Cyclogues

Manali-Leh Assorted Photos

2010-08-14T09:56:00.000-07:00

Deleted all bad ones, then deleted not so important ones, then not so good ones, then few good ones too... but the size still does not go below 1GB.... here are few photos from my secondary camera that kind of captures my days as an ant - The ant that rode on an ice cream sprayed with chocolate chips for few days and heaps of brown sugar for the rest: http://www.filejumbo.com/Download/E818A03C50D3598C

Mandatory Pre-requisite to view photos:
1. If anyone is travelling on those hills they would appear not bigger than an ant. So imagine an ant on those mountains to gauge their depths & heights
2. Imagine you are that ant travelling on one of those far off hills
3. These photos are not of landscapes that can be seen from far off but of those through which one rides and lives through out the journey

Do put a comment if you find any problem in getting this file.

How to Stage a Fiasco at Himalayas

2010-08-10T21:46:00.000-07:00

While I sit back and try to digest the debacle of my latest cycling tour, the excitement of Cycling Indian Himalayas(Manali to Leh) and the associated planning activities haunt my psych. Even after a month, I have to pinch myself to calm down and conscously drub the hangover of the excitement....there is not even a single day that I have not thought about The Mesmerising Giants though they took couple of swipes at me. Here are few observations on my planning
1. All find a time of year that is farthest to snow season while I scourged and begged on the forums to give me a time which is closest to snow season
2. All postponed their tours due to bad weather this year but I kept preponing
3. Aug to Sept worked out to be the best period as per statistics & Calculations but I chose June
4. The mountain passes kept closing down one after another and visitors postponed their trip while I went ahead and booked the tickets event after the first pass closed down
5. Many people turned back from Manali fearing getting struck between passes. I crossed the passes and got struck
6. Many people even cancelled their trip as deaths due to blizzards and avalanches pured in while wanted to see them to comprehend

If you want your tour also to be a fiasco then do exactly as what I did! But wait a second... what happened to those 'others' who thought wisely? Here is the answer Visitor at Nako... The Giants continue to devour lives with much more vigour than ever in a new Avatar.

Fortunately (!?) the Himalayas had unleashed their wrath thas was not seen since 1956 with Blizzards and Avalanches that sucked in 400 goats and few sheperds in one day, few trekers who trekked into the understimated snowy mountains, roadies enoying a snow ridge and all those that it could lay its hands on. Having lost valuable days in stalking each mountain pass for days, I decided to taste the Himalayas with a motor bike instead of a bike. We literally crash gated each pass and forced ourselves into Leh which took us 10 days ..... others do it in two days during a normal summer - Others ride while we had to drag (No exaggeration) our bikes on the snow for kms!! Return from Leh was more excrutiating with time running out and The Giants in mood to let us go. All in all it was a calculated offseason tour to see the Himalayas in its roughness but The Giants went too far in showing that turned the tour into a fiasco which I do not mind repeating

I am not sure whether I will have enough time to show justice to my experience in this writeup but 20GB of unedited videos of every stretch, I am sure will be a big enough crystal ball for all the Manali-Leh dreamers to gaze at.

(Will update http://www.twitter.com/cyclogues every time I have something interesting to share)

Manali-Leh Prep: MSR Hubba Tent & Basic but long necessities

2010-06-03T10:45:00.000-07:00

Wow... felt like I am playing with a feather pitching this tent..... it takes 2 mins to pitch this tent and less than 2 mins to learn!! yes that is exactly what it is needed to pitch this tent but others warn that it is the case only inside a protected living room and not in high winds and tough outdoors.

However I wish the vestibule was towards the leg space instead being beside the body .... that way I would have escaped any unwanted odor of touring paraphernalia. And few more pegs,guys cords, tent repair patches would not have made MSR a loss making company!

Other basic (I never knew I have such a long basic necessities) things that will be going with me looks like this

Cycling
Packed Cycle
Allen Keys
Chain tool
Hand pump
Camel back
Puncture Kit
Tubes
Cables (Break & Shifters)
Break pads
Chain
Rack & additional screws
Bar ins
Front light
Back light
pedals
Gel seat cover
Helmet
Eye Wear
Panniers
Bungee Chords
Cycle locks
Sun Tan Prevention Lotion
Pannier rain covers
Handle Bag
Glucose Powder (big)
Salt
mud guards

Camping
Tent
Sleeping bag
Big Dagger
small fruit knife
tooth paste
toothbrush
soap
shaving kit
deodrant
Shoes
socks
Light??
Chappels
Towel
Paper Tissues
Thermal top
Thermal Pant
T Shirt
Alpine Jacket
Duct tapes
Fire lighter
Paper cups/Plates/Spoon
Inner Wears
Track Pant
Sleeping Mat?
Woolen Monkey Cap
Needle and Twine Strings
Tentative Plan & Maps
tent repair kit
stakes
AMS Pills (Bromix & Ginger tablets)
Plastic covers
Old news papers
Suthli String
Musquito Repellant Cream
one days survival food + EveryDay Breakfast(Cereals, Hurittu, Avalakki, Puliyogere Mix, Puri, raisins, cashews, almonds, biscuits)
Woolen Gloves
Water Bottles
pepper spray
Cloth clips
Rubber Bands
Whistle
Personal Details Card

Apparels
Cycling tights
Cycling jerseys
Normal shorts
Rain Jacket
Rain pant
Fleece Jacket
sweat band
wrist band
Front Shade
Cycling Gloves
White Dupatta
light towel

Misc
Phone
Eye Lens Kit
Wallet (Money, Debit Card, Passport)
Phone Charger
Air Tickets
Gifts to women, men and children
Prescription glasses
Batteries
Still Camera
Solar Roll & Power Bank
Video Camera & fixtures & PC Sync Chords
Laptop & batteries
iPod
Small Mirror
RhinoStat
Crocin

Manali-Leh Prep: Thorns, rains and snow

2010-06-03T10:24:00.000-07:00

Well, bad luck

1. Boss who approved leave is transferred and I am under a new boss who has tons of work for me. Need to request for leave again but not very hopeful of getting it

2. An onsite opportunity which I was looking forward to, want me to be at onsite around 22nd of June

3. After much workout I find I have put on 2 kgs more !!

4. Great disturbances in the Jammu region. Heavy rains, flood in Srinagar region, Landslides in Rohtang, 6 feet snow in Baralachla, 2 deaths due to avalanche in Chang la region, Srinagar-Leh route closed for heavy vehicle and recently opened for oneway traffic, Manali to Leh has been closed without any sign of reopening. I dont think I can cycle on this My washed out cycling route

5 People are returning back without able to reach Leh and the forecast is very poor

AND here is what I did......... I went ahead and booked the tickets for June10th!! Will think about the obstacles at Manali

Manali-Leh Prep: Steps to (in?!) Heaven

2010-05-28T11:13:00.000-07:00

Having decided to camp, I thought I would be a free bird to sleep and go as I wish unlike others whose night halts are pretty much same and overlap. But as the details are finalized and analysis of various factors draw to a close, I am surprised to find that I have fallen in line with others in terms of route and halt just like a blue eyed young blood who wants to change the world but falls in line as it tastes manhood and melts into the commonality!!...

My tamed itinerary looks some thing like this (refer image at the end for an idea on relative altitude)

Day0 (Friday): Take evening flight to Delhi

Day1: Reach Manali in the noon/eve. Loiter around absorbing the culture and the ongoings-> Checkout Vashishtha

Day2: Hike/climb Mount Patasu for acclimatization. This is a must because halting at Marhi is a must and altitude acclimatization is a must to halt at Marhi. Other option for acclimatization is Bhrigu lake at Rohtang. The latter is amazing as per my research but I have to travel to Rohtang on the same road that I will be cycling on Day3.. I do not want the Manali to Rohtang magic route to be unveiled by a motorcycle.. this will rob the excitement & spoil my day3 cycling. Patasu hiking is 5 hours I suppose. So after this-> Identify camping site at Solang Nala-> Come back to the hotel->checkout->go the camping site identified->pitch tent ->assemble the cycle->sleep in the cradle of mountain backdrop inside MSR tent without rainfly (currently it is raining heavily in Solang Nala :-( )

Alas 2 days of leave is gone without any headway in the tour's purpose ie., cycling towards Khardungla... but can anything be done about this?..... too many 'must' to tamper with

Day 3:Wake up at 6 am and pack up before young sun rays start painting the mountains. experience the mountains under the spot light of sun and start the tour (kind of feel like saying expedition...... that is the term I have used to get leave from my Boss :-) ). Halt at Marhi (39 kms). Though I can cycle more that day, climbing of Rohtang will be out of my acclimatization range and camping on the otherside of Rohtang will not give me an option to slide to low altitude in-case AMS hits in the night.... so I am forced to camp at Marhi and waste(?!!) half a day here

Day 4: Marhi to Tandi (66 kms). Again though I can take in another 20 kms, I cannot go beyond Patseo on day 5 because incase I want to go, then I will have to mandatorily climb Baralacha la and slide down to Sarchu to sleep that night to satisfy 'climb high sleep low' principle. In the process I will be climbing 6000 feet in a day! ... that falls right into AMS dont's. So instead of getting closer to Patseo with great effort on day 4 and waste large part of day 5 it is better to enjoy enroute on day 4

Day5: Tandi to ZingZingbar(58kms) Though can take in another 30 kms I cannot do that for the reason explained above and hence have to wast major part of day. Also ZingZingbar is slightly above Rohtang for which my body would have acclimatized (it does not satisfy 'climb high sleep low' principle) and if any AMS in the night due to this I can always slide down to Jispa which is below Rohtang altitude very fast. One other team has selected Baratpur as camping site but per me that falls right into AMS dont's

Day6: ZingZingbar to Brandy Nala (56kms). Since I will be climbing Baralacha la that day, sleeping at Brandy Nala which is way below Baralacha la satisfies 'climb high sleep low' principle. Though I can take another 30kms, gata loops and Lachanlang la pass encopassing next 50kms will be staring at me at Brandy Nala. So am forced again to waste large part of afternoon at Brandy Nala

Day 7: Brandy Nala to Morey Plains (80). Since I will be covering Lachalang la and sleeping at way below spot - Moray Plains, it satisfies 'climb high sleep low' principle and those will my toughest 80 kms in my life I suppose. So no wastage on this day!!

Day 8: Moray Plain to Tikse(117 kms): Longest easiest ride of the tour except the climb of Taglang la. Tikse is 20 kms away from Leh and is in 'patal' compared to Taglang la.. so no AMS worries... but this is supposed to the most beautiful stretch... hope I will not be forced to hurry through this beauty due to the distance to be covered....So no wastage on this day!!

Day 9: Tikse to Khardungla (60kms). End the tour at Khardungla and return to Leh... maybe take night bus to Manali from Leh

Day 10: Leh to Manali. Board night bus to Delhi

Day 11: Manali to Delhi.

Day 12: Early morning flight to Bangalore and Report to work...if alive..... Phew!!

Manali-Leh Prep: AMS+ riding solo self supported = gama?

2010-05-18T09:14:00.000-07:00

'Don't be gama in the land of lama' of HIMANK is giving me sleepness nights. What are all the things that may make me a gama while cycling in the land of lama?

First thing that strikes me is the AMS+ riding solo self supported = gama?

Having a history of bronchitis, I am little concerned about AMS for this trip. Here are few tips that I could collate and I would be following.

AMS:
- Happens mostly after 2500m and above
- Symptoms
    Mild: Headache, Lethargy
      Moderate: Nausea, dizziness
      Chronic:
        Dry cough with pink liquid, bronchitis (lung related)
        Extreme dizziness (Cannot standup), Stiffness (cannot bend hand/legs), near blackout (Brain related)

- Diamox can be taken 3 times a day and is useful for warding off altitude sickness for those with little time to acclimatise. It must be taken for the duration of exposure to height and simply stop it when you get back to a reasonable level. However it is better to acclimatise normally
- Eating COCO plant will help alleviate symptoms (Contentious)
- Ginger root extract will help alleviate symptoms(Contentious)
- Drink Water frequently (instead of too much at one go)
- Consciously take intermittent deep, long breathes every few seconds
- No alcohol, avoid heavy meals
- Climb High,Sleep low
- Watch out for every 1000 feet gain
- Acclimatization must for every 3000feet gain
- Body needs atleast 24 hours to acclimatize at a height
- At times symptoms Progresses from mild to Moderate to Chronic. Progress can be avoided if symptoms are identified
- Difficult to identify symptoms unless you know your body very well and very keenly observe for any symptoms.
- Ride down if the mild symptoms does not subside but aggravate in 2 hours after treatment. This is the ONLY remediation for AMS... all others are suppressors which might actually aggravate once their effect is gone!

Riding the Blue Mountain: Day 9 & Hangover

2010-04-23T07:00:00.000-07:00

The plan was to take a bus to Bangalore from Mysore. The hosts who thought that we are feigning our strength got the answers when the team decided to cycle back to Bangalore instead of taking Bus!... yes cycling had become their default mode of transport and all of them could not understand why they should take a bus to Bangalore.... they woke up, mounted their cycles and headed to Bangalore – Another day for the heroes!

Post Ride

It took couple of day for all of us to realise what we had done.....the stark contrast of city life reminded us of the nature’s lap where we had played for past 9 days.......

