconut water. I got down and had some coconut water and took the detour here. I went through fine tarred roads with no traffic, crossed a Gunda Aanjaneya temple and the Elim Resort. This road was leading to Kanakapura road again. I turned back as my intention was to put on more miles.

I returned to the same spot on Kanakapura road, took one more detour for a couple of kms and was back to biking on Kanakapura road. This time, it was sunny (around 11.15AM) and I was climbing up. It was quite difficult and I was tiring. I continuously had water, but started to feel hungry. I had something at a bakery, bought some water and started again. I was about 20 km from my house. After riding for a couple of kms, I started feeling hungry again. At this time, it struck me that I am probably getting stomach cramps! Probably because I was losing body salts. Now I realized the importance of having Electral or Gatorade while biking. I suddenly remembered someone in BBC (Bangalore Bikers Club) saying coconut water is good to replenish the body salts. My condition at this time was pretty bad I was stopping every 2 kms for some water. My speed dropped to quite low and I was finding it increasingly difficult to ride. I was constantly on Gears 2 – 3 (front – rear)

Thankfully, I found another guy selling coconut water. I stopped over and had 2 of them very slowly. I felt re-invigorated and covered the balance 15 kms with no stopover and at a decent speed. When I entered my basement, my cyclocomp showed 101.3 Km while the sports tracker app shows 99.67km. I was happy that I achieved my first milestone of 100km!

Stats:

Total Distance Covered as per my cyclocomp: 101.3 km
Total Riding Time: A little over 5 hours
Total time (including breaks): 6.5 hours
Average Riding speed: 19.78 kmph.

Overall, I am quite happy with myself and feel ready to achieve my next target – Ride to Mysore via Malavalli and come back by Volvo. This is a 145 km ride.

Note on Sports Tracker App

The app itself is quite good and accurate. But it sucks battery life and will last for rides upto 7 hours only. I have a brand new Nokia 500 (Symbian Belle), so if you have an older phone, then the batter might last lesser time. The website gives very good statistical information on distance, time, speed etc. Overall, it’s a good app, but I think having a specific device like a garmin watch is more practical on longer rides.

Learnings from the Ride:

1.       Carry enough Electral or Gatorade packets

2.       Have coconut water every hour or hour and half

3.       Take Pics!

4.       Differentiate between hunger and cramps!

The distance altitude graph and the ride maps are pasted below. (Source - http://www.sports-tracker.com/#/workout/satbalak/aep16mlkijvhvqpr)

Next Target: Do the Bangalore – Malavalli – Mysore route at an average riding speed of 20+ kmph.

UPDATE (12/6/12): Corrected date of journey from 8th June, 2012 to 9th June, 2012