Govind on his trike

Govind is no stranger to adventure. He has travelled good parts of the world on a bicycle in 1985-86. A hand glider accident in 1992 left him with a damaged spine. To get around this, he has equipped his trike with a power assist. Rechargeable batteries will add to his manual efforts. With 140 units of "borrowed" electricity, he hopes to reach the Kashmir border. Govind emphasizes on the importance of renewable energy sources, most importantly solar energy. He believes powered trikes can be viable mode of transport.

Please read an intro about him, his journey, motivations and equipment at this link.

This will be a fairly unique journey by many standards. Govind has been taking out his trike and putting it to test as much as the rains allow him. I was extremely surprised to know that he does not even know Hindi ! Govind intends to start off in a few days time. I would like to wish him all the very best for this journey !

To get a view of how things look from his trike, watch this video on youtube. Govind is quite tech-savvy, and is planning to tweet (twitter feed), record videos and blog about his experiences.

Govind has been planning this journey with a passion that I can only admire. I know this has stretched him financially as well. For an endeavour like this, I am sure he can use all the help he can get ! If you would like to support his efforts (and I hope you would), then please free to contact him via email at bhat59 AT gmail.com.

Life without some activities can get boring. So I am participating in Google's online coding competition, CodeJam. For those of you in the know, the qualifying round is already over. 8523 qualified for the next round, including me. 10492 participants had a crack at the problems.

This is perhaps the first time that I am participating in a competition I do not expect to win. Earlier I have avoided competing in certain competitions fearing failure! So this is a big improvement for me - and it took me some effort to force myself into this. Advancing to the next round would be good for now.

I am embarrassed to find myself placed in the 5839th position. I got 43 points - 33 for problem A and 10 for problem C. I knew I hadn't been solving problems of late, and this is just an additional confirmation. My score shows me how negligent I have become. A very bad mistake cost me 23 points for problem C-large. I had to use a 64 bit integer to avoid a numeric overflow. But I overlooked such a simple thing! Problem B, "Fair warning", was IMO the most difficult of the three problems. For some strange reason, I didn't write a single line of code for this. Naturally, I missed out solving this.

By now you are perhaps wondering why I should be ranting about this, and that too in public. Most of you guys are here for articles related to cycling. However, I consider myself a geek first ! And for a geek to realize that he has gone bad w.r.t. coding can be very bad indeed. Many of my readers are from the IT industry, so I am hoping this rant is is relevant to at-least some of you.

I was not always like bad. I (and others too ) counted myself a very good programmer. I was careful, would pay attention to details and perhaps made much less mistakes. I could also work through problems. Clearly not the case now. Over the years, what one needs to do changes. Most of our time gets spent on integrating pieces of software - and we write only bits of software that we need. That effectively sends the algorithmic muscles to sleep. Ah ! The only way to get back in shape seems to be by practise. And that's what I need to do to get through the next round. Note that I'm not saying the solving small, well-defined problems is more important than solving larger real world problems. They are perhaps different kinds of skills, but each needs to be exercised to grow to your potential !

I learnt a few things in the first round. Sharing these in the hope that they would be useful.

Work out problems on paper. It's easier to see patterns there.
Enable compiler optimization. I use -O3 with GCC. That cut down the runtime of one of the programs from 2 minutes to 30 seconds. Every second counts in competitions. Waiting for problems to finish executing can be frustrating during competitions!
Have a nice workflow ready. Compete directly from your development machine and avoid copying around files from one machine to another. This can lead to costly mistakes. I saw a colleague make this mistake, so sharing it
Use a good system to compile code. I use SCons

Good luck to myself for the next round ! Normally I wouldn't believe in luck. But when skill levels go low, we all start believing in it, eh

My aunt (ಚಿಕ್ಕಮ್ಮ - wife of my father's younger brother who stays near Sunticoppa, Kodagu district) is my favourite cook. She has a knack of describing difficult to make items and getting me interested in making them. I typically let the easy recipes pass in favour of the difficult to make ones. One fine day she mentioned wheat halwa. And that it would take 3-4 days to make it. Enough information to add it to my TODO list.

Office potluck lunches and difficult recipes, I have observed, go hand in hand. Everyone tries to make something special, so is worried how their dishes would turn out. We do it for fun mostly, but what's fun if there isn't a challenge in it ? That's where the wheat halwa came into the picture. An audience of 25 people or so is a fair size to cook halwa for. I've always liked feeding people, and here was another opportunity.

Yummy Wheat Halwa

It was fun cooking the halwa - and the results were satisfactory. If you are interested in just the recipe, then skip forward to the end of this post. Those interested in learning about my travails, read on !

The cooking process started on a Sunday evening. I called my aunt, asking how much wheat would be needed, and the overall recipe. No more than half a kilo is needed, she said. I decided to buy one kg of wheat. Who wants to run short of the goodies ?

I soaked the wheat in water for one full day. A tough job was coming up next. The wheat was smelling a little after being in the water for a day. I needed to grind this to a thick paste in a mixie, and extract the "milk" from it using a towel. A process similar to extracting coconut milk, my aunt had told me. I had never extracted coconut milk before. Everything has to have a first time.

Extracting the milk was messier than I expected. You spread the towel, put in some quantity of the paste, and fold the towel. Next, you turn the towel from both ends, the intent being to squeezing the paste to get the milk. Something like wringing a jeans pant prior to putting it out to dry! Squeezing the paste once isn't enough to extract all the milk. I needed to add water to the paste twice, and squeeze the paste twice. Physically very strenuous, and a very messy process. Extreme care was needed while squeezing too. Sometimes I was careless in folding the towel. The result : the precious paste oozed out of the sides. Once it splurted all over my T-shirt and in the kitchen. The effect of this last incident was similar to the apple falling on Newton's head : a better method flashed in my brain. The solution was right in front of me - the juice strainer ! I chucked out the towel and replaced it with the juice strainer. The new method of extracting the milk was simple : add the paste to the mixie, then add a glass of water, spin for a few seconds. Finally pour into the juice strainer. After most of the water strains out, force the rest out by squeezing the remaining paste with the hand. Take out the remaining paste for further processing later. Neat ! (If I had done a google search for a wheat halwa recipe, I'd have seen the strainer mentioned)

I had spent 3 hours extracting the milk - and this was just the beginning. The most difficult recipe I had attempted till now, I told myself. More difficult than Kashi Halwa. The clock showed 12:30 AM at this time, and I needed some rest !

