Sarjapura SMBR

Last saturday I did a brisk paced ride with Rachit heading southeast of Bangalore, an area I had not ridden since the Bangarpet brevet. We met up near Marathahalli, then headed towards Varthur, and then eastwards.

Beyond Gunjur

The road surface is mostly good, but there are some really bad patches in places.

Rolling roads

The terrain is rolling, with lots of small hills, and many false flats. Though the area was quite green, I imagine it will all be dry scrub in the summer, before the monsoons.

Lantana in bloom

The area was quite green throughout, but there aren't many trees providing shade on the road per se. In the afternoon, with the sun overhead, there isn't much shade on the road.

A small lake

We even came across a small lake, just before we hit Chikka Tirupathi. There is a small "darshini" just opposite the main temple entrance, and we had a quick breakfast (some of the best Idlis I have had), then turned around towards Sarjapura again. The return was noticably harder - there was a strong headwind blowing southeast and the sun had come up by now.

Decathlon - Gift cards

On the way back we stopped by Decathlon Sarjapura, which has now introduced gift cards. We were hoping to find some bargains in the end of season sale, but the sale items were out of stock or not great.

Walking up one-ways

On the way back the traffic was unusually annoying, so instead of taking the long way around with the one ways I took the shortest path and walked up the one ways. Traffic was at a standstill all the way from Minsk Square to High point, and even further towards Bellary Road.

Impromptu Ride to Hessaraghatta

I've been falling behind on my ride reports, but I'll try to catch up before 2014. Here's one about a sunday ride last month, to Hessaraghatta and Madhure.

Varadenahalli Loop

I wanted to do a 100k ride as preparation and equipment check ride before the second Anchetty Recce, and the Institute holiday on Wednesday provided the perfect opportunity to do so. I had no route in mind, so when Sree suggested exploring a village route from Mangalore highway to Bachchenahalli I quickly agreed. We ended up discovering some new routes and rediscovering some old ones, over the slow ten hour ride.

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...

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...

Magadi Road

Some photos from the Savandurga Populaire recce, along Magadi Road...

Rolling Terrain on Magadi Road, near Tavarekere

Stargazing Bicycle Ride

This was Alex's idea - to go riding north from IISc at night to reach some place pitch back to enjoy watching the Geminid meteor shower.

Every year in December the Earth passes through the trail of an asteroid called 3200 Phaeton. This asteroid left behind dust and particles which is collectively called the Geminids. Between Dec 13 and Dec 17 of this year these particles will glow up in our atmosphere with about 100 meteors per hour. Their origin (from our point of view is in the star sign Gemini between Pollux and Castor. 

So we took off to see how many shooting stars we could spot... We started from IISc at about ten at night (the GPS file has Zulu time stamps) and rode out via Mekhri circle onto NH7 (bellary road). Most of the road was well lit except a few parts where there was some construction going on.

We rode out almost non stop till the yelahanka fork, debating whether to go straight on as per the original plan or go left towards Yelahanka. We went straight anyway, since we were afraid of missing out on the peak intensity of meteors which was expected to be at about 2AM. We rode a reasonably fast pace till Sir MVNIT college, where we turned left off the highway. All roads were deserted. All that we could here was the sound of aircraft from the BIA runways which are not far away; and the sound of trucks and mining equipment from the quarries in the area. The roads were deserted. As we passed though each village the dogs would kick up quite a racket upon detecting 'intruders' - at times they even chased after us - but luckily they did not attack and did not pursue us beyond the ends of their respective territories. Nevertheless those few moments left my heart rate redlining.

For a long time we could not find a place from where we had a sufficiently clear view of the sky towards the east - there was always either too much tree cover, or a hill - or even at times too much street lighting. About midnight we found an acceptable spot, parked the bikes and sat down with eyes skyward expecting a shower of meteors. 

Obviously there was some mistake. There was no shower. More like a trickle from a leaky tap. The few meteors we saw were coming from random directions. After about half an hour and maybe three or four meteors, patience was running thin. Some of us lay down on the road since keeping the head at that angle was becoming a pain in the neck. Plus there was patchy cloud that would cover the sky once in a while. And there was enormous light from the airport, which again happened to be to our east. After a few hours and not any more meteors we started back; returning to Bellary Road via the ITC factory; and back to campus. On the way a police patrol stopped us, asking who we were and what we were doing cycling around at that hour. Luckily Sumanth explained patiently in Kannada, which seemed to satisfy them. 

We got back to campus in the small hours of the morning after an excellent night ride.

MTB trails - TG Halli - Manchanbele

Last weekend, we took off again for a short ride to TG Halli reservoir - a round trip of under 65Km. Or so we thought. At the end of the day, we ended up discovering a great new MTB trail and returned with 97Km under our wheels...