I personally had found inner happiness in doing this but that has a problem... it is hard to logically identify & explain reasons for inner happiness. Every person at office who came to know about my tour said two things - You are crazy, why did you do that? The second question was raised by all those whom we came across during our tour too!...but I could not answer it though I wanted to, because I too did not know the answer myself....I tried but every time I concluded that I was too busy enjoying it and had not thought about it ..... now that I have time for all complex & meta-physical analysis, the reason turned out to be a paradox - i.e., Simple and Techy:

"Cycling is living & experiencing earth & our community at large in a n-dimension, n-definition, n-inches, n:1-contrast, n-Hz, n-scan rate with touchable real characters (me being one of them), real heroes, real drama who fill you with strength and inspiration - in slow motion and handed out with a good and strong heart at the end of it"

As I sit in front of the stoic TV watching a NatGeo adventure, I can already see myself flirting with the below beauties this year

1. Mysore -> Masinagudi -> Ooty (One of the steepest known climbs in Western Ghats)

2. Hassan -> Mullainagiri->Kemmangundi (Highest peak in Karnataka & Famous hillstation)

3. Mysore->Dimbham->Mettulpalyam->NH67->Ooty (Steepest & Mighty in Westernghat per me)

4. Hassan->Shiradi->Charmadi->Khudremukha (Most beautiful untouched mountain in Karnataka)

5. Ghats of Augumbe (To visit Cobra Research institute)

6. Manali->Leh->Khardungla->Marsimek (One stretch of the complete Himalayan circuit that I plan to do before I hit my grave)

I am not sure which ones I would be able to tick mark by year end ... for if wishes were horses beggars would have rode it........ bye for now.

Riding the Blue Mountain: Day 8

2010-04-20T08:32:00.000-07:00

The plan was to ride from Ooty to Mysore through scary tiger land - Masinagudi , notorious elephant land - Madumalai, diverse fauna of Bandipur. I got ready and still missed Mr and Mrs Vijay, Rao and Sarah. With no challenges and beauty left I offered to be the driver of the support car which Rao was driving till now and Dipankar’s smile grew a centimeter wider due to savings on a rented driver.

The team enjoyed the 36 hairpin bends of Masinagudi as they glided past them……. call it Sarah’s effect, Kavitha the iron lady who had cycled every inch so far was banned to cycle down these ghats by her hubby Manish…. and for the first time in the tour Manish was cycling on his trek 4300… yes till now he had given away his cycle to Kavitha and his only job was to look after her by cycling behind her on a hercule while others enjoyed conqouring all sort of challenges…. it was like putting a roasted chicken bone into a dog’s mouth and asking it not to taste it! I was surprised how Manish could resist cycling till these days... among the wild and mighty journey, it was another Hubby's love towards his wife that was inspiring….

This stretch was like the last scenes of an adventure film for me as I supported each rider who had spread out and riding alone ….. Dipankar and Sailesh in the front then Manish .. then Rakesh.. then Naveen with couple of Kms separating each of them……. I could see a mark of accomplishment, strength of confidence and a smile of celebration as each cycled in absolute silence with their tyres screeching as they used to pass the parked car with me as driver right in the middle of the desolate dried up forests ….

We regrouped at a resort kind of a place which had a shallow wide stream flowing through it and we had tea on its banks - all kind of them, lemon, black, herbal etc., .... dog again!....there was a Boxer this time which was very mellow.... maybe it had

a bad tempered master and it got confused when we showered love on it!.... though it never got excited about our love it kind of rested at peace as it got pats from

us.......

Naveen’s cycle had taken a severe beating all along the tour… it had become one mangled piece under the

strength of Naveen’s legs… the tyres had completely misaligned and as he used to approach the car from a distance I could see both tyres in parallel instead of one line! ….. later the handle came off and then it was the turn of the pedal….. we got all those fixed in a nearby workshop and he rode on …. on the same cycle though he could have shifted to my cycle which was resting in the support car…..apart from this, passage through Madumalai wild life sancutary was peaceful.

It was not the case as we entered Bandipur...... I was supporting the tail of the team and as I took one of the turn in the thick forests of Bandipur, I saw couple of cars that had stopped on the road... they were headed to Ooty and our second support car had also stopped ..... nobody was neither aligting the car not make a

movement........ I wondered what is up and I too got into the same act when I noticed an elephant 20 feet away from our support car !..... I stopped 200 mts away from the scene and waited...I was little afraid to get any nearer.... the elephant was majestically grazying when a civilized driver came drivin his government bus in high speed and honked for the reason even he might not know. The next scene was what I most feared about... the elephant charged at the cars and our car was the nearest one!.....luckily the car's engine was on and I was sure Guru can speed off and escape the charge but he choose not to!.... maybe ignorance or excitement Guru did not press the gas pedals and the car did not budge.....as the elephant reached striking distance I thought that was the last time I could see my car in good condition... but the elephant back tracked... it went back, regained its distance and charged second time only to land up in the similar situation, the car did not budge!.... it appeared confused ..... unsuccessful in making the car speed away, it decided itself to speed away and vanished into the bushes and the forest!

Post lunch it was Manish all the way… he cycled like I had seen no where… for the whole stretch of 70+ kms he never took a stop and cycled like a racer… he took out all the energy that we had not spent in the whole tour by supporting Kavitha … Dipankar and Sailesh who were trying to catch him could but not even get a glimpse of him as Manish sped off into the horizon in that scorching heat…… he hit Mysore in flat 3 hours .. as per my wild calculation he had averaged more than 22km per hour on an MTB for 70+ Kms!!! That was a superlative effort!....

All trickled in one by one into my Sister’s place who along with her extended family had hosted a dinner for us…. they were expecting dead persons but was surprised to see their enthusiastic guests who socialized very well….my brother-in-law was pestering me to stop acting and spill the truth of where it hurts and how much….. though I did not confess to him that the tour was not as challenging as it appeared to others, I showed him my roasted skin and lost fat and kind of proved that indeed I rode the tour. The team felt the same and the final verdict came out that the route was indeed a piece of cake and probably hyped up by the cycling community or maybe each one was strong willed than others or may be that is how heroes feel after surmounting a challenge!!

Riding the Blue Mountain: Day 7

2010-04-17T07:33:00.000-07:00

"..... the mountains kept growing, valleys kept plunging and after few kms I stopped and exclaimed bloody hell! I realized that I was no longer descending through the valleys but through the corridors, I was no longer among moutains but sheet of walls that stretched beyond the clouds into the skies as long as my sight could go!... "

I woke up to a Hang over of Sarah’s fall and loss of important team members…… but per my plan this should have been the most exciting day. Dipankar had declared this day as rest day and I had plans to ride what I called blue mountain circuit: Ooty->coonor->mettupalyam->kotagiri->Ooty. This circuit goes through the thick of blue mountains and there were raving reviews of various beautiful points… at the same time it was hilly and a tough route. The matured travelers I had met earlier had more to tell about these surrounding places of Ooty rather than Ooty itself… hence experiencing this stretch was an important goal of this jaunt.... I was not sure when I would have time again to visit these beautiful places. Since the route was tough and long hence starting early was super important to realize my dreams and we did start but only at 12 pm!.... that was one of the laziest start in cycling for me ever…. this was like a salt to the wound of missing other team members due to Sarah’s fall. With much irritation and pacifying myself about ‘Compromises of group riding’ the plan for the day for me was reduced to cycle to Metupalyam and help Manish find his school day teacher.

We started and reached Coonor amidst several landslides and through thick clouds… this is the first time that we rode through the clouds in this tour and it was chilly, misty and exhilarating …… and to my amazement the road from Coonor to Mettupalyam was closed for all traffic including cycles due to collapse of roads at various sections……. while the guard stopped us, his boss was speechless when we told him that we have cycled all the way from Bangalore. We confused him further by lying that we have come from Bangalore only and only to do the Coonor to Mettupalyam stretch…. without putting more effort in comprehending what we had done for past 7 days, he asked us to write and sign an undertaking that all of us will be responsible for any untoward incident, which we did with eager.....we dumped some dark chocolates into the police officer’s wide open mouth and sped off into the cloudy wilderness ……. as I cycled I was wondering what beauty did my traveler friends see in Coonor?... it was nice but not amazing … I felt the same through out this trip… all the beautiful places were nice but never did I feel amazed, dumbs struck or humbled … everytime when others were amazed and enjoyed by clicking photos I kept searching for that amazement… may be I am a donkey that sees a sheet of paper to eat and not the beautiful poem written on it!….may be I am stoic.. what ever… but the speed of cycling was more than enough for me to behold the nature and never felt a need to stop and admire. Past Coonor the slopes got steeper, the mountains got mightier, valleys got deeper and speed was getting speedier…… we had already coasted around 8kms and like any other downhill we were about to blast into plains from that ghats but that did not happen!..... the mountains kept growing, valleys kept plunging and after few kms I stopped and exclaimed bloody hell! I realized that I was no longer descending through the valleys but through the corridors, I was no longer among moutains but sheet of walls that stretched beyond the clouds into the skies as long as my sight could go!... I had to lift my heads to its maximum flexibility to see the tip of the mountain that lied ahead but still could not find it as it disappeared by mixing with the misty sky…… even cycling speed was not slow enough to fully scan the close mighty sheet of mountains….. I stopped, for the fist time in teh tour, just to behold the sight and digest what is around as sun rays poured from the small openings of the mountain coverage above our head…… Sailesh had already stopped in one of the hair pin bends and was openly screaming what I was feeling internally! While his camera was trying to make the moment standstill for rest of his life… an avid trekker he is, he wondered whether he would be able to trek one of those mighties some day……alas after 20 odd kms we blasted into the plains and rode into Mettupalyam which equally baffled me with its chaos … every cornor of this city was like a fish market.....it was understandable when I came to know that this was like an umbilical chord to Ooty where all goods for Ooty were traded here and transported via Kotagiri….. Manish schooling was in this city and he took us to one of the crowdiest, jam packed hotel which served delicious full meals – that was one of the best south Indian meal that I have had till today. I did not have anything to look forward to from here on……. I become a prominent crew of the support car and went along with it where ever it took me, in the process I accompanied Manish who cycled to the outskirt of the city in search of his pet teacher but could not find her residence….. otherwise, the teacher would have jumped off her seat to find Manish with shorts, Ts and Cycle even after 13 since his school days when he used to go to school in the same Avatar.

We all dumped our cycles onto truck and landed in Ooty after a long, chilly, journey in the dark ghats of Kotagiri. As we rode into the eerie youth hostel, a german was sitting outside smoking and he went up in smoke when he heard what we were upto since last 7 days!

More pics at http://picasaweb.google.co.in/lifeonpedals/TDN2009Ooty#

Riding the Blue Mountain: Day 6 - Ooty Conquered!

2010-04-15T07:46:00.000-07:00

‘....as I neared the crowd I got the shock of my life!.... Naveen and our support truck were the center of the crowd’s attraction… did Naveen had a fight? Then I saw a second cycle… there must be one more of us but where?.... then there was blood on the road and lot of it!..... I was shocked…..’

It was very cold and woke up to find that I was one of the last to wake up. All others had almost finished their chores to take on the mighty Ooty climb... yes the D day was here for which we all had cycled so far 'to climb the mighty Ooty' was right here..... the most difficult part of the leg, the highest climb in a day so far by us was to be done this day... it was like a pinnacle for most of us and we were excited to know whether we will succeed or fail! ...yes many of us expected to fail.. this made Vijay to rent a goods truck to follow us and pick up those who give up, one by one. By the time I got ready for the ride, the first batch had already left. It constituted of Vijay, Sarah, Rakesh, Manish, Kavitha and Naveen. Only Dipankar and Sailesh were yet to start and met them on the side of the road. It always happens to me, once I reach my destination the question that stares at me is 'What next?' but I started to get that feeling a step before on this tour.. before I had started for climbing the mighty Ooty I started thinking what after that?... call it arrogance, over confidence or whatever but somewhat felt that I could conquer Ooty climb with ease.. maybe all the energy that I had accumulated so far and preserved for this day had brought this confidence in me... I was expecting myself with strained thighs, stiffened calf muscles, painful knees, exhausted will power and couple of incidence of pushing the cycle by the time we could start the Ooty climb... but I was surprised to find myself in the pink of my strength and bored of not struggling, yes I found the struggle absent and the fun associated with it....I was not sure whether I could get that in this Ooty climb...started frantically thinking about it... will I return without fun from this ride?... no way I told myself and I had heard about an alternate route to Ooty where no trucks went because the teething climbs used to swallow their horse power, mopeds use to stop without power to match that of the 36 twisted hair pin bends, the hair pins were nothing but equivalent to a multi storied building... I thought this is something to try and fail...and expressed my thoughts to Dipankar and Sailesh.... both of them went silent. Sailesh started persuading me to drop the idea... gave lots of reasons like unavailability of support and I stuck to my idea... Dipankar was little surprised at my aggressive plan and slowly started pacifying me....though none of their reason held good, I did get a setback from the goods carrier driver that I asked to support me... he refused to come with me for two reasons... first was that his machine would be stressed up climbing those hair pin bends... I offered 500 bucks and made him think twice... but his second reason made ‘me’ think twice… the route that I was planning was in the midst of the wild life sanctuary and since that route was not frequented by vehicles there were lots of wild life activities like Elephants on the roads, bisons enjoying the morning sun, deer crossing the road etc.. the elephants and bisons took the steam out of my plan… I was really unaware of the reactions of these animals to a lone cyclist… this was the main reason why I desperately wanted a group to ride this stretch instead of riding solo!.... the truck driver told me that he will bet that we will come across the wild animals especially in the early morning hours….. I looked up at Dipankar and Sailesh who showed no signs of joining me… and I thought riding solo into the territory of elephants and bisons would be suicidal….gradually retracted the 500 Rs note into my pocket, dropped the idea and started climbing towards Ooty via Gudalur.