A 10-litre Prestige cooker was used to collect all the milk. This is left undisturbed. With time, white matter settles down, and perhaps ferments a little. After one day, I had to carefully remove the water from the top, while ensuring that the white matter is undisturbed. This taxed my patience. When the amount of water in the vessel reduces, it becomes harder to remove the water without disturbing the white matter. Looking at the quantity of the white matter, I have grave doubts that I would end up with a handful of halwa. So I dared not discard even a single particle ! After removing the water, I poured fresh water and mixed it again. Repeat the water removal procedure after one day. And pour more fresh water.

On thursday morning two and a half days of 'fermentation' had happened. And I had to make the halwa. More calls to aunt ensured. The amount of white matter was very less, so I was scared of ending up with very less halwa. Instructions from my aunt were quite clear - mix the white matter with water to a consistency used for neer dosa, cook on a slow heat, add 500g of ghee. After some time of cooking, add 2 kg of sugar. Cook till the ghee separates (this indicates that all water has evaporated or been used up). A little cardamom powder at the end for aroma, and a little food colour just before the halwa solidifies. Cashews wouldn't make much difference, she said. And the final halwa should be transparent like Pears soap !

With the instructions in mind, I started off at 7 AM. I would need an estimated 2 hours to cook the halwa, so I took the liberty of a late start. I poured the white matter with the remaining water into the 10 liter cooker. The water level must have been a third of the cooker. I used a medium flame to cook the halwa. Kept stirring the mix periodically with a long flat spoon. Took a break for a few minutes.

Horror was in store for me when I resumed stirring. Some halwa had almost solidified at the bottom. No amount of stirring seemed to help.

Not many have seen me panic. If you want to - you just needed to see me in the kitchen that day ! I turned off the gas in panic. Something had to be done immediately to salvage the solidified halwa. I took out the solid parts and mixed them with water, and poured even more water into the mix. By this time, the cooker was half full of water ! And small lumps of halwa were floating. Not much I could do at this time. Turned on the stove, and added the 2 kg sugar. By this time, I was sure to get about half a cooker of halwa, so I emptied another kg of sugar into the mix. The whole 500g packet of nandini ghee disappeared in no time into the mix. I ensured that I kept stirring all the time. I also put in a lot of effort into crushing the small lumps of halwa. They were soft. Using two spoons, I was able to crush some of them and integrate them back into the water. After a certain point, I gave up.

After about an hour and a half of starting, the contents of the cooker resembled a paste. The small lumps were there, but were very few and small. I had reason to heave a sigh of relief.

I was against usage of colour, but my aunt had insisted on it. Being my favourite cook, she was successful. I mixed a very small quantity of food colour with water and mixed it into the halwa.

By this time, I had fried a packet of cashews to golden brown (using a little ghee), and added it to the mix.

As the halwa started losing water, I had to be careful while stirring. Hot steam escapes when you try to stir the halwa. This can cause boils on the hand. For protection, I wrapped a small turkey towel around my hand.

At the two hour mark, very less of water remained in the halwa. The ghee hadn't started to separate. This is a critical point in making the halwa. Wait for too long, and you may end up with very hard halwa. Take it out too soon, and you end up with halwa you can't bite. I had experience making Kashi Halwa, and wanted to avoid overhardening. So, after 2 hours 5 minutes, I took the mix off the cooker and mixed in some cardamom powder for aroma.

The halwa was spread on two large plates greased with ghee. The colour seemed right and it tasted good ! The halwa took more than two hours to cool down, but it was ready in time for lunch. I used a knife to try to cut the halwa into pieces. No luck - it hadn't hardened enough - a spoon was needed for serving. Not bad for a first try, I told myself.

I have a very active team at office. We had 16 items total for the potluck - 1 salad, bajjis, maddur vada, parota, phulka, baingan bharta, handi biryani, methi bath, curd seviyan, and 4 sweets (seviyan payasa, carrot halwa, hayagriva and wheat halwa)! Topped off with ice cream. Everyone had a great time.

Overall, I was happy with the halwa. Just the right colour and taste. Could have kept it on the fire for a little longer. I distributed it to others in my office other than my immediate team. Joy spreads by sharing...

The long awaited recipe follows. It differs from the recipes you will find on the internet in one major aspect : the duration you need to keep the "wheat milk" in the water. Besides, I mention quantities in kgs, not "cups".

What you need to make the halwa:

1 kg wheat
3 kg sugar
500g ghee
10-20 elaichi, ground to powder
Few pinches of Food colour
Lot of time, patience !

Prepares: 5 kg of halwa !

