The Art of SMBR

A Sunday morning breakfast ride (SMBR) to Kanakapura Road

I had some work on Kanakapura road, very close to the AoL campus on Kanakpura Road, so I decided to do a SMBR ride to Harohalli and back. David was free, and agreed to join me. The weather was pleasant and traffic very light as expected on a sunday morning. As we passed through the city, I noticed (because of David) many buildings and features that I would otherwise have missed.

Minto Opthalmic Hospital, Kalasipalayam, Bangalore *

Kanakapura road was a mess - a night of heavy rain and excavation for the Metro had caused a lot of waterlogging. David's CX bike saw some good slushfest action as a result. Once near AoL we turned onto pipeline road, which runs more or less parallel to the highway.

Pipeline Road near AoL, Kanakapura Road

It took a while to finish with my work there, so we abandoned the plan of riding to Harohalli, and turned back, stopping at the MTR just north of the AoL campus. Although the food was OK the prices were quite exorbitant, and I really would not recommend this as a SMBR destination. 

For the return we wanted to avoid the traffic and muck on Kanakapura Road, so we turned west to try and take the inner roads.

Kanakapura Pipeline Road

Unfortunately, Pipeline road is in very bad shape in places, some segments have been fenced off (by BBMP order), so some backtracking was needed.

The "Pipeline"

Pipeline road is also in bad shape in many places.

Will that plank take the weight of bicycle and rider? Guess it will.

Pipeline Road in slightly better shape

Unfortunately I was not watching the GPS/Map, and true to the IISc Rando spirit we were soon lost. We ended up taking short-cut after short-cut and ended up on a hill in RR Nagar, overlooking a massive temple.

Murugan Temple, RR Nagar

David, being a movie fan, wanted to check out a "Tent Cinema" in Banashankari.

Kokila "theatre", Banashankari (Under renovation)

We managed to get un-lost using GPS, and made it back to campus after ~70k and 8 hours.

Statue of Dr. Ambedkar, Okalipuram

*Photos by David Farris