The start of the climb
Sailesh and Dipankar sped off while I took my own sweet time to climb at my own pace. Climbs had become a usual part of cycling by now and I was no longer calculating or expecting the end of climbs or relief of slopes and plains…. this kind of psychologically helps in making the climbs less torturing since we completely concentrate and fall into a rhythm of battling it out instead of remembering the sweetness of luxury & happiness and concentrate more on experiencing them as a goal and in the process forget what has to be done at that particular moment to solve the problem. Maybe this effect or maybe the gradient were not that steep after all, I was climbing at decent pace with no major stress to my legs… compared to previous day’s climbs, my throat was drying out faster but nothing more than that… infact I started enjoying and concentrating on the nature around and there was no need to concentrate on the climb at all…. I started thinking… is the climb hyped up? May be I over estimated it or maybe people overstate it….as if an answer to this one of the curve led to a big bus that had just stopped due to overheating… it could not take the climb since the radiator water had been exhausted …. This bus was from Bangalore and had a chit chat in my local dialect (kannada) with the driver and helpers about possible solutions to their problems and carried on….

‘culvert was on one of the turn of a desolate silky smooth road with deep valleys to the other side of the road and the towering hills beyond those valleys….. clouds were floating underneath (not above)…’
Few more minutes of cycling and another curve led to a view point with lots of commotion with all tourist buses enroute stopping and people barging out of the buses to view the deep valleys and serene mountains and of course to empty their trash - biological as well as shopped ones….. and Dipankar & Sailesh were among them!... they called me and asked to join them to a far off hill that looked highest among all the surrounding ones…. It was still 10am and I was riding last…. Spontaneously I said I want to concentrate on making it to Ooty and do not want to take chances of getting late by climbing that hill… as I cycled ahead I made some theoretical calculation and found that I would be hitting Ooty by 2pm… well that was too early to reach Ooty so changed my minds and went back to Sailesh & Dipankar…. They got buoyed up of my company and decided to climb that hill…. We climbed all the way to the tip and enjoyed the steepness of its other side and the abysmal depth that followed. We could see the place which we left in the morning from far off…. The path was so narrow and the face of the hill was so steep that it was surprising to see elephant dung on the tip of this hill… how did that massive mass of body and wide plates of foot make it till here?... perplexed we got down .. found droppings of a carnivorous most probably that of leopard on the way and then reached the road from where we started cycling again….. I felt little hungry and Dipankar falsely told me that it is 12.30 pm while it was 11.30…….. I had to eat to take care of my gastric prone stomach..…. I stopped near a road side village and a small hut was a hotel for the few other huts around… ….the hut was maintained by one very old man who could barely stand for a while… he had arranged all things on the cow dung tempered floor so that he could be cashier, cook, supplier all at the same time and still manage things without getting up….it had a hole on one of the wall which was the only ventilation….he prepared Kerala paratas and served it with chutney… I could see a layer of old oil turned brown with week old leftovers of earlier cooking floating on the paratas… the chutney turned its true colors after a while, all thick gratings sedimented and a weird yellow oily liquid had formed over it… .. the sight was frightening… looked at the honest, humble looks of the old man who was pan frying the paratas & telling me to eat to my heart so that I can make it to Ooty, and swallowed the paratas. But nothing could make me touch the chutney… said good bye to the old man and came out to find an ice-cream seller with a box tied to his moped and visiting the remote villages luring the kids to buy his ice-cream… he was surprised when I purchase 3 of his cup ice cream that had no cream but was a chunk of ice of sugar water & milk!.... the lunch and the desert made me settle on a roadside culvert beside an extended algae clad wall of hill that was chopped off to construct the road… the trees and shrubs had stretched themselves on this to provide shade…… this culvert was on one of the turn of a desolate silky smooth road with deep valleys to the other side of the road and the towering hills beyond those valleys….. clouds were floating underneath (not above)… the cool breeze was caressing the foliage to bring about a sound that was synchronizing with its own blowing sound…. the young burning sun and the heat of cycling made that breeze more enjoyable and the result – My helmet had become by pillow and I was lying comfortably on my back on the culvert and was ready for a sleep…… 30mins had passed by the time I woke up…. enjoyed the scene again before I realized that I have to reach Ooty that day .. enquiring around I found that Ooty was around 23kms away and it was 12.30pm.….per my calculation worst case I would reach Ooty by 4pm…..

‘Blood on the dance floor!’
I was interested to know what others might be doing… and the refreshed feeling made me think of catching up with others…. I started cycling this time with a racing spirit…. I unlearnt everything about the cadence and technique and cycled like a wild street guy with long chain ring and powerful long crank revolutions…. I was reaching great speed even on that hilly terrain and after couple of kms I started getting couple of down hills too!... there was no limit and I reached greater speeds and I was literally flying …. But I kept grinding and never coasted….. one hour into that speed and a turn showed up Kavitha, I had caught the tail of the team!… then Manish…… then there were no signs of others… couple of minutes more of flying over the hills, lakes and nilgiris and I came across a slope which gave more impetus to my speed… and passed a small crowd that had gathered by the road side… few of them tried to catch me (why!?) but I maneuvered through them, I noticed our support truck and then Naveen, they asked me to stop but I did not want to spoil the speed I had reached and sped away….. kind of was little confused as to what Naveen and our support vehicle were doing among the crowd? I thought they must be enjoying some interesting stuff (magic or something like that) in that crowd … but it made me think when old men too tried to stop me… elders do not risk playing around with a high speed cyclist.. I thought so and stopped… I rode back towards the crowd where everyone was looking at me and waving at me to come back… as I neared the crowd I got shock of my life!.... Naveen and our support truck were the center of the crowd’s attraction… did Naveen had a fight? Then I saw a second cycle… there must be one more of us but where?.... then there was blood on the road and lot of it!..... I was shocked….. Naveen told me that there was a fall… as I made my way through the crowd I found one of the support cars in the middle and Sarah was sitting beside Guru and she had a nasty fall!! Naveen updated me that she had fallen right on her face and it is serious… with apprehensions I looked through the window and asked ‘Sarah, are you ok?’, she said ‘I am not ok’… I was nervous and asked her what was wrong? I prayed not to hear something like ‘I cannot breath, I am feeling dizzy and everything is appearing upside down, I can hardly open my eyes’ but she showed the skin on her chin and lips which had deep cuts… I took courage as I came to know that she was worried about the cosmetic wounds and nothing was seriously wrong with any internal injuries…. I told her that things are not that bad and asked Guru to immediately start driving towards Ooty for a medical checkup… guru was scared to death and started slowly driving towards Ooty… I kept cycling… over took them and met Vijay at 10th mile stone from Ooty… updated Vijay about the accident and Vijay immediately abandoned his ride and took charge of the car that had Sarah and drove off to Ooty… as the car disappeared I tried my best following them and came across Sailesh, Dipankar and Rakesh discussing Sarah’s fall…. They tried to cycle with me but could not keep pace with the speed that was fueled by a good rest, zest to take out all the energy towards the end of a journey and Sarah’s fall… I reached Ooty and settled myself under the Mahatma Gandhi statue by 2 pm… yes I had covered last 20+ kms of Ghats in 1 hour 30 mins!!....

‘……old toilets, narrow long dark corridors and desolate backyard…… it had all the ingredients to shoot another poltergeist….’
Came to know that others were having lunch somewhere near the entrance of Ooty and hence cycled across the city to a beautifully located eerie youth hostel which was a dormitory. It was a dungeon with very old walls, high dark ceiling, cots & beds stacked one above the other and lined up in rows , old toilets, narrow long dark corridors and desolate backyard…… it had all the ingredients to shoot another poltergeist…. that evening was real cold and I spent it with skimpy cycling attire in the scary corridors of that dormitory while I waited for others to come in and they came in with a very bad news.. Sarah had multiple fractures to her face and had internal bleeding…. It was a very bad news and I was upset about the prognosis of such condition…. felt like we were responsible for this and all the fun that I had that day of conquering Ooty that too with ease and speed was masked by the sadness of what happened to Sarah… it made some of us to rethink about safety of cycling. The doctor had asked her to be taken to Bangalore immediately…. all of us went and met Vijay who had got all kind of tests/scans done through his military contacts and had arranged a Toyota Innova to take her to Bangalore that night…. Sarah was not supposed to drop her head and not sleep till Bangalore….that moment of meeting them and saying good bye was a turning point for me in this tour… it robbed me of all fun… there will be no Vijay, Mrs. Vijay, Rao and Sarah from now on…. they were an important dimension for me in the tour and without them the tour had lost an important dimension ...... and strength, which reduced from 11 to 7 and I kind of lost interest …

Riding the Blue Mountain: Day 5

2010-04-09T07:44:00.000-07:00

'.......after 5 days of living on bare minimum necessities and in the open, it was really an awkward feeling to sit in that hotel......'

Plan was to cycle from Sultanbathery to Ooty but was changed because we were staying 30km away from Sulthanbathery! and that makes lots of difference especially for cycling in hilly regions. Most of them lobbied to break the day’s plan to two phases - One was from Kalpetta to Gudalur and next day take on the mighty Ooty by doing Gudalur to Ooty. Majority won and minority who wanted to gulp Kalpetta to Ooty (Dipankar and Sailesh) felt constrained .. nevertheless they decided to try that by breaking away from the group and left hurriedly towards Ooty while Vijay, Naveen, Manish, Kavitha and Rakesh left leisurely and I had to support a support car!! .. yes one of the support cars was getting heated up pretty quick and I had to take it to a mechanic, get it repaired and start cycling only after that....Sarah offered to stay back but I was not sure whether she was being courteous or really meant that... I told that there is no need which seemed little rude to her but expressed that she really meant. We hopped onto the injured car and went after an every elusive car service station and at last found it.... but realized that we have reached Sulthanbathery in this hunt! While driving we found all the team members riding along.. the leading cyclist was riding with all vigor and looked very professional, I mistook him to Dipankar but it was Rakesh, yes Rakesh was becoming stronger and stronger as the ride progressed and there was no sign of his near failure state on Day1. At the workshop the mechanic inspected and found the car to be in perfect condition except for a leakage of cooling liquid. After getting it repaired we drove all the way back to Kalpetta to take our cycles and start cycling.. it was 11am. The terrain had slight ups and downs but nothing to bother me and Sarah... we were riding on a highway, there were constant traffic and hence rode one behind the other for next couple of hours. The sun had reached its peak so did our hunger.... we came across a highway town with lots of people and this town appeared as if it was built around a traffic signal. We spent some time in getting a bottle of water and directions for Gudalur.. but before we started we thought of having our dinner and checked into a hotel... this hotel was a nicely decorated one with contemporary theme and convenience... had very large windows to look out and it was air conditioned.... settled down with Sarah and ordered exotic dishes..... after 5 days of living on bare minimum necessities and in the open, it was really an awkward feeling to sit in that hotel, I felt I had come to a different world.. kind of made me realize that I was a tribal stepping into world of convenience and materialism....spent time in experiencing the ambience and asked few questions to Sarah to know her better... what she does, what all places she has visited, where is she from... basically how is life.... she being the most down to earth person that I have come across, gave answers to all my question in the typical narrative style of hers without any inhibitions... we paid the tips (felt like I had done this in my previous life before) and took on the climb that headed towards Gudalur and .. this climb never gave way to plains.

'... more than half of life spent and still foolishly happy to restrict my thoughts within 'I' both in cycling and in the purpose of my living. I felt the most selfish person on this planet, I felt mentally retarded, I felt so cheap.....'

It was a constant climb for many kilometers and after overcoming the initial problems of carrying a filled tummy along, both Sarah and myself settled into a steady cadence ....I intentionally matched that of Sarah's since I knew she was a better rider with superior technique. The pace was medium, almost minimal traffic since we were in forest area which allowed us to cycle side by side. This led to lots of conversation, we discussed about philosophy, christianism, hinduism, cultures, english, cycling... it was very interesting to know her unbiased, mature perspective on each of them. I found that she is an epitome of humility with interests in all divine things of life... two things about her made me crouch with shame - She feels guilty to indulge and LIVE(!) in the western materialistic world of convenience while there are hordes of under privileged people who struggle to lead a humble life elsewhere. She says there are lots of people in states who feel this way, I do not know many apart from Buffet and Gates both of whom are materialistic full time but charitable part-time which by itself is great. Sarah has just denounced everything and landed here to be part of the humility fulltime! Secondly she cycles to come across these humble people at rural areas. she likes the smile she gets when their eyes meet, when those smile convey that they have not let them far behind in the hell to leave in a heaven of materialistic world, when they (smiles) convey that they are aware of them, think about them and assures that they should care for each other, for the human values that dwarfs any materialistic pleasure- What a noble cause to cycle!!..... Well compare that with my objective of cycling - I should get stronger muscles, stronger tendons, stronger heart, stronger ego, stronger lungs, longer life span, active, merrier mood, positiveness... more than half of life spent and still foolishly happy to restrict my thoughts within 'I' both in cycling and in the purpose of my living. I felt the most selfish person on this planet, I felt mentally retarded, I felt so cheap.