Method:

Soak the wheat in water for 1 full day.
Grind wheat in a mixie with water. Extract milk using a juice strainer. Grind the leftover paste with more water. Repeat till you get no more wheat "milk".
Leave the wheat milk undisturbed for a day. White matter will precipitate to the bottom. Remove as much water from the top (it might smell a little!). Repeat this for 3 days.
Transfer the white matter into a 10 liter cooker, add water till about half the cooker's capacity.
Cook on a low flame for half an hour with continuous stirring and scraping of the bottom. Resist the temptation to increase heat! Ensure nothing gets stuck at the bottom. In half an hour's time, white matter would have gotten mixed - and you'll have a thin paste in the cooker
Add sugar & ghee to the mix (will adding the ghee earlier help?).
Cook on a medium flame for at-least an hour more! Keep stirring all the time.
Add the food colour after mixing it thoroughly with water. Mix the halwa well.
Continue cooking on medium flame with occasional stirring. When most(or all) the water has evaporated, add powdered elaichi for aroma. You will need more than 2 hours 15 minutes to reach this state !
Turn off the gas. Spread halwa on two large plates greased with ghee! Let the whole thing cool for a couple of hours.
Cut the halwa. Enjoy - and ensure people praise you for the multi-day marathon effort

See how simple the recipe looks. To execute the recipe - you already have detailed instructions above

Unless you are strong of heart, you would want to make a saner quantity of halwa - say from 250 g of wheat. Remember to scale down the quantity of the rest of the ingredients. If you try to make this, then good luck - and let me know how the halwa turned out. Or better yet, send me some

Quick change of topic. I have not been riding for the past two weeks. I have some back pain. Nothing major, but it hasn't gone away in the past 5 months. Time enough to be concerned. It started in a very strange fashion. I woke up after a night long ride in a sleeper bus one fine day of november. Bending down to put on my shoes seemed as difficult as lifting a hundred kilo weight ! The pain eased in a few days, but never went away. So I asked around for recommendations for a doctor. Rohan(from BOTS) recommended Mr (and not Dr) Badri, a bio-mechanist. Nothing serious, he assures me. No cycling till my back heals, and no other activities. I hope to be back riding soon !

Many readers (most recently Vishwas Narendra) have been asking me questions about touring. To help them, and as a pass-time for me, I am planning the following things

1. Write a small article about touring on bicycles in general
2. Relive my first cycle tour by blogging about it ! This will also contain valuable information for those intending to start touring themselves

Expect to see more updates soon...

I backed myself to scale the 500 km peak. This was possible, I told myself. Maintain an average of 25km an hour over 20 hours - and that's it. Easier said than done : my regular speed is somewhere around the 20s. The temperature was rising with each passing day. So, any attempt had to be made soon. After a week of dilly-dallying, on the evening of the 19th February (that's two weeks ago), I finally made up my mind.

Mentally, I had broken the march to 500 to three parts : the first 300 in 12 hours of riding, and the rest in two batches of 100 kms consuming 6 hours each. 20 hours of moving time @ 25km/hr, 4 hours of "stoppage time" breakfast, lunch, dinner all inclusive. An aggressive plan, but 500 is no small goal either.

It was clear to me that, to ride 500 in a day, certain parameters of the ride had to change. To understand this better, ask yourself the question, "what's in a kilometer ?". To call it a thousand meters is to simplify matters overtly. Most city riders start off with the notion that all kilometers are created equal. The natural first question that comes up is, "how many kilometers of riding". This is a reasonable metric in many cases. But before you ask this question the next time, spare a thought for the conditions of the ride. How smooth the road is, its evenness, the bicycle, what luggage you carry, the tyres on the bicycle, the external conditions, not to mention the physical condition of the rider, all influence a long ride. These determine if you can blast past a kilometer in 120 seconds or less, or if you need struggle 10 minutes or more to cover the same distance.

The most important and controllable parameter seemed to be the evenness of the terrain. My previous day-long ride had been on the Chennai road. While coming back, I had to climb up from Krishnagiri towards Hosur. Not the best of things to do when you are running out of energy at the fag end of the ride. It made sense to ride towards Davangere for this attempt. The details were dim in my memory, but I couldn't remember any significant hills on that road. However, getting to Nelamangala posed a problem - early morning lorry traffic. Manohar suggested that I could ride to Yelahanka-Doddaballapur and join NH4 on Dobaspet. The road till Yelahanka was no problem, but the stretch till Dobaspet was of unknown quality.

Learning from my previous experience, I stocked up on 4 electral packets. And three packets of Enerzal. And sufficient Duracell batteries to keep the electronics working. These were hard to procure. Out of stock everywhere! I saved myself some time and effort by visiting the Marwadi shop from where I had picked these up earlier.

The ride started at 4 AM sharp, post a peaceful sleep. I had eaten well the previous night, and packed my bags as always. Empty roads welcomed me towards NH4. Starting at Horamavu, I kept good speed till BEL circle. I planned to go direct to Nelamangala. The rosy plan crumbled as soon the long queue of lorries greeted me post BEL circle. So fallback to plan B: Yelahanka, Doddaballapur and then to Dobaspet. And may the road gods be with me !

The road gods did stay with me, all the way till Doddaballapur. The road was smooth. If I were Lalu, I'd liken them to the cheeks of a famous actress of the years gone by. No problems keeping up with 25 kilometers an hour. Post Doddaballapur and all the way to Dobaspet, Amrish Puri's cheeks took over. This dragged down the overall pace to 23.

The biggest pain of doing a whole day ride is, surprisingly, the ride itself. Most of the time, the mind is busy, goading the body to keep up the pace. The few joys, when they happen, seem worthwhile. The road towards Dobaspet has a few Banyan trees. A particular place had a couple of them. The rays of the sun bathed the top half of these trees in a crimson glow. A sight to behold ! And where was my camera when I needed it the most?

I stopped for breakfast at Dobaspet. One huge tatte idly, half lemon rice. Three glasses of water. I was consuming a liter of water for every hour of riding, an age old advice from Wayne Lewis. I had a small pain in the left knee, reminiscent of the cramp on the earlier ride. But the right leg seemed fine. One packet of electral had been used up, just to keep things safe. At 8:25, my odometer showed 85.32 km. 3 hr 38 minutes of riding, 43 minutes of stopping time, moving average 23.27, overall 20.6.