As usual, we started off from IISc at about 05:45H. There were only five riders, Poovaiah on his new FOMAS Road King delux (a two week old road bike, but more on that later), Devendra with his Hawk, and three MTBs - Prakash, Sree (Hero Thunder) and me. We had all assembled at C mess parking - which has become a sort of ceremonial flag-off point - by 5.30. After some debate on the route to take, we decided to head out via NH4 and ring road, to Magadi Road, which would lead us to our destination - the TG Halli reservoir and dam. There was the option of taking pipeline road, and cutting a few km off, but none of us knew the road well enough to risk it in the pre-dawn darkness.

We proceeded at a gallop till Magadi road, all downhill. The first climb on Magadi road was pretty tough and knocked the wind out of our sails. After a few minutes of rest we set off again. About 5km down the road deteriorated into an almost-MTB terrain, slowing us to a crawl. Even the MTBs were having a tough time. But as we approached the city limits, the road became much better and we picked up the pace again. This section of the road, all the way till the T. G. Halli reservoir, is very scenic, with rolling hills, gentle slopes and big shady trees.

We overshot the entrance to the reservoir itself by about 4km. By then we had done about 35km non-stop, and we were desperately looking for some breakfast.A few km ahead is a small village where we downed a few plates of idlis, bananas and some tea.


Then came the big question of what was the easiest route to Manchanbele. From the locals we found that there were two options - go a few km back and ride almost straight to Manchanbele along a narrow off road trail, or ride straight on along the state highway, covering a big loop to Manchanbele. We chose the first.

The trail turned out to be superb. It started off as metalled road in bad repair. Soon afterward the road became a graveled path, and within the next few kilometers had become a trail rutted with tractor tracks. We discovered that the tractors and motorcycles belonging to the farmers along the trail were the only vehicles that came this way.

 About halfway to Manchanbele, the  trail became narrower - barely wide enough to walk - with wild plants brushing our calves.At one point we actually had to carry our cycles across a small gulch. After we crossed the trail became wider and eventually hit the banks of the Manchanbele reservoir.




On the return, we took the highway via Big-Banyan-Tree and the Byayalu station. The biggest problem on this route is, i believe, the lack of good places to have food.

Aanekal and Pearl Valley Cycling Trip

The IBN (IISc Bikers Network) set off again on Saturday morning, this time in a different direction - to Pearl Valley water fall, near Anekal, southeast of Bangalore.

Route: see map here. From the Madivala junction, the traffic starts to become a bit of a pain. This is Hosur Road (NH7), where construction of the elevated high speed corridor from bangalore to Hosur is in the final stages. However, since the elevated road is not yet open to traffic, we found ourselves rubbing elbows with a motley bunch of early morning travellers. In addition, the road is 4 lanes wide in either direction - two main lanes and two service lanes. The service lanes are fenced off in most places. I observed that vehicles use all four lanes so there was no sense in taking the service road. In fact it is a better idea to ride in the main lanes because
1. The fence prevents people from popping up on the left.
2. There is about 2' of room between the road edge and the fence, which comes in handy at times.

The turnoff for Anekal is one of the first major intersections. This stretch is extremely bad for about 3-4km. Road bikes had to slow to a crawl. To make things worse vehicles of all shapes and sizes are going in all possible directions - so it is essential to keep ones wits. Beyond that one bad stretch, however, the road is smooths, winding among the rolling hills, with gentle slopes and VERY NASTY TRAFFIC. A large part of this (both nasty and otherwise) traffic is BMTC buses (routes 356, 360, 600, etc) which reach as far out as Anekal. Innumerable times the buses forced us off the road. This goes on till Anekal, which, by the way, is a good IVC* point. [IVC = Idli Vada Coffee]

The last stretch, from Anekal to the waterfall site itself, it the best. The road has no traffic whatsoever, barring the occasional tractor. This stretch of about 4km, leads up to the KSTDC restaurant. Steps lead down from the restaurant towards a small 'waterfall' below, which serves as a good resting spot.

On the whole, the lack of good highway IVC joints and bad traffic are serious minuses to an otherwise scenic route.

UPDATE: Added some photos...

Savandurga and Manchanbele

Photos from an early tour of Savandurga and Manchanbele, with Mohammadi and Poovaiah.

Nandi Hills Road Race

Photos from the Nandi hills Road Race, organised by the Bangalore Bikers Club.

Race to the clouds - Nandi peak seen from the approach road

The sweep car

Nandi temple at the top

Starting the descent

Back down - just after the base

Ramanangaram and Janapada Loka

Some photos from my first ever (longish) bicycle tour - to Ramanagaram, followed by some trekking, then lunch at Kamath Lokaruchi, rest at Janapada Loka and ride back to IISc.

A temple on the top of Ramdevara Betta

A small rainfed lake in the rock

The lake - it even had fish in it!

The view from the top

The rocky outcrops at Ramdevarabetta

The climb is possible only because of steps cut into the rock and steel railings all along

Janapada Loka