'... their getup was that of a typical boy of a typical Indian village - over size shorts, mostly bequeathed after much persuasion from his elder brother or maybe cousin, held in place using a safety pin in lieu of the hook and one or two missing button down under... '

I should have ridden for couple of hours in that conversation and feelings and I realized that we were entirely in a new land... we had tea estates, mountains, clouds, beautiful sceneries, timber trees, cold all around....we had entered Tamil Nadu and for every few Kms we used to come across and small hatches with ever vibrant people attending their daily chores and children returning from their school satisfied with their objective of going there i.e., to have mid day meals!... their getup was that of a typical boy of a typical Indian village - over size shorts, mostly bequeathed after much persuasion from his elder brother or maybe cousin, held in place using a safety pin in lieu of the hook and one or two missing button down under... this was complemented by ever tightening shirt that would have been with him since a very long time that was finding it difficult to meet up to the beginning of the shorts. The slightly blown out belly made this act more difficult for the shirt. I could see all types of standard personalities... some used to crack jokes on us for his friends and take pride in his skills of doing so, some used to be amazed and curious, some approached us for pens, some were reserved and controlled their expression showing on their face, some wanted to be feel one with us... such was the case with one boy who started running along with us. He ran for quite a long distance that surprised me... he did not show much expression but only grit and determination on his face.. nor did he look up at us even once... probably he could comprehend that we were cycling such long distance just for the joy and sense of accomplishment and he just ran that stretch to show solidarity and be part of that celebration.. I could see the satisfaction in his face as he slowed down and dropped off while we paced away into the mountains.

'...and got the surprise of his life!... I and my cycle had comfortably settled right there with all tools and chain bits lying beside me and the cycle was lying and getting treated for its broken heart!!! yes I had come all prepared for most of the things... '

We were into the cold evening and the climbs had become harder, since I knew that we were near to the closing part of that day's ride, I liberated myself from the objective of conserving energy and switched to higher gears. As I grinded couple of climbs by exerting all strength, there was more resistance from the crank and I kept grinding harder and harder ....and then the chain slipped and started slipping more.. just like what had happened during the departure day from Bangalore!!!... I was dumb struck, my heart beat slipped more than the chain…. this is the same phenomenon which had rendered the cycle unridable earlier… is this the end of my ride? Will I be sitting in the car for the rest of the ride? I slowed down, switched back to lower gears and started treating the crank delicately but the damage had been done... my heart broke as the chain broke and came off, right on a cliff among the mountains!!...it was an heart breaking experience...the support car drove up and parked beside me & Sarah on the side of a cliff... there were beautiful estates all around.... Guruprasad opened up the luggage door of car and started making space for the cycle... once he was done he came to me and got the surprise of his life!... I and my cycle had comfortably settled right there with all tools and chain bits lying beside me and the cycle was lying and getting treated for its broken heart!!! yes I had come all prepared for most of the things... I had few bits of chain, a chain tool also as part of my tool sets... I tinkered with the chain for 15 mins, I used all the experience I had when I had messed up the chain during my preparation for the ride... I riveted out the chain link that had bent itself under the stress and riveted in the chain links that I had brought along with me....Guru was dump struck... it was hard for him to digest what we could cycle all that we had so far but the fact that we could repair the cycles also simply blew him away....the cycle was ready to go in next couple of minutes!! but Ooty climb was the main climb and we are going to give a try at it tomorrow, if the chain is not taking today's climb then what about tomorrow?... I did not want to take any chance and called up my friend Madhu at Bangalore and asked him to arrange for a chain. But how is that going to reach me by tomorrow? that was the question even Sarah asked... I had a plan, I asked Madhu to send it with any Govt., bus driver that would be leaving Bangalore to Ooty. Within 15 mins the ever disciplined Madhu called me up and updated that a chain has been arranged and will be shipped through the bus driver that night!!.. I was happy, I had overcome a small road block and I was

prepared for tomorrow too.... we continued cycling over the hilly regions and enjoyed the scenes thoroughly.... I observed Sarah too was enjoying too by taking photos and beholding the deep valleys covered with sheets of tea plantations....gradually the hilly road led to a town like place and that was Gudalur where we were supposed to stay.. Rao came by a cycle to show us the way to a place where 3 structures re built on three large steps on the slope of a hill.... these 3 structures were our abode for that day. It was very nice setup and for the first time felt like we were staying in a hill station... after taking a good bath from the hot water that was ferried by a lady and her husband from the top of that hill barefoot (they climbed that hill several time to get us water bucket by bucket… great strength!), we had a not so great dinner but were served unlimited in a nearby

hotel... had a very good conversation with Vijay about possibilities of introducing automation and outsourcing in his defense establishment but there was no campfire since the place was inside a town... and the day ended with me dozing off by the side of Dipankar who was tinkering his laptop.

Find more pics of the day at http://picasaweb.google.co.in/lifeonpedals/TND2009Gudlur#

Riding the Blue Mountain: Day 4

2010-04-07T09:02:00.000-07:00

Plan was to do Iruppu to Sulthanbatherry on this day. We woke up to another misty and cold morning to find two ferocious dogs, one an Alsatian and another a Doberman, trying to pull the gas cylinders (to which they were tied) with all their might ... they were ferociously trying to break their chains to come to us and get love pats!... sensing this from their type of barks, myself and Kavitha went upto them and found them extremely friendly... they wanted to play with us but time was short to ask the hosts to let them loose and play with them. All were ready for another late start .... Kavitha who had barely cycled before this trip had successfully completed two days of extensive cycling! Rakesh had learnt to use techniques than brawns, Naveen got to know his cycle well and how to tame its stubberness, Vijay had settled himself onto his cycle quite well, I was improving on my cycling techniques like fast/slow cadence and all, Sarah was enjoying her Indian experience on the roads.... kind of all had stopped worrying of catastrophic failures that they had feared before the start of the tour. The adventure seeking Dipankar and Sailesh had zeroed in on some off road tracks and headed for it while rest of us headed towards Sulthanbathery with me being last one to start.

Landscaping was great all along, dotted with coffee estates and as the landscape changed so did the road signs… bill boards, people, food, culture…..they gradually gave way to that of Kerala from Karnataka and as I rode on amidst them, I finally reached Kerala check post. Felt very good to look at this check post, it dawned on me that I have cycled from one state to another!! I had taken pride in cycling from one city to another but here I am cycling from one state to another!...that was a great feeling but did not have company to share this and not a camera to capture me standing beside this stone carving which says 'You are entering Kerala. Welcome to Kerala'. I liked this spot which had a guard, his office (four walls and a thatched roof) and forest all around…… I spent some time at this place by circling his abode couple of times on the cycle and pedaled away into the forest. As I cycled I came across Mrs. Vijay enjoying walking and Rao sitting in the parked car…… I took this opportunity to know more about Rao and started a conversation with him and came to know that he was good at cricket and to our surprise there was a cricket team fighting it out near a group of hamlets inside the forest area!... Rao and I went there and Rao batted and bowled with them as I watched - Rao was indeed good in batting.... but a local guy was better in bowling and gave hard time through his fast yorkers to Rao. The locals wanted us to play for some more time but we decided otherwise.

I left Rao and Mrs. Vijay and cycled on .. I don't know why but I felt bored... may be because I had gained confidence and was sure to make this tour with ease.... from the maps I had made out that this stretch was the easiest...and hence no challenges to look forward to...I rode zigzag all along... I rode on small stones and dry leaves and any interesting object that I could see to kill the boredom .. the zigzag ride led me to Rakesh and Kavitha who were trying to make some adjustments to the cycle without any tools…..I used my toolset to adjust and we rode together……we met Manish later on and a beautiful stream and a bridge over it….. While Manish and Kavitha carried on cycling, myself and Rakesh climbed down and spent roaming about the wild desolate banks of the stream like wild scavengers...we sat under the bridge and listened to the vehicles move above it. We climbed back and took our cycles which we had left above since we know if we took it down we will not be able to bring them up easily because the climb down was little steep and wild. Both of us rode for an hour or so to reach a junction where others were investigation strange Kerala sweet bondas stuffed with coconut and deep fried with coconut oil. No food is unhealthy for cyclists who are on long cycling trip!!.. so all of relished without giving much thought to the unhealthy aspect of those bondas

Off again we started and as usual got spread out with Vijay, Sarah and Naveen together, Manish, Kavitha and Rakesh as another and me again alone.... the landscape had changed from foresty to cultivated stretches and the roads became narrow on which only half(!?) a vehicle could pass at a time.... and most of the vehicles were appreciative of me climbing down the road onto big stones to give way to them.... this helped me break the boredom and in the process I had cycled a very very long way only to hear Guruprasad honking crazily behind me... he told me that I have come a long long way on a wrong road! and took me back.... I put my cycle in the car and drove back to find Manish, Kavitha and Rakesh coming on the same road!!..... it was total confusion about routes and two groups had taken two different routes!... we decided to reach a common place that both these routes meet and we met in a sleepy good dusty town's on the highway. Dipankar and Sailesh had returned from their jaunt and were high about the heights they had reached by taking off roads.... all of us settled in a bus stop shelter while Dipankar started contacting the agent who had booked a stay for us .… it was a very very long one hour wait by the time Dipankar had any information ... Dipankar led the way to Kalpetta where he had booked a stay.. but wait a minute! we were to go to Sulthanbathery!... and we found that Kalpetta is more than 30kms away from Sulthanbathery ... the agent had misguided us by saying Kalpetta is in and around Sulthanbathery. There were more problems with this guy as he said he cannot let Sarah stay in the guest house. Sarah started showing all her legal papers but to failed to convince him. This person would have been poorer by couple of his teeth but for Mrs. Vijay who cooled down an enraged Vijay. All of them went to the police station and got Sarah's paper checked... this forced the agent to agree to let us stay in his guest house that was very new and luxurious.... the furnitures were typical Kerala style which was in solid wood richly polished to give a princely ambience.

All washed up and went out for dinner while I got a call from my office. It was an official call and one of the projects in the Kochi office was in crisis!.. the project manager was very happy to learn that I was in Kerala but his heart and senses broke when he came to know about my mode of commute. Had lengthy trouble shooting sessions over phone while others came back with a dinner pack for me. They had selected Kerala paratas and a delicious sabji to go with it which I finished in minutes....for reason unknown I did not get sleep till late that night.. may be my body had acclimatized itself to the constant physical strain and did not want rest..... I watched TV and don’t know when I dozed off on the royal Diwan in the living room to end another nomadic day
More pics at http://picasaweb.google.co.in/lifeonpedals/TDN2009Kalpetna#

Riding the Blue Mountain: Day 3

2010-03-28T02:55:00.000-07:00

... it was beautiful and calm... it looked very hospital and motherly too... I have not come across many hills that exude these characteristics but display their might and wilderness to the brim

The team had been polarized from a discussion that happened last night - few wanted to start very early in the morning and others wanted to take it easy & start at leisure. However as the misty morning dawned, those who did not want to start early were ready at the starting point rearing to go and there was no signs of those who wanted to start early! After quite a wait all of us assembled by the side of the road - stretching the body, doing asnas and checking out the cycles. The way from estate house to the road was very steep and cycles had to be carried by the truck. Sam, the Irish Setter had come till the road to say good bye to all of us but got busy in ogling at her girl friend across the road… Dinesh the truck driver saw us off. We thanked Dinesh and patted Sam, the Irish Setter and one by one rode away towards Irupu

All of us rode at a steady pace and each one was enjoying settling down to their own purpose for which they were cycling. I rode pretty much alone that day. Manish and Kavitha were riding at a relaxed pace with a support car at the tail of the team, Sarah, Vijay and Mrs Vijay were together with the other support car somewhere 2 to 3 kms ahead of them… Dipankar, Sailesh, and Rakesh had grouped together and had taken alternate roads to make their day more challenging. I did not know much about where Naveen was and I was 5 kms ahead of Vijay & Sarah.... the road was pretty much flat through the vast cultivated fields and I reached Virajpet peacefully under the young warm sun and cool breeze. I sat near a well known Ganesh temple that is situated in the middle of the market and waited for others. Devotees were monotonously submitting their fears and anxiety to GOD and asking him to control those things which are beyond their perceived control. They stole some look at my fancy cycle and fancier dress in the midst of their Bhakthi.... 15mins might have passed by when Manish came looking for me and we (Manish, Kavitha, Mr. and Mrs Vijay, Rao and prasad) regrouped at a hotel recommended by Sarah which she had tried during her Thadiyondamal visit.... we had lots of all kind of Dosas, set, plain, masala dosa and all were very delicious (or maybe we were quite hungry). The hotel was quite spacious & airy.... we sat and spent some time with leisure. All got ready to leave when Dipankar, Rakesh and Sailesh arrived at the scene. They ordered me to stay back with them.... others left while I stayed back to give company to Dipankar and Sailesh.

The ride post breakfast with Dipankar and Sailesh was very exciting...I could keep up with their pace and in fact was pushing the pace faster....I grinded modestly for a long distance that had respectable gradient without any coasting... my legs got good workouts and took an alternate round about, desolate route to reach Ponnampet a small town with a decent commercial activity. Our other group members were already

there cooling off in another roomy good hotel. I found Naveen here and that reminded me that I had forgotten about him all along that day... where was he? with whom was he riding? how did he land here?.... the first days experience where he found the gradients demanding might have made him little more skeptic about him staying with team and to compensate this he had started first from Madikeri and had cycled with great vigor without taking any breaks.. after virajpet he got confused since none of us with our faster cycles had over taken him (remember he was with hercules)...instead he thought that we might have been ahead by taking an alternate route and tried to catch us but the reality was we were trailing him by 15kms.... all this confusion had landed him more than 20kms ahead of us!!!! that was a great achievement but he had to abandon that lead and join us back for the lunch and he was more than happy to rejoin with us. We feasted on rice items while Vijay waited for few bureaucrats to arrive through whom he booked a luxurious homestay for very nominal amount.