Post Dobaspet, the ride eased up. The road was level for large parts, slightly sloping down in certain places. I made good speed. At 10:21, I had covered 135.32km, getting the moving average close to 25. I rode merrily at-least till Sira. Around noon, the heat took over. I felt as if I was slowing down gradually, and perhaps uncontrollably. Partly to get some relief from the sun, at 1 PM, lunch was taken at Hiriyur. The odomoter showed 191.59 km. I had kept the moving average at 25 km/hr, and improved on the overall speed to 21.6 km/hr.

The highway was, as Manohar rightly said, "a barrren highway". An acute shortage of food places and places to relax characterizes this road. The sun overhead gives no respite to the rider, either. After a 40 minute lunch break at "Greenland Hotel", I was back on the road. A little rusty compared to the morning, but as eager as ever. I kept motivating myself. There was still hope to do 500 km.

Things got worse post lunch. I was clearly slowing down. The kilometers were going past slower. The heat was the biggest hurdle. Liters of water flowed down my gut and kept me cool. But did they speed me up ? No, sir. The sight of windmills is a feature of Chitradurga. The place where I saw the first windmill in my existence. At 4:00 PM, I finally reached the place after a short hill climb. 237 kilometers had gone past by the 12 hour time. Not bad, but worse was ahead of me, not that I could see it!

I turned back after Chitradurga. So tired I was that I stopped at a roadside shop and attacked the bananas. The shop owner informed me that the heat goes up from Hiriyur towards Chitradurga. I topped up my water supplies hastily and started my journey back; I had no time to waste!

By this time, it was becoming clearer that the 500 target would be difficult to achieve. I was hoping against hope. Soon it will be cold, I reasoned, and riding will be faster. What had I not considered ? fatigue. It was becoming more and more difficult to ride, a fact my mind was least interest to acknowledge. Or perhaps, that was the only way to keep some hope of the stiff target. When I look back at my statistics sheet, I can see what happened. On the road, I had no clue of what was going on. Dinner didn't taste right. I pulled myself back to riding at 9 PM. In the previous 5 hours, I had rested for 1hr 21 minutes and ridden 80 kilometers. In other words, I had been averaging a meagre 16 km an hour.

I have kept no records of what time I stopped, but it came at the 332 km mark - a mere 15 km after dinner. I felt very sleepy, almost as if my whole body wanted to drop asleep. It was very hard keeping the bike steady on the road. I found myself swaying a little to the right. That's the most dangerous thing to happen at night, with the lorries riding next to me ! So, I took the painfully difficult, but logical decision. I stopped.

I had aimed for 500, but fallen short of even my earlier highest, 340 km. I could have ridden a little more. There was time aplenty. But what was that the point ? If the aim was bettering 340, then I didn't need to strive so hard for the first 12 hours. Falling short of my earlier mark suited me just fine.

Luckily, a dhaba was just around the corner. I pushed my bike to a corner and mumbled my order, "ondu tea kodi". I also made a call to Harsha, telling him about what happened, and that I intended to transport my bike back to Bangalore. He offered to come by and pick me up if needed, not that I'd take it. I realize I didn't wait for my tea. I had dozed off without control. Perhaps for a half hour.

When I woke up, I was happy to see my cycle still around! My next task was finding some transport back to Bangalore. Lorries, smaller goods vehicles, or anything else would suit me just fine. The only tempo chap who had settled in the next 'Bar and Restaurant' flatly refused to take my bicycle. I had spent 20 minutes waiting for him, tried all my tricks. To no avail.

By this time, I felt a little refreshed. I rode ahead to the next dhaba, which did seem to be a promising location. Lots of lorries. At-least one guy would oblige. Bad luck - all of them were happily indulging in making fun of their marwadi seth. They had no work to do, nowhere to go. One of them suggested I sleep there, that morning would open up more options. I did exactly that.

No prizes for guessing that I had a sound sleep. But any guesses about when I woke up ? 6:45 AM, 8 hours of sleep. My knees felt a little like lead. Open air ablutions made it harder for me; a western toilet was the need of the hour ! I spent some time chatting with the guys, drinking chai, etc. I wouldn't be riding much, so it made no sense to hurry up. I luckily found some transport near the toll gate. I hopped onto an empty lorry. The driver had stopped there for tea, and that was good for me. I got a drop till Dobaspet. No interesting conversations happened on the lorry. In retrospect, that surprises me. The driver took no money for the drop.

As I was getting down at Dobaspet, a funny incident happened. We were parked just before the Dobaspet fly-over. A foreigner arrived on the scene. He was riding a broken "mens bike", funnily dressed in a lungi which wasn't folded. With his underpants showing up slightly, he cut a curious picture. One look at him, and you would figure out as much as I did : he was on the way to Bangalore. And here was my opportunity to get some company. I wasted no time introducing myself, "Hi! I'm Shree". "Hi! I'm Danny", came the quick reply. We were off.

We represented a strange role reversal, Danny and I. Here was this American riding an Indian "mens" bike, wearing a shirt, dhoti and chappals. And there was me, an Indian riding an American bike, and dressed up with my jersey, gloves and track pants. One of the first questions I asked Danny must have been, "why this dress", to which he replied, "I wanted the full Indian experience!".

This role reversal must surely have confused atleast some on-lookers. For instance, there was this kid at a roadside hotel. We had stopped for my breakfast. I had gone inside to eat tatte idly. Danny was resting on a bench outside. The bikes were parked next to each other. The bikes, naturally, were the first object of curiosity for the kid. I was keenly watching him, and he in turn was busy admiring my bicycle. The kid came in and looked at Danny. The kid pointed to the bike; his query was in the sign language. Danny pointed inside towards me, and pointed the Indian bike to himself. Guess we ended up with a confused, and perhaps unbelieving, kid.

Danny's Indian bike had been rebuilt from just a frame at a cost of 1500 rupees. The front brakes were non-existent. The chain had a tendency to come off. Danny had been riding this bike for a couple of days with patience and effort. He seemed to be enjoying this experience. Danny rides a bike like mine back in the United States. So he has seen both sides now. That has led me to thinking when I'll try the "complete Indian experience" myself...

