The Basavanabetta 200

The Basavanabetta 200 route was designed by Parag Patankar, and organised as a non-ACP ride under the Bangalore Brevets banner.


I rode the organisers ride (as usual) along with Parag and Sunil. We zipped down Hosur road till Bommasandra, before turning towards Jigani.

Bommasandra - Jigani road

From Jigani we headed south on some fairly bad roads, in the pre-dawn, towards Harohalli via Madeshwara forest and Thattekere.

Zipping down to in the pre-dawn

Thattekere forest

It was quite warm by the time we reached the base of Basavanabetta, and I climbed quite slowly, stopping for a couple of photos along the way.

Midway on the climb

Looking down from one of the hairpins

The heat had got to me, and on the return I started to lag, managing to catch the others at the last ATM control. The bad roads of Harohalli-Jigani seemed even worse on the return. As organisers, one concern was to make sure that even the slowest riders got past the forest section before dark.

Sunset on the Harohalli - Jigani section

We made it to the end control at J. P. nagar well in time, despite the mad traffic in J.P Nagar.

Saturday night traffic!

On the whole a super scenic yet fairly challenging route. Should be much easier in the winter (Dec - Feb) and hell in summer. The Basavanabetta climb itself is short but can really destroy an unprepared rider