Post lunch few men accompanied us in the support car and next destination was homestay at Irupu. As per calculation the distance was not that far and hence all of us started riding casually and even halted in the pretext of cramped legs of Rakesh and had a nice nap on the side of the road under a big tree. Sarah tried all her best to teach various asanas to Rakesh but she could not make out whether Rakesh is learning asanas or learning how to interact with her. Yes Rakesh had never interacted with a westerner before and here he is being espoused by one, that too by a young good looking lass!. After the valuable yoga lessons that went waste, we rode on....the

scenery changed from plains to hilly and coffee estates started appearing all around as we neared Irupu. We climbed few hilly roads to reach beautiful homestays at beautiful locations that were lined up all along the route, I just cycled into few of them and enjoyed the scenes.... we kept pushing for few more kms and landed in a beautiful Homestay beside a magnificent hill which was covered with lush parent green grass dotted with dark small bushes here and there.. though the hill stood high and long all its might was camouflaged with its beauty ... it was beautiful and calm... it looked very hospital and motherly too... I have not come across many hills that exude these characteristics but display their might and wilderness to the brim.

The homestay beside this was where we were going to stay! the homestay was a real homestay… no maids but the home members themselves were our hosts... the house was great and very neatly maintained .. the rooms were royal, clean, new and neatly kept... it was ages that I had spent an evening under such a setup

We freshened up and headed towards the waterfalls, all of us climbed the steps beside that magnificent hill. It was a cold late evening but nevertheless Dipankar, Sailesh and myself crawled into the water and stood under the water fall for sometime while Vijay indulged himself in a downstream but got scolding from Mrs Vijay for doing so in a cold evening. After some time I got up and ran all the way to the homestay to warm myself up. I dried myself thoroughly and had a lot of pepper/tamarind/milk decoction (called Kashaya) which warms up the body... else I normally catch severe cold otherwise. All others walked up and joined us. Again we were ready for another campfire and this time the topic of discussion was One's Weakness.. the outcome was a world upside down for me. Sarah considers herself as physically weak … a lady who takes off to the peaks of the hills with other team members panting to catch up with her, a lady who can cycle 600+ kms is weak?... she is the strongest lady that I have come across till date. Sailesh considers himself as not socialable and till today he is the first and only person who calls me regularly and visits me quite often. The only agreeable weakness was when Rakesh told that most of the times he acts as if he is understanding but in reality he does not make out head or tail of what is being taught.... all acknowledged that it is not a secret!

Especially after observing him as tutor to Sarah’s yoga.... we came to know that Naveen was a marathoner (secret of his strength)... had an excellent homely dinner that was best so far and I retired for the day while Rakesh, Dipankar and Sailesh were buried in the Survey map to find exciting routes that were dotted lines in the map for tomorrow.

Riding the Blue Mountain: Day 2

2010-03-19T08:51:00.000-07:00

Was a rest day... yes the second day was a rest day! This was intentionally done since many of us had not even done a 100km ever before and to take stock of anybody who might have overestimated one's capability. We woke up to a surprisingly warm morning of Madikeri but fortunately the estate was covered by slight mist. Every corner of the house was rustic and interesting. This was an estate once owned by our esteemed army man Col Vasanth who got killed in preventing an infiltration attempt in J&K. It had a vast yard to dry coffee and a backyard which had fireplace and lots of other stuffs that, most probably, were used for estate work. Each object had its own story to tell that of time, culture and indigenousness. The kitchen was adjacent to this backyard with a male and 2 lady cooks busy churning out bread and omelette for 9 hungry cyclists. We took a stroll in the estate and enjoyed small stream, wild grass, shrubs, the sun and desolate structures that were invaded by the vegetation.

We were successful in entertaining hard working estate labourers when we took their spades and tried to do what they were doing.

We climbed our way up to the house to find two new hosts that were eager to meet us. One was a well bred Irish setter and another was a puppy whose origin even its master did not know.

The Irish setter smiled at each of us and did a mistake by doing so to Manish. Because for next 30 mins it had to undergo training lessons on how to sit and how to shake hand by him. The puppy was interested in only two things - to circle the house as if it is the head of a pride and whenever we touched it used to immediately toss itself upside down as if we had come cycling all the way to this place to scratch its belly!

We all sat on a dining table that was big enough to accommodate most of us and relished the breakfast. Conversations were crisscrossing between various members across the table when one from Mrs Vijay hit all of them right on the face! She demanded to know what kind of culture is it to call Vijay (her husband) as Vijay since he was much elder to all of them...... She wanted an answer right from the Hindu scriptures that justified this. There was pin drop silence for a second since most of the conversations till now were formal. Who will confront or convince or give in? 'What else do you expect? call Uncle? No way' came the answer and it was from Vijay himself!.... it was none other than Vijay himself who protested vehemently and voiced his concern if anybody called him in any other way. This broke the ice and there was a healthy discussion about pros and cons of addressing by name or respect. None won .... a compromise was reached where it was agreed that we call Mrs Vijay as aunty and Vijay as Vijay!! This was a great discussion for many reasons: it opened up people and thereafter they talked to each other with lesser inhibitions, it was nice of Mrs Vijay to consider the team equivalent to her children & hence her candid expressions of trying to correct us.. I liked this about her.... to be honest, though rest of the team put forth various arguments for calling an individual by name instead of a respected term. I saw all of them more comfortable calling her as aunty (respected term) than when they were calling her by her name!!

Post discussion The Vijays along with Rao left to catch up with their friends and we packed ourselves in our two support cars and headed towards Bylekoppa. Few enjoyed the monastry, monks and prayer flags while few like Sailesh felt out of water to be inside dwelling areas away from the forest and wilderness. Had a nice meal and drove to Nisarga Dhama and took note of bamboos, dust, a pond and few other things around. We started back to the estate and made a good decision to checkout Raja Seat.. the highest point in Madikeri I suppose.... the gigantic hills stood high and exposed their deep valley.. ran off to a far off hill and relished the other side of the same hills & Valleys... a soft late evening with its hued skies made the moment memorable. The other car had directly gone to the estate instead and missed this most important scene of the day!.

While returning we went into the Madikeri Market... Manish and Kavitha went shopping while I stayed back.... pulled back the car seat, switched on the radio for few old kannada songs and started

passing time, like all other drivers do..... and it was quite another experience to watch tourists in high spirits running around aimlessly and carelessly in the soft darkness after finishing their day's visits. And to my astonishment among them there came a group of cyclists cycle up quite fast from a hilly road and vanished into a store just beside my car, I was perplexed and concentrated to checkout their cycles in that darkness from where I was relaxing and to my horror I found that one of it was mine!!... the other car members had cycled up to Madikeri town in the dark and they were roaming around like a bunch of locals barging into shops and buying the needy things.... as they emerged out of the shop, I called them and they were equally surprised to see me & the car here... we had a brief chit chat like how friends do at their usual hang out local place and they rode back to the far off estate while we drove up.

After washing up at the estate all of us, using torches, crossed a small valley like & climbed a slope with shrubs, bamboos and grass to setup a campfire among the wild . That was a nice evening where all of us were interviewed by Manish for the purpose of doing this trip..... I liked that of Naveen's when he said that he is doing this so that he can do something other than just breath in life. He is am epitome of what he said... he is simple, does more-talks less and enjoys just doing it rather than to prove a point to anybody or oneself. Kavitha started the Anthakshari and were joined by all .... Dipankar nudged at me to ask for some more gooseberry homemade wine that was with me... I reached out to the bottle but realised that I had emptied the whole bottle after sharing a little with others. We had ordered Strawberry, pineapple and gooseberry homemade wine which all of us relished and I did relish the gooseberry a little bit more!.... as anthakshari went full fledged for others, for me it was the fluorescence that was spread around the burning fire, the crackle sound of burning wood, the shadows it cast, with songs of Kishore, rafi and Anu Malik being sung by all in the background and my own thoughts in the foreground... all fuelled moderately by a tasty gooseberry wine in my stomach!

We climbed our way back to the estate and Vijay entertained us with his magical tricks with playing cards which were ultimately cracked by our ever agile Sailesh. After a decent dinner all hit the bed and so did I with gooseberry effect still lingering in the mouth and senses......

Find more pics @http://picasaweb.google.co.in/lifeonpedals/TDN2009Madikeri#

Riding the Blue Mountain: Day 1

2010-02-22T22:10:00.000-08:00

"It was pitch dark, dense forest, crickets screaming, waterfalls roaring, no signs of any house or light AND we were STRUCK!"

Atlast we were in Sakleshpur though 3.5 hours late and created quite a scene on the road side. More than 15 medium sized packed bags lay strewn around along the side of the road with 10 well built cyclists, wearing tight T Shirts and tighter cycling shorts which looked like some fancy dress that were squeezing the blood supply to lower legs, were hurriedly searching these bags and removing their armory made up of gloves, hand pumps, glucose, water bottles, gel seats, repair kit, medical kit, refreshments. The standless cycles all of different varied colors made the setting more interesting - few of them were laid on the side of the road, few were kept upside down on their seat.... support crew were busy calling out which luggage to go into which car. That day I am sure Sakleshpur had few late attendance at the workplace and schools! Workmen stood at the opposite side of the road and watched us equip ourselves with their ego or probably inihibitions not letting them to get closer to us while children without such barriers gradually cozied up to us and were all over us and our cycles. As I pretended not to observe them, one took courage to lift up my cycle and waited for an eye contact with me & some scoldings ....I pretended not to observe..... after waiting in a stand still position for few seconds.... he pushed the cycle a little bit and waited again for scoldings..... I looked at him and to his surprise I winked at him and that was the signal that other admirers of his gang were waiting for... all of them pounced on my cycle and started nagging at my cycle operating the gears, pulling breaks, pressing the tires and one of them was patting the cycle as if it was a dog!... fearing they might over do it, I gave them a cold stern look which freezed them again .... I made one of them (the naughtier one) as care taker of my cycle and told him what to let others do and not do.... that worked as they enjoyed my cycle responsibly thereafter. Same kind of gangs had surrounded other cycles and cyclists asking lots of questions. As others were getting ready, I told Dipankar that I will get air filled to my cycle tires and gas to the cars. I asked the cars to follow me and headed in the opposite direction towards the petrol pump. Spent lot of time convincing the air filler to pump 50psi (cars go with 30 psi) to my cycle tires and waited for 15 mins for the cars to arrive. I called up the drivers to hurry up but they told me that they are few kms towards Madikeri with other riders! I was dumb struck to find that rest of the gang have taken off and more than 15 mins into the ride!! This was a repeat of what had happened in the preparation ride! I did not want to do any catchup with rest of the gang and spoil the fun of riding. So decided to ride the first day alone .. asked for the direction to Madikeri with a passerby, turned my cycle towards that road and mounted my cycle to pedal away as Sakleshpur - with excellent natural beauty and good children who stole nothing but the heart, melted away into the perspective

First few kms of cycling were very thoughtful for me if not eventful. The very fact that I have made it to the start of the tour made me happy and a sense of accomplishment and completeness. The feeling of completeness made me cool down, relax and enjoy what I earned and as I cycled, I forgot that I was cycling and got lost in the arbit state of mind with arbit roads, arbit trees, arbit estates, arbit people ..... as I pedaled and pushed through the gradual slopes the cycle picked up pace and my legs fell into a rhythmic cadence, the wind was cutting across me hissing as it passed my ears, the tires were rolling on by making a faint humming as its threads took turns to hug the road, everything legs, wheels, wind, cycle, trees, stones, clouds, my body were moving.... except me.... yes that is the state I reached... it sounds crazy but feels amazing....I was woken up from this state by the first support car that rest of the gang had sent back to check on me. There after he started escorting me- he used to drive up some distance and wait for me to pass but used to get surprised to find me reach him before he had got down from the car to take rest. He increased his checking distance to take adequate break but I too increased my speed to disappoint him... we kept playing hide and seek for some distance when suddenly I came across Manish and Kavitha taking a break... I was happy to reach the tail of the group ... I smiled at them and kept riding ..... the first support car started checking/supporting Manish & Kavitha... few more hours into riding and I passed second support car parked under the shade of a BIG tree and Mrs. Vijay was enjoying the nature & looking up into the tree ... she saw me cycling past and shouted 'Do you need anything to eat?' This was my first ride with support and that shout was unexpected for me..... I had rode alone till this tour and had faced hard time (puking, dizziness, cramps and all) but had to help myself all the time. I smiled at her, said no thanks and rode on to find Rakesh standing by the road staring into fields which I thought were not that interesting. I continued cycling and came across a big junction. I met Vijay, Dipanakar and Shylesh here having some refreshments and within minutes Sarah joined us to inform Rakesh is in very bad shape with muscle cramps and a stiff leg that is impossible to ride with. Slowly Rakesh appeared on the scene limping and he almost fell while getting down the cycle, he limped and sat on a stone. We thought the tour has taken its first casualty and that too 3 hours into riding and with no gradients? - I wondered. We started again after having lots of coconut water and to my surprise Rakesh said he will give another try!! I was taken aback by his decision.... we still had atleast 7 hours of riding in steep gradients!! But the strong will powered Rakesh tied few clothes to his legs and struck to his decision to give another try..... I rode with him this time and saw that he was making the same, exactly same mistake that I had done on the preparation ride!!! He was trying to race all along and was getting exhausted.... I asked him whether he wants to complete the tour. He got all interested since he did not have hopes even to complete that day... I told him to religiously do two things 1. Never try to catch up with others, imagine that you are alone 2.Never ride on third gear in front and seventh in the back even in mouthwatering slopes