There were several interesting things about Danny. For starters, he is just nineteen years old. He told me that he was "between schools". The American usage of the word "school" has confused me for years now. For instance, they use terms like "graduate school", which would be considered ridiculous here. Here, if you aint goin to "college", you aint grown up. His parents have been very supportive morally of this journey, he says, but he saved up for the trip by working part-time ! And why would he be visiting an Ashram at this young age ? A short story is his reply. But the summary is clear : he wants to find out what he wants to do, and then get a degree for it ! Needless to say, I am suitably impressed by this young man. Read more about Danny's activities at his blog, and perhaps his latest post which speaks of his ride and our meeting.

We rode together for perhaps a couple of hours. I had a fixture for the afternoon, a school alumni meet at 2:30. To have a realistic chance of making the meet, I had to ride hard. We had a parting tender coconut, some snaps and then I had to leave him behind. My legs were still a pale shadow of yesterday. At Dasarahalli, I took an auto back home. That ensured I reached R.T. Nagar right on time for the alumni meet.

Thus ended this attempt to 500. I didn't achieve it. When will I try it again ? After the summer maybe. But never mind when. Irrespective of success or failure, you will read about it here.

Before I end, I must tell you about one change I finally made to my bike. I am now riding on a Brooks B17 Classic saddle. Any hint of bum discomfort seems to belong to history now.

Also, I seem to have found the reason for the pain in my knees. It's so basic I find it embarrassing to write about here : seat height too low. Without that, I am still wondering how far I could have gone...

My plans firmed up last Thursday, and I decided that Saturday would be the day to try this out. That would leave most of Sunday free for me to rest. I planned to start at 4 AM on Saturday and finish at 4 AM. I planned to stick to the Bangalore-Chennai road (Bangalore-Krishnagiri-Chennai), and turn back at a suitable time. If I ended up home after riding 24 hours, then I could just drop asleep.

I carried a couple of electral packets, Parle-G and a packet of dates. I had cycled for 15-17 hours at a stretch earlier, but anything beyond was unknown territory. Dates have served me well over the years; I typically eat them when I run out of juice. Electral was more of an insurance policy. I equipped my bike with a headlight (Shimano, 300 rupees), and had ample batteries. I also carried Gauthaman's GPS receiver, a torch, spare tube, toolkit, two water bottles, spare clothes and the bike lock. I was prepared for all possibilities !

After 5 hours of sleep, I woke up at 3:28 AM last Saturday, for what would turn out to be the longest cycle ride for me ever. I had set the alarm for 3:30, and was pleased was wake up before that. Getting up two minutes before the alarm showed that I was keen on the ride, I told myself. I had packed my bag the previous day to save time. Prior to leaving, I gulped down a glass of water. In a few minutes, I felt very uncomfortable and ended up vomiting. Now, that's a very bad start to a long day. Postponing the ride looked like a good idea. Continuing with the plan looked like a better one. After all, how many times would I be this close to doing something this "crazy" ?

The ride starte at at 4:25 AM. A strategy for the day was shaping up in my head : ride at one steady pace the whole day. Easier said than done, but no harm trying. In that spirit, I did not push myself. The Silk Board flyover was crossed in under an hour, a distance of about 22 kms. But all was not well. My right leg (near the knee) was showing signs of developing a cramp. The left leg looked to be in better shape. Temporary pain, I told myself. I crossed Hosur at a steady pace nearing 25 km/hr. In the misplaced hope that electral can get rid of the cramps, I emptied one packet into a liter of water.

The morning was cold and foggy. In several places the fog all but blotted out the sun. I was riding at a good pace on the left of the road without much problems. Only once did I have a problem. A BMTC bus overtook me and stopped a little ahead. I was drinking water out of my bottle. Applying the brakes quickly saved me. Krishnagiri, at approximately 500 meters above sea level is 300-400 meters below Bangalore. As you might guess, riding to Krishnagiri is easier than coming back. I had ridden this road earlier too, so nothing new awaited me there.

I stopped for breakfast at 8:30 AM, some 10 km before Krishnagiri. The odometer on the GPS showed 92.99 km, 3 hrs 49 minutes of "moving time". I hadn't stopped for much before that, perhaps 5 minutes. 30 minutes gone on breakfast. Including yummy Pongal in the breakfast was mandatory. Why ? I reckoned it would give me some much needed energy in the afternoon.

I bid goodbye to NH7 at Krishnagiri. Left turn towards Chennai. Another good highway. The road goes up and down at small angles. Chennai is at sea-level, so the overall effect is that you end up lower as time goes. So cycling there should be pretty easy, right ? Not so for one reason : a headwind ensures that Chennai can't be claimed without a fight. The headwind was not continuous, but resisted me in gusts. My right leg also offered good resistance. The electral hadn't helped. I continued riding, albeit at a slower pace. Riding with pain typically means that the rider needs to keep their heads on the job. So, where's the time to look around ? Not that there was much to see. Mostly the distant odd hill.

At 10:30 AM (less than two hours after breakfast), I stopped for coffee at a shop. It was mostly an excuse to rest. I actually slept for about 45 minutes ! I had pushed my legs, and they had pushed me. The only saving grace seemed to be that my legs had lesser pain compared to breakfast time. Less than 2.5 hours of riding (and breaks) and then an hour long lunch break close to Vaniyambadi. Was the head-head getting stronger or was I growing weaker ?

15kms after Vaniyambadi, I had a choice to make. The time was 3:30 PM, 170 kms had gone by, and I had to decide what point to turn back. I had spent 11 hrs on the road, riding for 8 hours and stopping/resting for 3. Going back would take longer, for two reasons : I had to climb to Bangalore from Krishnagiri, plus the more time I spent on the road, the slower I'd get. Returning back at the 11 hour point seemed the right thing to do. The fact that I was riding into a headwind only made the decision easier. I turned back.

