Bangarpet Brevet

Short summary: It was an easy ride. Feel-good moral boost. Other than Kolar - Hoskote headwinds, no trouble at all. Super scenic roads. Four controls (an extra one at Chikka Tirupathi added as a last minute surprise) meant very little error margin for slow riders.

The rocky hills near Bangarpet

 

Rajankunte Ride

The plan for a relaxed group ride came not too soon. After months of randonneuring dominating the IISc bicycling scene, there was a yearning for the group rides of the past - characterized by a scenic route, some nice breakfast. Most importantly, these are not ride-by-numbers; one is not a slave to the watch and cyclocomputer. There is no pressure to complete so many kms in so many minutes, no pressure to maintain this average speed or cadence or anything. 

Tour of Yelagiri

It started out with a hunt for a new 400km route for the IISc brevets. When the route was chalked out as Bangalore-Yelagiri-Bangalore it was too tempting not to ride it. Mustafa, Alex, Nirmal and I decided to give it a try over the weekend. We had planned to start on Friday night, and reach Yelagiri base via the Chennai highway by dawn on Saturday. We hoped to get up to the top before it got too hot, rest all day and start back early on Sunday morning, to reach Bangalore by nightfall.

The Road leading to Yelagiri

Calvin's Dad Cycles

I came across this series of Calvin and Hobbes comics, and I just couldn't resist re-blogging it.

Besides his artistic and creative genius, Watterson seems to have a thing for cycling as well which comes across through Calvin's nameless dad.

Tour of Anchetty

An exploratory ride to Anchetty

Anchetty is a small town in Tamil Nadu, unremarkable in most aspects except that it has become the destination for many moderately tough rides from Bangalore. Anchetty is about 490m above MSL (Bangalore is about 850m but the road to Anchetty and back crosses so many hills that the ride begins to feel like a rollercoaster - going up one minute and down the next. Given this fact, it became an attractive candidate for a 200KM brevet route (IISc to IISc) and we set out to recce a proposed route, part of which was visible in Google maps' satellite imagery, but not marked as a road...

Northwest Exploratory

Rode towards the northwest last sunday, going past Madhure towards the Doddaballapur - Dobbespet Highway, and returned via Gollahalli and Tharabanahalli. Detailed report later. Some photos in the meantime...

Gollahally Exploratory Ride

After a long break from riding I finally got back in the saddle. Decided to explore the northwest area - the region beyond Hessarghatta.
There is a small trail / mud road that crosses the railway lines near Tharabanahalli on Hessarghatta main road.Found a nice loop to Gollahalli then back via Hessarghatta, totalling 60KM, IISc to IISc.

Railway bridge over the Arkavathy

A quick stop for some rest under a shady tree. At right is the other 'broken bridge'. Interestingly, there are two bridges in the vicinity that seem to be permanently damaged.

The 'Pipeline' in Pipeline Road...

Nandi Revisited

It had been quite a while since i'd been to Nandi hills, and I was just itching to ride all week. So I posted a new route to Nandi hills, a near straight line from IISc, and ended up discovering a wonderful set of roads...

Long route to Nandi Hills

Google suggested a slightly long route (21128 KM) to Nandi hills. Yes thats twenty one thousand kilometers, and three continents. See the map here.
Someday...

Panorama of Manchanbele from the trail

I generated this Panorama a long time back - from photos taken on a ride via the Manchanbele Trail. I have talked about the route in a previous post, so here's just the panorama...

Ride to Hessarghatta and Madhurekere

Did a short loop of about 70 Km this morning, to two lakes in North- and - Northwest Bangalore. Cyclone thane caused some rain in the early hours and soaked us completely within the first hour. The sky remained an angry gray throughout and threatened us with a little drizzle here and there.

The route is almost entirely flat so we made excellent time till Hessarghatta, and then onward to Madhurekere. The lake was dry, with a couple of ponds here and there. Saw a few water birds but when they sensed that they were being watched, and quickly took cover in the grasses.

SH74 at Madhurekere

The road is fantastically good except for a really bad stretch just after Madhurekere, and pretty quiet too. Ideal for a peaceful ride on a lazy weekend


View Hessarghatta - Madhurekere Loop in a larger map