We rode through the beautiful estates with lots of steep gradients to reach a small town for lunch. I felt happy to see Rakesh who had reached the place much before me with a smile on his face! We had big sumptuous meal and started our post noon ride. All of us rode on... sometimes pairing with each other, sometimes alone ... the road became steeper and steeper as we entered into soft beautiful evening with gentle winds and even more beautiful landscaping. All of us had spread out due to the steep inclines and me and dipankar had paired up. As we took on one of the turn of the Ghats, it revealed Naveen pushing his cycle...it was a steep climb....we did not disturb his struggle ...and continued fighting against the steeps and came across Rao pushing Vijay's cycle, we told him to pair up with Naveen and continued climbing with great effort to reach top of a hill to find that the darkness has completely set-in with Madikeri still 10kms away.... and Dipankar received a call from Shylesh that they urgently need water. We started taking stock of the situation and this is how it looked - It was pitch dark all around, dense forest and this was a wild animal area, crickets screaming and waterfalls roaring, no sign of any house or light, no news about how far behind Manish and Kavitha are, Naveen and Rao was pushing his cycle far back, no news about Sarah and Shylesh and no cell phone signal. We were very concerned about Sarah and Kavitha. Dipankar frantically started calling Manish and Sarah..... for every 5 calls he used to get connected only once that too just to hear them say hello and the call used to get dropped off..... to add to this we started getting lots of calls from Shylesh..... somehow he was able to speak few words - 'Sarah with me' 'Dehydrated' 'Water'. Though felt happy to hear Sarah was with him, it was very stressful to hear the words that followed it. Dipankar updated me that Sarah was not feeling well when they started from Bangalore.. ... And where is Rakesh? none of us knew..... We pressed the emergency button and started planning to abandon the day's ride. We decided to cycle all the way back down the slopes till we meet up with Manish/Kavitha whom we thought would be at the end and in the process meet & take all others with us. But we need cars to transport all of us from the dark forests ... we tried reaching the support cars and found that first car had already reached Madikeri along with Vijay .... we tried but could not communicate with Vijay nor with the second car..... we had to reach and help Sarah/Shylesh who were dehydrated... but how? We worked out a plan where Dipankar will watch our cycles and I catch a vehicle towards Shylesh/Sarah.... we started stopping whatever came towards us rolling..... buses, cars, trucks, jeeps.... none of them stopped... I started showing all signs to plead them to stop... two men with weird cloths and cycles in the middle of the thick forest trying to stop vehicle did not go well with the drivers. Let alone stopping, all of them used to press the gas pedals hard and speed off down the winding Ghats as soon as they saw me...... I kept on trying while Dipankar was trying to interpret the short words he used to get over the phone. Another vehicle came along but this time with only one head light... I knew that it was a moped and I tried my last chance and the moped too sped off under my stretched arm ........ only to stop after a distance!. I think the rider realized that I could have easily taken him down by let alone hitting, but by just catching him by his arms... this way probably he decided we are not some bandits but those who are in genuine need. I ran to him and described the situation and he got all involved.... he offered help and said he can go back and get his jeep.... but I requested him to first ride as fast as possible for next 10 kms down the slope..... he did a James bond stunt by speeding off and taking on the winding curves with slantest turnings angles possible on his moped.... as we rolled down the road in the darkness I could hear lots of voices from some downhill and told the rider that it is our group.... we rolled few more turns and I could hear the voices getting louder and louder and we reached the group. From the very dim light of the moped I started noting who were present , I found Rao, Naveen and their cycles as expected but to my surprise I found Rakesh also in the group :-)... and then Shylesh and Sarah :-) :-) .....and then Manish & Kavitha :-) :-) :-) :-) ..... and then our loyal 10 yr old Zen standing by their side backing them up... and more importantly I found them cracking some jokes and laughing out loud and enjoying!!!! none needed any help! I think Shylesh/Sarah had come across the second support car that was with Manish/Kavitha and solved their dehydration problem..... I too joined their talk and relieved my stress.... in the process I had forgotten Dipankar and he constantly kept calling on my cell.... I stopped a truck which was exporting Coorg Oranges and made arrangements to put cycles and Rao in the truck so that Kavitha and Sarah will go by the car... and what about rest us? asked Sarah. Since there was no emergency I insisted that I have to ride every inch what may come and I told that I am going to ride. But darkness? I told them that the support car will light up the road from behind while we ride.... and to my disbelief Sarah insisted that she too will do the same and asserted to be treated in par with others. No convincing worked and I landed up as the only person to travel on the truck to reach Dipankar while others switched on their torches and started climbing. The moped guy stayed back with us and made sure we are Ok till all of us vacated the spot. I reached Dipankar, who was planning to pack out cycles onto a truck, only to find a group of cyclists approach him cycling in the pitch dark forest talking to each other riding in the light of car and torches enjoying themselves!....... the day 1 ride was not abandoned indeed!

All of us rode like a gang of experienced nocturnal riders for another 5 kms for another hour or so. I was not at all comfortable to put two ladies in this situation but I was happy that we were in a larger group and face any bad situation better....... then suddenly a truck with big lights coming from opposite direction pulled down to our side and stopped in front of us..... few silhouettes got down and one of them shouted 'are you all ok'? I could recognize the voice... it was Vijay... Knowing that this situation would come up, he had reached Madikeri and arranged for a truck and had come looking for us. He was better off in convincing the ladies to get on to the truck while Myself, Dipankar, Shylesh, Naveen and Manish were successful in convincing him to let us ride. As the truck disappeared into the darkness, 5 of us rode in absolute silence and took on the darkness and the winding Ghats with grinding pace. Only the first rider could make out the road and I could not see anything of the road but could make out that it was not tarmac but a dirt track kind that was very bad with stones, dirt and pits. Due to holes and pits we could not sit on the saddle but had to stand up and ride ... the cycles were screaming for mercy as they hit the small, big and all kind of holes and stones..... I was judging the sizes only from the loudness of the constant rattling sound of my cycle ......we rode like that for another hour or so and after riding in the dark, it was a awkward feeling to reach a well lit road ...and then Madikeri where lights were all around. Vijay had booked a marvelous Home stay for us among the hills..... we had soothing bath, great dinner and sound sleep to end the first day, ... I mean first 'day & night', ride successfully!!

Checkout Photos of the day part of this leg at http://picasaweb.google.co.in/lifeonpedals/TDN2009Sakleshpur#

Riding the Blue Mountains - The Gang

2010-01-30T23:44:00.000-08:00

The day to leave for Hassan arrived (We were supposed to start out cycling from nearby town called Sakleshpur). We had finalized on my sister's and our car both Maruthi zen as support vehicles.... both of these were 10 years old and I hoped not to face situations where we had to support the cars instead of them supporting us!... I was supposed to take Vijay and his wife along with me in my zen car. It was 12 pm on the PC clock...... said good bye to my boss and shut my shop (PC) and reached home by 2 pm. I had promised Vijay to start by 4 pm.... I packed hurriedly, gulped whatever I could lay my hands on, skipped my bath and was away to the pick uppoint by 3.45pm..... I parked it on the road side and was dusting my car (It always has a coating of 1 inch of dust which tempts all to get creative to draw and etch their names on it!) when suddenly a Black Ambassador car with red emergency lights on them pulls to road side just behind my car and three men, two of them quite huge and one of them in complete military unifrom disembark and head straight at me!!! few people around noticed this and awaited next action. As they approached near to me I said 'Hello Vijay' and shook hands with Vijay. The other two were soldiers and Vijay is a well built brigadier whom I had met the previous night. He was one our gang

To be honestly shameful I did not know much about a brigadier except during the times where I had to practice how to spell it for my school exams. This was mainly because I was kind of 'My experiments with truth' guy rather than 'Star Wars' guy during my schooling days. But I came to know about what a Brigadier means when I told to my boss at work that a Brigadier is comming with us. He exclaimed and I found out that he is just two ranks away from the General!! My immediate question was how to address him ... because we tend to address all our seniors with first name (By their order)... and I knew Army gentlemen prefer the other extreme. My boss told me that he has come across both kind of gentlmen .. some who were strict with their addressing and some who did not care much especially in a sporty, casual trip as ours. Though confused, I decided to address him by his name since as per me it reflected warmth, equality among ourselves, casual setup and basically the concept of fun instead of making him aware of his rank and profession all the time in the trip. The first time I met him I called him Vijay and looked into his eyes for any clues to his preference - he was cool and there was no irritation ... I took it as a positive sign and continued to call him Vijay there after. He is a very intelligent person and was a great company to discuss about any matter be it country problems or international topics or his work aspects (He is a Managing Director of ) or our cycling tour matters.... he is clear, crisp and to the point. He is a great cyclist and has done Manali-keylong solo! It was an honour to ride with him and felt proud through out the tour to ride with a Brigadier of our country! You can meet him at facebook->YVR Vijay .......and explore Manali-keylong in pictures.

I felt equally proud and honoured to have our(India's) Sepoy Rao volunteer as a driver to one of our support vehicle. Rao works with Vijay and has been with him since a very long time.

Vijay was accompanied by his life companion Mrs Lavanya Vijay, yes she is a life companion indeed.... she accompanies Vijay in all his cycling endeavour as his support crew!!!....... I envy Vijay for having his wife as a support crew :-). Above all she is a great human being who likes nature, walking, travelling and inquisitive about things.

All four of us dumped our luggages into the Zen car and sequeezed ourselves into what ever space was left and headed towards Hassan. I drove up the magadi road, after 30 mins of drive, the dusty, crowded, polluted and crazy traffic gave way to beautiful landscapes with hills studded with boulders and valleys with rivulets and dams. The beauty was confirmed by Vijay when he said he would like to cycle this stretch. We had tea and maddur vada (A special cutlet kind of thing which Mr and Mrs Vijay liked) at Magadi and soon we hit the NH4 national highway. It was dark and it was chaos all along this highway with road construction going on and heavy traffic of heavy vehicles competing with each other to blind us with their long beams... skies too joined in by pouring rain.... Vijay had to constantly remind Roa (who was driving) that he is not driving on the road but on the pavement!!! Perplexed Roa kept driving us in the dark and after a brief refreshment at Cafe Coffee day look alike joint at Bellur (Hot bed of Karnataka power - Gowda clan)and reached Hassan by 10 pm (a 6 hour journey that normally takes 3 hours!) . All along we talked a lot about the places we were crossing and our family/professional backgrounds.

Next day - I was supposed to wake up at 4am to get ready for the ride but I was still on bed at 5am and instead my father had woken up at 4am and was ready by 5am to drop me to the venue.....yes he is a very energetic and disciplined ... I got ready by 5.30am and reached the guest house where we had dropped the Vijays for the night stay. The rest of the gang had arrived in a tempo traveller at 3 midnight with all our cycles and was fast asleep at 6.30am. We were supposed to start cycling at 6am from Sakleshpur which is 40kms away from Hassan! It was 7am and Dipankar came out of the building.... he greeted me with his signature smile. He is an atom bomb willing to convert all his mass into cycling energy - E=Dipankar*C(square). He is an excited cyclist ready to cycle to moon if you show the road err... let me correct myself, even if you do not show the road, he will just start cycling in the direction of the moon!!!.... yes as a proof he attempted cycling Banglore to Chennai in one day only to land up not in Chennai but with a bruised, battered and peeled off bum :-) on a wrong road that heads in the direction of Chennai!!. But when ever he takes the correct road, he roars. He is one of the strongest cyclist that I have come across. He cycles every day to his office and all other places that he visits.. never takes any other kind of transport. He climbs a tough hill called Nandi with ease in his six speed cycle (many boast of doing this but with their 21 gear high end cycles). He covers up most of the tough routes with ease and wonders what was so tough about it. I have seen him always ahead of others in all the rides that I have accompanied him. His ambition to ride bangalore-chennai in 24 hours is not surprise for me because I am sure he will do that well within 20 hours & later he will wonder what was tough about it. His achievements and capabilities are long but from my point of view one stand out from the rest which I would badly like to emulate - he is one of the most emotionally stable person I have come across.... he maintains his composure and his reactions are driven by logic rather than some instant emotional agent however strong the agent maybe!! I am indebted to this person for making this tour happen and he has great ideas to take cycling as a pure non profit endeavour to the cyclists unlike other pseudo non-profit organizations which have concealed ulterior motives. He rides Rockrider 5.3

After Dipankar, Manish emerged out of the building.... gave him a welcome hug. Apart from being a Mother Theresa for cyclists in need, he has great software development skills and develops beautiful websites in minutes. He is a strong cyclist who competes with Dipankar and rides neck to neck with him. He has great dreams of cycling long distance and an invaluable addition to a cycling team. He rides a Trek 4300D and matches it with his great looks

By the time I finished welcoming Manish, I observed two persons sitting on the culvert all to themselves. I instantly recognised a pair of thighs.. they were the same thundering thighs that I had encountered during my preparation ride!!... yes the ones which were tyring to break the pedals of hercules. Though we did not introduce ourselves at that point (I do not know why we cyclists do not do that during the start of the ride), he was Naveen a software engineer at Amazon, an ex-infosys brain. He is a silent person and does not talk much... I mean he does not talk crap but when he talks he makes lots of sense and humour.... I liked each of his quotes and talk through out the tour. He is a full marathoner and does all the tough cycling rides with a dead body along.... yes that is what it is to cycle hercules!. He turned out to be the strongest rider in our group.... he was in one piece though his cycle had broken into many pieces by the end of the tour

The other person sitting beside Naveen was Rakesh an engineer at TATA Engineers. He was one of the youngest in our groups and prove that looks are deceptive. He looks/acts as if he is new to cycling but has done lot of cycling at toughest terrains. He has done some serious off roading with Dipankar and stands within 10 ranks in amatuer MTB cycling races in bangalore. During tours, as you ride fast he just vanishes behind you initially and when you cycle with great speed and effort for 60kms to reach your desination thinking that he might be atleast 20mins behind, he just arrives 2 mins behind you around the cornor, looking very tired and exhausted ....... but repeats the same in the next 60kms!! He has great will power and fights againest all odds to reach the destination..... well I think that is what matters.... He rides a trek 4300D

Dipankar and Manish packed all our cycles on a truck and sent them to Sakleshpur from where we were supposed to start riding. We went to a hotel in the two support cars to have breakfast. The hotel assistant came to take orders, all of us ordered idlis and I was wondering what to suggest for Sarah who was an American when pat came the order 'Idlis and lots of chutney' from Sarah. I was surprised to see an American liking the spicy chutney that too a lot!... for me that was just a taste of what a traveller she

was. She is an American girl turned world traveller ... a traveller who wants to experience things not just see them ..... she has sacrificed all materialistic pleasures back home and believes in leading a humble life among humble people to experience the richness in their life..... she is a yogi, cook, meditator, appreaciates homeopathi/ayurvedic and basically a beautiful person insideout. As per me she has just started her journey and I have aleady booked my calendar 15 years hence to meet her and chat with her about her experiences - I am sure it will be worth a dozen national geographic episodes. Cycling is one way of exploring places and people for her....she equally likes passing/halting through towns(how ever dirty and filthy it might be) the same way that we like the forests and landscapes. She rides trek 3700

I noticed another cute girl sitting beside Manish and came to know that she was his wife. She was Kavitha a very jovial person full of energy.. she was the source of conversations and kept the group talking to each other. She had just started cycling and used to hijack her husband's cycle leaving Manish a old hercules to cycle. Both of them make a good couple taking care of each other. She was the one who was the biggest surprise of the tour - She rode most part of the tour while we, including herself, had thought that she will ride for few kms during first day and be our support crew there after. She rides her husband's cycle!