Riding back towards Bangalore turned out to be far easier and faster. The headwind opposing my march towards Chennai had now turned to aid me. Quick calculations tell me that I was riding 30% faster. That means that the headwind slowed me down by at-least 15%. Wannabe riders of B2C1D, please take note : you might face the headwind too. Factoring them into your calculations might save you some grief later!

For dinner (7:30 PM, 235km mark, 11.5 hrs of riding, 4 hrs of rest) I stopped at a "high class veg restaurant" near Krishnagiri. I have ridden enough in Tamil Nadu, but have largely been unsuccessful tracing the origin of the phrase "high class". Curiously, I can't recollect having seen a "high class non-veg restaurant" ever. All these "high class" restaurants seem to have found one more way to improve revenues : selling mineral water. Just like the hotels in Bangalore, these guys keep a mineral water bottle on your tables. Most guests seem to oblige of course, even when there is nothing wrong with the "regular" water.

Post dinner, there wasn't much to do. Except ride in the dark of course. Hundred odd kilometers was the remaining distance and I had seven and a half hours to cover the distance. I took ample rest to tackle sore legs and boredom. At midnight, I had finished 285 kms with 5 hours of rest and 14.5 of riding. Tea breaks, general stops, battery changes, all contributed to increase the rest time from 4 to 5.5 hrs by the time I reached back.

The night was very cold. Whenever I stopped, I could feel the pinch. And I was stopped times. Three times by lorry drivers, asking for directions to Hosur and Mysore. Once by a car driver, asking for directions to Hubli. Once by a small goods van driver, wanting to end up at the new airport. I patiently answered their queries.

The most eventful stop happened a couple of kilometers before silk board. Two motorbikes crossed the road below the newly constructed flyover. The road was very well illuminated. For atleast 10 seconds, they were behind me. I sensed they were behind me for some reason. Then the guy on the left kind of brushed the rear pannier. I stopped in alarm, turned back a few meters and started shouting, "thief, thief". Not sure if they really were theives, but they didn't stop. Good for me, good for them. I was very careful on the road after this and was on the lookout for any kind of suspicious activity. Luckily for me, nothing untoward happened. My eyes felt a little heavy at around 3 AM, but not for long.

Anyway, I reached home an hour short of twenty-four. The final statistics ? 23 hours, 340.48 kms, riding time 17:36 hrs, stoppage time 5:25 hrs. I was quite happy to be back, and glad the ride was over. Half an hour later, I went to sleep. And woke up after 7 hours. Thighs felt sore, but everything else seemed fine. I am happy with the seat too. I am soon changing over to a Brooks saddle, but think highly of the one the Sutra came with anyway.

I hadn't trained for this ride, so I reckon 340 kms in 23 hours is pretty good. Could this be improved ? First, I could have ridden another hour for the heck of it and perhaps stretched the distance to 360 kms. But I didn't deem that necessary. Developing a cramp so early in the ride killed my chances, else 400 kms would be done for sure. Some training and improved fitness could increase the distance to 480 or 500 kms hmm. Something to try another day, perhaps.

I'm trying to remember how much water I might have consumed. Perhaps 10 liters. Anything else you might want to know ?

For those lazy to read the specs, this bike is a steel frame touring bike with MTB-ish geometry, equipped with 700C 1.25" tyres, Avid BB7 disc brakes, and bar-end shifters. The bike does not ship with pedals or mud-guards(fenders). I have equipped my bike with inexpensive local pedals.

The Sutra looks deceptively like a road bike. Unlike road bikes, it is not light. It weighs in at 30 pounds (official specs), as much as an aluminium MTB !

The good things:

The first thing one feels after getting on the bike is how stable it is. This feeling I cannot explain; it has to be experienced. The steel frame seems to have some kind of shock damping capabilities. It feels much smoother to ride than a road bike. Some shock absorption makes it easier on the body, but nothing like an MTB.

The saddle(seat) took a couple of weeks to get adjusted to. I am comfortable on it now, and have ridden upto 150 kms in a day without any issues. However, I will be upgrading to a Brooks Classic saddle soon.

The wheels seem to be strongly built. I have ridden the bike on some true MTB terrain (including downhill) to come to that conclusion. Don't take that to mean that you can ride fast on MTB terrain; the lack of shock absorbers will ensure you'll give up pretty quickly. But do take it to mean that you can navigate through harsh terrain with a loaded bike without worrying about whether the bike will hold up.

A clever design allows you to use tubes with either presta or shrader valves. The stock tubes are equipped with presta valves, held in position using a circular piece of plastic. Remove the plastic piece to plug in a shrader valve. Sweet !

The disc brakes are very very effective, and I simply love the way I can modulate them.

The chain stay is sufficiently long, ensuring that my legs don't touch the panniers when I am touring. I have toured extensively on a hero thunder MTB, and really like this aspect. This is expected to be a standard feature of all touring bikes, but I think mentioning this explicitly might help.

The smallest chainring on the Sutra is 30. Many consider this kind of high for an all purpose touring bike. Typical MTBs have a 22. I was aware of this aspect before buying. I feel that very steep inclines will be difficult to negotiate with the Sutra (especially in loaded conditions for a tired rider!), but haven’t tackled any tough climbs of late to measure the impact. However, I have observed that this bike lets me climb the everyday inclines (flyovers etc) quite efficiently.

Possible pitfalls :

I may have a small problem w.r.t bike fitting. You see, I calculated the frame size a method, which essentially says : measure inseam, multiply by something and boom - there's your frame size. I measured an inseam of approx 86 cms, and purchased a 56 cm bike (incidentally, this was the only one available). The Pune based dealer had only one Sutra available, and that too of size 56 cms. So I thought I was lucky to get the right size. Looks like that may not be completely true. I have a feeling I am needing to stretch a little more than I should, that the bike may be slightly larger than what I needed. But I am not too sure about this yet. Moral of the story : it is better to buy a bike after trying the fit ?

