The Psychelist: Ride to Devarayanadurga

Riding towards Urdigere

This ride was supposed to happen in feb, but for a number of reasons it got pushed to march 2nd. Weather had been just awesome all week, with lots of cloud and gentle rains. During the ride, however, it was oppressively hot.

[Update: Map added]

We took a new route (slightly bumpy, via Alur cricket ground) to get to Gollahalli, where we stopped for some refreshments. Three of our group who were beginning to get tired decided to return, and the remaining five continued on towards Dabaspet. There were four roadies with me, and I was happy to be able to keep up with them. The heat was starting to build up now, and other than a couple of stops we made good pace. Sourav's tire had a scary bulge, and Phani's rear tire suddenly lost air, but otherwise progress was uneventful.

At Dodbele I made a mistake reading my draft cuesheet and we ended up on a mud road. A few helpful directions from locals, and we were back on track till Dobespet.

At Dobespet we took an inner road via Urdigere instead of taking the highway to Tumkur. This stretch was extremely painful. Road widening was in progress, there were only two bumpy lanes operational, and fine dust was everywhere.

It was 11.45 by the time we got to Urdigre, and the sun was taking its toll. A quick lunch of Tomato rice and idly, followed by tiny coconuts saw us ready to start. This was my first visit to Devarayanadurga, and I had no idea how the climb was. I was told there is one bad climb right at the beginning ("The Wall") after which its quite "Chilled Out". The "Wall" is a section of 15 or maybe maybe 20 percent grade for about 300-500m (or thats what it felt like). Halfway up I overheated and had to push the rest of the way to find everyone else waiting on the top of the 'wall'. From there on it was a steady climb for about 5km of nearly constant, gentle grade, and with some breaks
and some pushing I finally made it to the top. After an hour of rest we started back, descending towards tumkur. Once we hit the highway the roadies took off and I was barely able to keep up. At a point I had to tell them to go ahead and not wait for me. Only after about 5, when the sun sank lower, did I up my pace, to reach iisc by about 7.30, over an hour behind the roadie pack.

Worst possible "recovery" ride yet. I realised that "knowing" a climb makes such a big difference - a lot is just in the mind...

P.S: Map embedded at the bottom. For full map see here or here.