Lastly but not the least, the driver of the second car was a very young chap called Guru hired by a car renting agency. He looked all the more confused by looking at all of us having plans to cycle like children at the same time he was astonished to imagine that anybody can cycle the distance and terrain which he had dreams to master as a car driver.

Atlast we reached Sakelshpur at around 9am!! (as per plan we should have been 50kms into cycling from sakleshpur) and I saw a cycle which I instantly recognised that it was the same Merida 100TFS that I had oogled at the repair shop where I got my cycle repaired the last day. On it was a well built young stud called Shylesh. I have seen horses painting beautiful abstract art, cat playing pianos, bird dancing different self choreographed sequences and I call them all as humans trapped in animal body (you can find them on youtube) but I also found an animal trapped in human!! one who likes to sleep on the grass, live in the forest, takes rest on the peak of mountains, shies away from humans by running away into the forests at their sight, bask in the moon light on plains and ofcourse enjoy the nature calls in the nature!! ... well that is Shylesh for

you. You have to go on a safari to Chickmagalur forest for a Shylesh sighting and I need not mention about the cycling powress of such a stud!

The Gang from left to right! - Guru(Driver), Sarah, Kavitha, host,Manish,host,Rakesh, Mrs Vijay, Vivek, Naveen, Vijay, Rao. Next snap- Dipankar

Shylesh

Packing off Cycles to Sakleshpur from Hassan

Beakfast at Harsha Mahal Hotel, Hassan

Riding the Blue Mountains - The Final RollerCoaster

2010-01-17T08:05:00.000-08:00

Though I had taken out the tour from my thoughts and had no intentions of improvising myself, the failure of my preparation ride(refer last post) turned into a puzzle and my mind just locks on to a puzzle till it gets resolved.... I thought there should be something terribly wrong with the rider and the machine combined... it got skewed more towards the machine since it was very hard to believe that such vast difference exists between one rider and the rest of a small group of riders.... I kind of went into a trance and started recollecting the whole trip, it was like clicking on a replay button of a youtube video.... each moment of the trip especially the way the legs-pedals-wheels of the cyclists worked together was visualized and one thing stood out from the rest - The way Sarah (one of them who joined us late in the preparation ride) cycled! yes, though she was not one of the fastest in the downhill she was hard to catch up by most riders during uphill, there was some thing amazing that I noticed - She was the person who made the whole trip with least effort and at the end of it looked like she has just arrived to start a long,challenging ride. Her pedalling was maintained at a constant speed, her effort to pedal was constant through out. she was very very comfortable doing this be it downhill or uphill or flat. She had a short but very quick pedalling that reminded me of some youtube video where a so called expert mountain biker was pedalling with lots of quick rotation even though he could have made it with longer slower rotation that will need more power (like what I did so far).....at that time I had thought that he wanted some fun and hence riding slow with quicker rotation instead of making use of his power :-) .... gradually my thoughts drifted on to an article that I had read about higher cadence and gradually things started falling in place..... is this higher cadence my magic bullet? Is Sarah's pedalling style the key to my Nilgiris ride? I decided to experiment.

With only 2 week left, I decide to pursue my training and explored the option of squeezing in cycling - Sarah's style!.... and the only way I could make it is cycling the 54kms (to & fro) to office instead of the bull ride in the bus. I took out my cycle, studied about derailler adjustments in the youtube and turned the dead front derailler to a lazy derailler i.e., I had to press and hold my shifters for sometime till the chain shifted to the new gear at its will - a lazy one is better than a dead one. It was a crazy idea to ride up the treacherous, infamous stretch of bangalore considering the traffic, flyover constructions and darkness in the evening. I pushed back all my priorities and started cycling (with higher cadence) to office by leaving home at 6 am in the morning and leaving the office by 5 pm in the evening. Infact I started covering the distance 10-15 mins faster than the bus (no exaggeration!). I made sure that I maintained the same rpm with least possible effort whether it was downhill or uphill. This left me with 2nd gear on the front and alternating between 4-5-6th gear of rear..... it felt awkard, it felt as if I am using an air pump by keeping its nozzle into the open air instead of a tyre nozzle (but these feelings were far better than the one that I experienced failing in the last ride!!!) . I had done this ride earlier with my old style during saturdays and I could get a tumbler of sweat drained out of my T Shirt and used to be exhausted by the time I returned home but with the new higher cadence style I was hitting my destination without a single drop of sweat and within the same time. Gradually I started to learn and appreciate the usage of high and low cadence and the benefit of alternating between them. And in this new found pleasure I had completed a one full week of cycling 54 kms every day and was still able to complete all of my high stress technology assigments at office and other duties at home.

My parents dropped in that week end and hence could not do much with the cycle except ... messing up the whole gearing system and this is how I messed it up - I tried to make the lazy deraillers into a perfect ones and in the process the derailers stopped working!!! Out of desperation I followed all the youtube videos but the condition got worst and the chain started slipping as I exerted pressure....... I ran to the vendors, they too tried but failed to set it right..... by fluke they measured the chain link and found that the chain has stretched due to prolonged usage!!!! Wow I am strong enough to stretch a steel chain?! Later I found out that it was more to do with my maintenance rather than strength :-( . They promised to get me a chain the next day and the "next day" remained the constant answer when ever I rang them up. I had last two days left for the trip and decided to take things into my hands. I hunted and found a wholesale merchant with one of such chains. I bought it and learnt how to break open the rivets of each chain link through a website. I rivetted out the old chain, and rivetted in the new chain. I took the cycle with new sparkling chain for a ride and the chain started slipping more with loud noises...... it was almost a dead end .... I removed couple of more links from the chain and did all kind of tampering like loosening the rigid links etc to find that it was slipping more and more..... I immediately called another vendor and begged him to take a look at my cycle and explained what ever I have written till now.... the young boy called Naveen showed mercy and started attending my cycle from the next morning. He meddled with the chain, he meddled with the deraillers, he serviced the whole gearing system and his pride started showing signs of failing.... he simply could not get the thing set right. He tried to convince me that I can make the trip with the defect still around.... but I knew that it was impossible because the chain was slipping 3 to 4 places for every rotation with a loud noise even on a flat surface and imagine my plight while climbing 2000 meters.... I found that this was his way of accepting that nothing can be done......I was heart broken - to have come this far but not make it to the trip... I started evaluating options.... dropping out of the tour was not an option at all.... I decided to buy a new cheap cycle and go ahead with the tour, my mother came to know about this and she insisted that I buy one similar to existing one (trek and not a cheap one) that I had messed up instead of a cheap one and she will sponsor it!! I said thanks but I had already spent quite an amount on repairs, clothing and accessories and now another 20000Rs for new one? that will rob the fun out of this tour I struck to buying a cheap cycle. At the repaire shop I noticed good cycles on rent! - 250 Rs per day.... this was a better option and I zeroed in on one of the cycle....... It had similar features as that of my messed up cycle! that was some consolation and I packed up my things at the repair shop to go home and turned to say good bye to the proud cycle servicer but he (Naveen) was no where to be seen in the shop... so was my cycle.... I had not noticed him while I was evaluating my options and checking out the cycles on rent.... I rushed outside to find him riding my cycle at very high speed on the main road! I had seen my cycle reach that speed long time ago before my front shifter went dead and before I could digest what I could see Naveen brings my cycle to a screeching halt in front of me and says ' Only slips occasionally that too only on 3rd gear' ...... I could not believe it and was dump struck and he added 'But I know why it slips on third gear. I will fix it' ..... this was like an anti-climax, I immediatly ordered him not to touch the cyle let alone fix it... I was terrified that any meddling with it will mess it up again. I was ok to go in 2nd and 1st because those are the ones that matter during climbing.... but he insisted and started explaining what he did. While he was loosing heart during the initial part of the repair, I had told him to replace the whole rear gear cog wheel if needed. I had told this for two reasons, 1. when I was going through the sheldonbrown.com there was a mention that extreme poor maintenace of cycles will lead to wearing out of the gear wheels along with chains, second reason was that I wanted to cheer him up because this way he would be selling a costly important component to me instead of spending the whole day just repairing the chain. He had done just that and we found that the slippage had vanished!!.... he had replaced few links of the new chain with those of my old chain and since these links had already stretched, they were causing the residual slippage....... this induced confidence in me to allow him to replace the old links with new ones. He did it and declared the cycle as fit for the Nilgiri ride. Suddenly the fact that he had said this before too, just to push me off after failing to rectify the slippages came to my mind and I told him that I wanted to test ride before I can let the joy touch my heart. I lifted up the cycle, placed it on the main road and mounted it and songs started playing in my ears....... the chain was embracing the sprockets like they knew from ages and were offering themselves to shifters & deraillers as if they loved to be shifted between gears.... I rode hard and harder on all combination of gears and it worked perfect almost like it did when I rode it first!! I got it inside the shop thanked the repairer but that had no effect on him because by now he had taken this as a personal challenge and was exhausted in solving it (From 11am till 5pm!). I sat for a while to let everything sink in - the flu, the nandi ride, the failed Harohalli ride, the new way of cycling, 54 km of cycling per day for a week, the messed up cycle, evaluation of other options available and now a much better cycle - It was a roller coaster ride and the actual nigiris ride was suppose to start the next day. I collected my belongings, thanked Naveen and oogled at a beautiful Merida TFS 100 that was waiting to be serviced before leaving for home. As my wife opened the door for me, I told her that the trip is on as per the plan.... that too with my own cycle and crashed out for the night!

Riding the Blue Mountains - The Devastating Preparation Ride

2010-01-07T18:13:00.000-08:00

It was 5.30 am and I rode slowly to join a main road where others(of the last training ride) were supposed to come riding. I called them and checked with some landmarks and they were behind me.... I stopped waited for 5 mins but no signs... again I called to find that they are still behind... 15 mins went by and they were nowhere.... I called them and asked them to check with a passer by and found that they are infact far far ahead!!..... I started cycling crazily but found it too hard to catch up with them..... I kept riding hard and ran into them in one of the village where they were nursing a fall of one of the cyclists.... I met this very very kind person called Manish who made me feel at home

and we started to ride in a group.... I noticed few great guys and gals in the group... a young lady and a young chap in their 50s on road bikes were biking with ease and cruising at high speeds which we the old guys in our 20s and 30s were finding it difficult to keep up with. Later I came to know that the chap was a marathon runner and regular cyclist since 15 years. I could see muscles, veins, arteries and nothing else in his body.... he was an epitome of health ( more importantly simplicity) and I envied him a lot. As I cycled I also noticed a pair of young thundering thighs cycling a Hercules - the only indian-made (hardest to pedal) cycle in that group. The power he was exerting looked like he is trying to break the pedals rather than cycling.... I glided past him with ease on my trek(cycle) and every time I did that he used to try that much harder to break the pedals (ie., catch up with me)..... I did it couple of time to test his perseverance and intentionally let him pass me for I was impressed with his perseverance and wanted him to feel good about it. We regrouped at small eating hut and met with a larger group of cyclists who were stronger ones and had gone ahead of us. Had a very sumptous idlis & vadas and soon after that I came to senses... I could realise how tired I was.... and one of the cylists who had done this route earlier mentioned that till now it was downhill and from now it was steeeep uphill ..... I kind of lost heart...had no choice but to continue. Most of them headed up but we got a call that two other have started from their home 50 kms away from where we were and are 15 mins away from us. Manish wanted to wait and recieve them since they were part of our Nilgiris trip and I stayed back with him........ wondering what prompts strong guys like these to wake up at 4 am and cycle all the way from another cornor of bangalore in the darkness, traffic, horrible roads & villages to make it to this remote part and to my astonishment, as two of them appeared on the scene, I found that one of them was not a guy but a pretty lady.... 'well, that needs real strength &strong heart' I murmured to myself and started concentrating on how to make my rest of the journey uphill. I left alone towards the hill while Manish took the new arrivals for breakfast. I cycled few kms slowly and after an hour or so I found myself trying to break the pedals...... my thighs were giving away as I pumped all my energy into them... but the wheels were crawling..... I continued doing this for sometime but the climb was relentless ..... as I put more effort the more steeper the road became........ I continued like this for another hour hoping that I will see atleast a flat road let alone a downhill...... but there was no sign at all. I decided to rest for a while .... got down the cycle .... sat under a shrub for a while and again mounted the cycle but was stopped by an energetic young man cycling zigzag on the road from the opposite direction.... he introduced himself as Dipankar (yes the same guy with whom all these started).