Commuter "pain points":

I use the Sutra for everyday commute to office, a small distance of 5 kilometers from my house. I find that my trousers get stuck to the front chain-ring (the "gear" in the front) very easily. Most of the time, you end up with torn trousers. This also greases the pants thoroughly.

The bike doesn't come with a stand. Parking is a pain. I am forced to use the nearby walls, trees and poles as support. Doing so has caused a few painful scratches on the frame already. Once, a dog pushed over the bike in its pursuit of some food, causing scratches all over the bike. The scratches are eminently visible since the frame is painted green. I am used to scratches now, and have stopped worrying about them. I haven't found this to be much of a problem while touring. I use panniers while touring and am typically happy letting the bike rest on them.

To a daily commuter like me, the biggest pain seems to be locking the bike. I have one of those unweildy cable locks. My life was so simple with the frame lock on the Thunder MTB. I'm planning to get a frame lock added to both the front and the rear wheels. Lalu (my trusted mechanic) tells me that thieves are beginning to understand the simplicity of the quick release. So I am thinking of using a small frame-lock for the front wheel too. Can't wait to get rid of the ugly cable lock.

Carrying a bag on my back everyday is also something that I am beginning to get tired of. This bag causes my back to sweat needlessly. I ride 5 km to office and my back looks as if I've ridden 50. I'm considering adding a spring loaded carrier to make my life better.

I can't help wondering why the bike dealers don't make these small, but painful changes that we need to make to these expensive imported bikes ! I am sure that these small changes, if made by default, will make the average commuter's life easier...

One aspect of the design of this bike has annoyed me: usage of a fairly non-standard star-shaped allen key to adjust the placement of the disc pads (of the brakes). This tool isn't part of most standard toolkits, and it beats me why they didn't consider usage of a standard allen key. Who wants to carry umpteen tools after paying a bomb for a bike. Not me, for sure !

Finally, some cables are routed from the top of the top tube. I would have liked if they were routed below it. This would make it easier for me to keep a cable lock attached to the frame. Doing so currently scrapes the paint off the top tube.

Damages caused to the bike till now:

My friend KP calls my body a ಕತ್ರಿ (scissor) sometimes. He complains that I care very less for my equipment. In some cases, he is right. But in a majority of cases, I cant help thinking that there is something about the way I do things that stresses the equipment beyond what many people do. These stresses perhaps lead to equipment failures that don't plague most people.

I've suffered two punctures on the front tyre. One of them was a nasty neck puncture that made my life difficult. I'm not sure why this happened. The other puncture was due to a bamboo thorn.

One morning, I woke and find that a few teeth on the middle chain ring were bent. I can only guess that this could have happened due to pushing the bike over a few stones when the rear end of the bike was loaded. Using a flat metal piece and a few blows of the hammer, I was able to straighten the bent section on the chainring.

Bike features that I haven't used yet:

The rear shifter can be operated in both indexed and friction mode. Indexed mode is the typical thing. Friction mode can be activated by turning a ring on the shifter. While touring, one can use this mode to ride without bothering about derailleur adjustment. This is also supposed to make it possible to use any available deraileur. Handy while touring long distances, but I haven't met that situation yet.

General Observations:

The 1.25" tyres on this bike make it very difficult to climb gradients which have some gravel, loose stones, etc. In earlier days, I absolutely hated pushing my bike. But now-adays, I am more comfortable with pushing my bike a bit !

There is a provision on the frame to accomodate V-brakes. The mount point for the V-brakes are covered with a plastic/rubber piece on either side. One day I found that one of them was missing, and promptly removed the other one and kept if safe somewhere. If you own a Sutra and don't want to lose it, then make it a point to remove these pieces and keep them somewhere safe.

Overall :

I needed a bike that was easier to ride in the majority of the roads I intend to ride on. Even while touring, most of the roads we pass through are of decent quality. So why waste energy on wider tyres ? I also wanted a do-all bike, and the Sutra seemed to fit.

And I must say that I am happy with the bike overall, and the way it has taken some thrashing comfortably.

I had a desire to visit Kanjarpane during the christmas vacation. On the fourth of January, I reached Subrahmanya at 5:30 PM. I had to stop riding somewhere, and what better place than Kanjarpane. This was my second visit to the place overall. The first one was thirteen years ago, but surprisingly my memories of the place were green. Kanjarpane is three kilometers away from Kukkujadka, which in turn is close to Sullia in Dakshina Kannada district.

Stopping by Doddathota, I peered around. I had been advised to take a shortcut from there to Kanjarpane. The only open shop in Doddathota didn't seem to be selling anything. Three people were discussing local affairs. My head light and tail light provided the much needed distraction. Their enquiries started soon after. It didn't take them long to start asking who I would be. I pondered over the question for a couple of seconds. Hoping for a faint glimpse of recognition from them, I replied, with some hesitation, "son of Abasama". Their reaction was a complete surprise. "ಓಹೋ ಅವರಾ ? ನಾವು ಅವರನ್ನು Englishman ಅಂತ ಕರಿತಾ ಇದ್ವಿ. ದಿನಾ ನಮ್ಮ ಮನೆಗೆ ಬರ್ತಾ ಇದ್ದರು. ಮನಗೆ ಬಂದ ಮೇಲೆ ಐದು ನಿಮಿಷ ಬೆವರು ಒರಿಸಿಕೊಳ್ಳುತಿದ್ದರು !". (him? we used to call him an Englishman. He was an everyday visitor to our house. After coming inside the house, he would spend the first five minutes wiping off his sweat!) Dad had a way of leaving an impression on people. He used to be very particular about dressing up. Out of the house, he was always seen wearing a suit and Bata Ambassador shoes. In those surroundings, he would look out of place in these times. Can you imagine the situation thirty years ago ?

