Weekend Ride
Bangalore's weather has taken a pleasant turn nowadays. Ideal conditions for cycling.
And off late, I have been trying to look around Bangalore. Cycling on the rural roads beats cycling on highways hands down, any day. No horns, great scenery, quite a bit of shade make for really pleasant rides.
On Sunday(28th May) we had a really good ride. "We" meaning me, my friend Krishnaprasad(henceforth KP) and an Aussie friend, Wayne Lewis. To introduce my co-riders: KP is a Software Engineer at Phillips. Passionate about cycling. He has done a few long distance rides himself - notably Pune to Kanyakumari and Kanyakumari to Trichy. Cycles regularly, and we ride together regularly. Wayne is Commisioner to India representing the State of Victoria (Australian Govt). Cycling runs in his blood. He is a former bike racer, has won many races, etc. More than anything else, he is remarkably fit. At 55 years of age, he rides fast and makes us "youngsters" huff and puff!
I met Wayne on Inner Ring Road at 6 AM and we proceeded to the Sarjapur Road-Inner Ring Road junction. Krishnaprasad joined us at this point and the fun began...
Pedalathon!
A group of crazy people belonging to Bangalore and Chennai had been cooking up the idea of a pedalathon. Their plan was to do Bangalore - Chennai on their cycles in 2 days. The finalised route was over Chittoor. Supposed to save about 30 kms of the journey.
I wasn't privy to their initial plans, but fortunately got involved last thursday, courtesy Satish. Satish enquired in a mail about several aspects of long distance cycling. Hence I also got to know about their plans. Frankly, I hadn't cycled in very large groups and I was interested in doing it. I readily threw my weekend plans and became part of the pedalathon team. I was also keen to try out my Viper in a long distance trip. So I got a carriage fitted onto the Viper. Thanks to Lalu( my mechanic) , this ceased to be a hassle.
The "official" website for the trip is : pedalathon.pbwiki.com.
The full team : Ajay, Guru, Kiruba, KK, Sandeep, Satish, Shree and Shyam. Abhi was on a motorcycle, constituting the support team. He turned out to play an important role too...
Around the world in 20 months!
Can't resist posting this amazing piece of news. Avijit Chakraborthy is on
A journey on a bicycle of about 64,000 km (40,000 miles) across 62 countries in 20 months...
He started off on March 2005 and hopes to finish by November 2006. As of May 2006, he had already completed 41,250 km across 36 countries. Learn more here.
In case you didn't get it, that's an amazing average of 107 kilometers a day over a 20 month period. He is married and has a kid too! If he succeeds, he will have a guinness record to boot! Way to go, Avijit - and all the best to you...
(Last Thought - 1) : Shree, what the heck are you doing in office ?
(Last Thought) : Records are made to be broken 😉
Motorbiking to Munnar
Decided sometime last week that it was time for a long ride - this time on a motorcycle. I reckoned that my Pulsar 180 had gathered dust for too long and that it was time to lose control!
Monday was a holiday on account of May day. The traveller in me imagined that three days would be too small for a motorbike ride. So I took a day off on tuesday. With four days under my belt (Apr 29,30 and May 1,2), a long journey beckoned.
My brother was also keen on a ride - and he was keen to ride solo too. So we decided that he will ride solo and I'd try and get a partner. That didn't work out. We both set out solo - a Pulsar and a Fiero. The men and their machines.
Initially, I had planned to visit Kemmannagundi on Day 1, reach a place near Munnar on Day 2, Munnar on Day 3 and return journey on Day 4. I had estimated the journey to be around 1500 kms. Good enough, for 4 days.
A look at Outlook's "52 Weekend Getaways" told me that the best route to Kemmannagundi was over Hassan and Chickmagalur. We planned to finish the day at an aunt's place near Manjeshwar (Kerala). This place is quite near to the Karnataka-Kerala border. So we started early on Saturday (29th April). At 5:15 AM our engines were already roaring.