We exchanged greetings and checked out each other silently....... he asked me about Manish and I told them they are behind and to my astonishment Manish and Co., had almost caught up with me.... this was amazing considering the fact that the climb was not an easy one at all & I had left 15mins before they started ..... I wondered whether they are too good or I am too bad for which I got the answer in next hour and a half.

All of us Manish and Co., Dipankar and myself started riding together to complete rest of the journey..... the roads for the rest of the journey went crazy.... the road that I had to get down looked like a down hill compared to the rest of the road as it curled itself leading to the top of a mountain...... one after the other cyclist passed me .....I kept pressing the pedal harder and harder and harder but the cycle slowed down and gradually came to a halt and did not budge!!!! I got down and started pushing the cycle....I decided to complete the journey by walking if not by cycling.... the last guy was already 100mts ahead turned back and started shouting 'do not give up keep cycling' .... Manish overheard this and stopped to help me... it was very very kind of him (he is a very nice human being always ready to help those in need) I tried to convince him to move on and let me make the journey by walk but he insisted that he stay back with me.... just to keep conversation going I started explaining some problems that I faced with my cycle..... one of them was the front gear shifters not able to shift to 2nd and 1st gear... this meant that I had to ride on only 3rd gear .... Manish had an idea of manually setting the chain to the 1st gear and we did it. By this time we were on the top of one of the hill and I started riding with 1st gear... soon after sometime, we hit a much flatter, saner road ... shifted the gear back to third manually and I cycled the rest of the journey with great effort but slow pace....... I entered my house with a dull face which surprised my home minister a lot as she opened the doors for me... I resigned myself on the couch and decided to pull out of the tour...... I was willing to forego 5000Rs rather than be a nuisance in the tour slowing down others and spoiling others' fun, especially when people like Manish are around they will not let you stayback alone if you fail but make an all out effort to alleviate it and in the process sacrifice their ride. My wife was dumpstruck and kept asking what happened... I gave her this answer 'All went past me - the old, the young, the fatter ones, the leaner ones, the fairer ones everybody and I could not just climb a simple small hill... had to push the cycle walking'. Yes that is what I had found when I tried to find an answer for my failure ... I could not find one single reason why others (older than me, younger than me, leaner than me, fatter than me) could do it while I struggled, and failed... Damn !@#&*?#!
Find pics of this ride at Ride

Riding the Blue Mountains - Nasty Preparation

2010-01-07T17:11:00.000-08:00

The action shifted to training from the doubt phase.... Dipankar was posting madly about various week end rides to Nandi but most of it kind of did not suit my plan. I planned for day long Nandi rides on Saturdays since my home minister will be away from home on duty and a brief 4 hours ride on sundays so that rest of the sunday I can be physically present beside my home minister with my pupils pointing towards 'Jyoti', 'Balika Vadhu' and other soap operas on Colors TV channel. The week days are like a fully blown baloon - Wake up at 5.30 am, get out of bed at 5.45 am, in front of gmail at 6 am, in the bathroom by 6.30 am, out of the house by 7.20 to catch a bus and for next 2 hours I play 'Bull Riding' and various other rides that are very hard to find even in amusement parks as the bus sways and bullies its ways through other bulls (mass of traffic) and potholes with its own riders having fun with their own unique amusement rides. I check in to my desk at 9 am to attend work before my next bull ride (this time more of a saddle bronc ride) starts at 6.15 pm and lasts for another 2 hours till I hop out of the moving bus (like an expert bull rider) at the junction near to my apartment. I refuel myself with my home minister beside me and start nursing my serious hobbies (some critical dreams that I am pursuing) for next two hours and it would be one complete cycle to the clock (zero hour) as well as me by the time I hit the bed. Knowing fully that the balloon will burst if I squeezed in even one hour of cycling, I decided to make use of stairs to reach my apartment and at work place in lieu of cycling.
I had one and half month to carry out this plan ie., 6 days of cycling and 28 days of climbing stairs!! I was excited and excellently placed to make this trip a success and the count down began! I was breezing past the stairs covering them in less than 3 mins one way... promoted myself to take two steps at a time instead of one.... my thighs were taking them on albeit getting weak once done....thursday was already staring at my face when I came to know that I have to be in ooty for next 3 days due to some emergency!! I drove up Masinagudi along with a good friend of mine to find that we were supposed to take gudalur route.... we drove back, attended the assignment and were back in Bangalore by late monday night... to find out from my boss that I have to leave to Kochi immediately to present to the clients an application, which was on life support system, as a lively, useful bit of software full of life!!.... Went to Kochi swallowed lots of rice ('*'pams like uttapam, aapam) jaggery, coconut and cobra ... drank lots of stews & coconut oil and was back in bangalore by Sunday night with a MRF nylogrip tyre around my waist - I had a thick solid fat build up around my waist due to over eating for past 3 weeks. That night was awful because I had slipped on my preparation for CISSP exam - this needed covering 2 books of 800 pages each. Each line is like a mine of knowledge and higly techie and it is equivalent to 800 pages of binary code to be understood (Many who take up this 30000Rs fee, 6 hours long exam with no lunch breaks curse themselves for taking it up - google 'CISSP torture' ) I had planned to cover these during my 'Bull rides' but now I had huge backlog and since passing this is linked to my further career plans, my career was at stake and I felt disgusted about myself in putting myself in this mess where CISSP preparation was hopeless and cycling tour carrying my MRF tyre was a distant possibility

The following saturday I went ahead much againest my boss's advice of postponing it and sat for 6 hours to complete a marathon exam where I found understanding the question itself difficult let alone answering them.I had to engineer the terms and relate to the ones that I had studied and struggled with the vagueness and ambigousness of the questions. Neverthless I finished the exam and had a very very looong one hour stroll around Egmore of warm(it was November) Chennai. I took the night Bus back to bangalore and arrived in bangalore on Sunday early morning with a flu! I was down with fever, burning trachea, head ache, running nose and sever body pain... I took Rhinostat tablets and every time I take this it shuts me off completely as I doze off to wake up with deep breathes and feeling very very hungry and weak. I know that this is not good but had no choice and took three per day for next three days which left me with zero energy but wiped out the flu completely, I had lost lots of weight hence started eating like crazy for next two days..... felt little normal on saturday and hit the roads to Nandi with my cycle covering 135 kms up and down...rode non-stop at most of the stretches but had to stop many times on the climbs of Nandi...the thigh muscles were stiff and sore after the ride and that night I got a call from other guys who were going for their last training ride with other cyclist enthusiasts. I wanted to know others and hence decided to join them for an 80 km ride - the ride that created havoc within me!! and I decided to withdraw from the tour after this ride.

Riding the Blue Mountains - Western Ghats in my backyard!

2010-01-06T16:50:00.000-08:00

But the craziness continued.... and found that mighty Western Ghats were in my backyard!!!.... did some research on it and felt ashamed of not experiencing it in full glory though I was reared in its backdrop (I was brought up in a place called Hassan - a well known & dangerous trekking spot. How dangerous? DO NOT MISS to read! - Trekking In Hassan) and I thought riding these would keep me sane till July 2010 - the time when I will try to court Kardungla pass again. However my R&D had yielded my loved ones as greatest threats to my planned rides in the western ghats - the wild animals....... some how I had to prevent myself (cycling alone) from being a toy to a young feline/pachyderm to practice/improvise their instincts or an easy meal for those lazy/wounded non-vegs of the wild. I thought having a company would make the scenario somewhat better ie., two cyclists will be too large for a single meal so atleast one of us could collect the left overs of the other who is fallen prey and report back to the prey's kith and kin :-).. and that is what exactly a post in a google group offered !!. A cyclist by name Dipankar had posted for company to cycle Nilgiris covering 750+ Kms through the western ghats. I immediately connected with him and in next 20 mins created two important tools to turn this into a full fledged trip - one was a google form (Form) and the other was a google spread sheet to store all registration details (database). Enthusiasm from other fellow cyclists followed, they started nominating themselves as participants and volunteers along with contributions like support cars, medical kits, drivers etc. Routes, dates, accomodations, rest days, training, terrain were discussed at a frenzied pace. Time came to book hotel for our stay enroute and a tentative amount of 5000Rs covering all expenses was asked by all participants and it kind of acted as a crystalization process - very few crystalized and many just evoparated, various reasons were given for dropping out. This had a cascading effect and even the crystals (those who committed) started having doubts about the tour taking off and started pulling out and the tour indeed looked bleak. I had already put heart and soul into the planning (I virtually had no time to even brush my teeth properly but daily I was taking stairs to my 14th floor apartment and 13 floors at work place inlieu of cycling for which I had no time) and decided to go alone if nobody came along. I vented my anger and posted a response stating my intention of going alone if nothing materialized.... Dipankar was also in the same shoes and did the same.... this had a positive effect and few crystals did crystalize and the trip was resurrected!

Riding the Blue Mountains- The onset of Craziness

2010-01-05T16:27:00.000-08:00

After spending hours and days and months and years in front of the CRT coding away programs and applications ..... always arriving before the sun rise to get holed up inside an AC chamber and leaving after the sun set, in 2007 I got promoted and kind of was banned from coding :-(. I enjoyed the 2007 winter when the sun warmed my body after a gap of many years and had lots of time to while away .... and found it very very excruciatingly painful!.... yes 'leisure' had become pain and 'pain' had become happiness ... all emotional circuits were rewired reversely within me... and the result - one fine evening in the soft darkeness I landed in at my in-laws place (mysore) on a Hero Sport bicycle on which I had placed my bum in early morning of that day at Bangalore!! yes I woke up early on a sunday and decided that I will ride to mysore to see my wife and ..... yes I was able to do it (my bum hanging to its last straw though ... lol) . I entered, parked the cycle outside the doors of my in-laws place and went in to find my wife, her friend and my mother-in-law enjoying(!?) a daughter-in-law trying to fill a bucket with her tears on a TV show. All smiled at me (they had no idea about my mode of transport!) and formal questions came up - How was the journey? I said 'great experience'.... they found the expression little awkard and the next question was 'when did you start'? I said 'morning 6 am' .... there was little silence and their attention turned towards me away from the TV. They reiterated the question - 'When did you leave bangalore'? I said 'morning 6 am'... mother-in-law looked at the clock to make sure there is nothing wrong with it (it was showing 6.30pm, 12 hour journey? huh!)...... by this time my wife sensed that I was upto something crazy and had gone out to check why I took little time near the compound and she found my Hero cycle taking rest!!, she came back with a serious face and declared that I had cycled all the way from Bangalore......her friend's eyes almost popped out and started staring at me for some time & left the place much hurriedly...... it was like a Ripley's believe it or not for my mother-in-law, it needed much much explanation from my wife to convince her that I have in-deed cycled each inch from bangalore to mysore.... my in-laws went berseck.... there was absolute silence... may be they thought rececession has taken the first toll in the family!!

After retiring (from coding) I wanted to continue and do something as crazy as some of the programs that I had written. I zeroed in on physical endurance (read as abuse) as a replacement to my mental endurance (read as abuse) that had yielded some crazy programs and apps. ... started hunting for the ideas.... got lot of heroic stories about machos enduring, battling the himalayas to reach the Kardungla pass (highest motorable road) on their babe (Royal Enfield)... they were termed crazy...suicidal.... and I thought that was something that is worth trying and failing on a cycle!

I started cycling and practicing..... had great rides like that of mysore ride.. that gave me experience in riding unfit, dizzyness, nausea, weakness, near misses with those speeding vehicles and all...... more importantly it made me realize how much I have abused my body by not exercising!! .... but I kept raiding (not riding) 150 tough terrain every week end... and finally missed the season for the Kardungla ride in July 09 because of financial constraints :-( ..........

Riding the Blue Mountains

2009-12-30T09:29:00.000-08:00

Aspirations to test limits, craziness to do opposite of what we are trained for so far in life and simply to do something without a reason and the uncertainity associated with it left me caressed by winds, bathed in the sun rays, surrounded with sounds of bamboo trying to break each other and forest creeps tyring to outcry each other, engulfed by mountains that were trying to kiss the skies, nose stuffed with smell of eucalyptus and forest foliage - as I cycled up the Nilgiris of Western Ghats

The trip was fully loaded! and had it all - Insufficient preparation, Muscle cramps just one hour into the cycling (out of 8 days of cycling), riders who were trying whether they still remember cycling, wheels that started disengaging, struck in the night in a forest, broken chains/pedals/handle bars, shooting knee pain, biting cold, roasted skin, loosing the way, a major road accident, encounter with an angry elephant!!!......... and still all of us are back in Bangalore after successfully scaling the Nilgiris - one of the highest mountain ranges in Indian subcontinent after Himalayas

We were a team of 9 hopeles cyclists ( I have a reason to say hopeless which I will explain as I pen) who had a plan to scale the nilgiris by cycling 750+ Km over a period of 8 days and I will try to capture the trip as seen by me in the following posts