My father died when I was just passing out of class 6. For now, he is a fading memory. He must have been the only "Abasama" in India. Yes, that was his legal name, quoted for your reference. A person with a mind of his own, and not one to stick to conventions. Born K S Gopalakrishna, he changed his name to Honnamma Gopalakrishna way before feminism became fashionable. Honnamma was my grandma. My father apparently argued, "why should people be named just after their fathers", and followed it up with a name change. My uncle says that the idea behind coming up with the name Abasama was to show up first in the alphabetical order. The third letter "a" would have put any "Abbas" out of contention for the first slot in the attendance register. The Aamirs and the Jayalalithaas were unheard of in those days. Some say he wanted something unique, or perhaps a meaningless name, and hence chose Abasama. Google didn't exist then, else he would have learnt about Daud Abasama, an African King, and perhaps chosen something else ?

Kanjarpane is a place with some history. Or depending on the way you look at it, people there like to preserve their history. A good example of that is the preservation and renovation of the Bala Durgaparameshwari Temple. This temple is reckoned to have a history of 6-8 centuries, though exact numbers are hard to come by. A better example of preserving history ? The extensive family tree.

Largely due to the efforts of Kudumbila Gopalakrishnam and Ramakrishna Kanjarpane, we have a printed book that documents our family tree. Ten generations of it, starting from the year 1720. 34 pages of a size greater than A4. The patriarchal tree starts with one Annamari Govinda Hegde of Hosanagara (Uttara Kannada District). 1251 people are mentioned in the tree. These people are spread over five villages : Hasanadka, Shankaratota, Ajjanagadde, Poonadka and Kanjarpane. Just FYI, I am at generation 8. Grandpa to many many kids, see ! Traversing a family tree isn't easy, and can easily confuse most people. One reason for that are the naming conventions of old. In one case, I noticed a person, his father and grandfather. They were all curiously named "Venkatramanayya". Trivia : Wikipedia has a very good information about how kids were named in England, Scotland and Ireland.

By now, you are probably wondering who are the people I could have visited. Thanks to the family tree, I have a clear picture of how we are related. A quick confession: I had to study the family tree for 15 odd minutes to understand the relationships. Kudumbila Gopalakrishna, Ramakrishna Kanjarpane and Maipadka Satyanarayana. All these show up as Generation 8, same as me, and hence are all elder brothers to me. Kudumbila Gopalakrishna is going great guns above 70, whereas Ramakrishna is somewhere in the 40s. Maipadka Satyanarayana is in the 50s. Anybody heard of a "generation gap" in the same generation ? How am I related to them ? We have the same great great grandfather. Simple, eh?

I also visited Kanjarpane Satyanarayan, who, for reasons unknown to me, seems to be the most popular personality around. Mention "Kanjarpane" to anyone, and pat comes the reply, "is Satya related to you?". However, the credit for popularising Kanjarpane should go to Satya's elder brother, Balasubrahmanya. If you follow kannada literature, then you probably know that he won the Muddanna Award recently. These guys are a little closer to me - we share the same great-grandfather. Enough talking about relations for one article.

My stay in Kanjarpane lasted just a day. However, it sure was more memorable than that. I heard a lot many of the old stories. Many of them revolving around my father and his adventures. I thoroughly enjoyed these. As a bonus, I got to watch an old marriage video dating to 1990. Fleeting glimpses of my father were the highlights of the video. Wearing a suite, and everyone else in a dhoti. Quite a sight, never mind the blurry video. I also met M G Satya's sons, and much time was spent remembering the good old days of childhood.

Right next to Kanjarpane is this mountain called Bantamale. Good enough for a trek. Add in a visit to relatives who are closer to me than our relationship would suggest. Plus throw in a few more days of relaxation from the hustle bustle of namma Bengaluru. Would I need any more reasons for another visit ?

In the coming days, I expect to post some stories about the vacations. Plus the long promised review of my new bike.

The Sutra has a steel frame and weighs approximately 14 kilograms. It is equipped with Avid BB7 disk brakes, strong Mavic rims, and bar-end shifters (front: friction, rear: index/friction). For the rest of the specs, look at the official site. Note that the bike lacks pedals and mud-guards(fenders). I got the 2009 model. The newer 2010 model has mud-guards and a different colour/graphics.

Me on my Sutra(click to enlarge)

The pedals in the picture are local pedals. I paid 60 rupees for them. Small change compared to the cost of the bike : 52,620 rupees only.

Wondering why this bike was chosen ? I wanted a reliable, all-purpose bike. Disc brakes were high on my wish-list. I have been riding MTBs since 2003, but I was looking for an easier ride for a change. Plus, I wanted a bike which was available in India. The Sutra fits the bill, with a name that is hard to beat!

The Sutra feels very stable during the ride. This feeling is hard to explain; it needs to be experienced ! I just love the way I can modulate the brakes! I'm still getting used to the riding position and bar-end shifters. The bike absorbs some amount of road bumps. Nothing like having shocks, but that was expected anyway. She climbs pretty well too. I did the last 15km of the ride to Somwarpet in 50 minutes. I'm not in the best of shape, so it is all about the bike

My pet peeves : few things I do not like about the bike (these characteristics are shared by most of the imported bikes, and can all be remedied using accessories)

1. No side-stand. Makes this a pain to park
2. No guard for the front chain-ring. Need to be careful while I'm riding the bike and wearing jeans.

I seem to be going faster on this new bike. Much faster than my older bikes for sure. To me, this represents a problem. Other riders on the road have a certain assumption about bicycles : how fast we can move, the position of the reflectors on them, not to mention the cost of causing an accident! This bike breaks these assumptions, and I better be wary...

I'll post a review of this bike and my experiences in Jan, 2010. I want to ride the bike before posting anything that looks like a review. I'll soon be upgrading the bike to include the B17 Brooks Saddle, and perhaps 1.75 inch wheels. Happy riding to me...