It's been a couple of months since I thought of getting a bike. After the usual procrastination taking it's toll, I finally bought one and just about learnt to ride in a couple of sessions. After about riding 70 kms in the basement I was bored , but couldn't muster enough enthusiasm to get on to the road.
I had been promising Ashish that I would be joining soon for the Nandi Ride, in the meanwhile he and Sunil had had done a to and fro ride to BIAL. So ,when he asked me for the ride on the long weekend, I said 'Yes' without giving it a thought.
As always I was ill-prepared for it, having to get my helmet a day before and had a couple of packets of Maggi hoping it would be sufficient to power my ride, how wrong was I!! ,I tried to sleep at 12:30 but I was still awake when my watch read 2:30 and probably after an hour and a half of sleep , woke up at 4:00 and got ready. I was excited at doing something new and was pumped up with adrenaline and so I left my apartment at around 4:45 to the rendezvous point at Columbia Asia Hospital. It was still pretty dark when I started and I rode along the Outer Ring Road planning to ride on it all through to Hebbal, but might be cause of the nerves took a left into Old-Madras road and I didn't realise my mistake until I had to squeeze myself between BMTC buses on CMH road, somehow found my way through MG Road to Mekri Circle and to Columbia Asia where the main party was already waiting for me for an hour or so.It was about 8:00 am and I had covered just about 25-30 kms.
After exchanging pleasantries , we began cycling as a group and Ashish noticed that the tire pressures weren't right , novice that I am I had no inkling of the its effect until I set it right at the next petrol pump ad found the bike moving better with the same effort.The road was wide and traffic was sparse so we rode along in the heat and reached near the base of Nandi Hills by about 12 noon. We were all famished and spent half an hour munching munchies and gulping juices at a shop.I forgot to mention Chirag, Sunil's roommate who had come along to support us on his motor-bike. We had all put our bags onto the bike and he was also carrying extra water , energy bars and also was the camera-man and in the end, proved to be as essential as our legs were, for the trip.
So at about 12:30 we started the 8 kilometer climb up the hill and after about 100 mts I had to get down and start pushing my cycle up, where as the remaining two could still cycle up. I thought it was because I was tired and had no energy left. So, as everyone disappeared from my view I kept trudging up the hill and caught up with them finally when they stopped for rest and water.
It was then that Ashish wanted to find out if it was really tough to ride my bike and we exchanged our bikes for 200 mts and man was his bike light , I could just ride along as if it was the plains whereas Ashish found mine to be too heavy to keep pushing it up. After many more stops and starts and crushing ourselves a bit for deciding to ride up a hill , we had 2.5 kms still to go and it was already 2 pm. I hadn't had a solid morsel of non-junk food over the past 14 hours and my body was crying out for some mercy , Chiraj probably realised the state I was in and generously offered to exchange places with me, when I declined ,he asked me to at least hold onto his bike so he that could tow me up on my bike. I probably am not one to swallow my pride easily and so once again declined and trudged along stubbornly.
Finally we set a target of reaching the top by 3pm and pushed ourselves with our watches and at last reached the top with a couple of minutes to spare.
The hill was crowded with holidayers , but we werent there for sight-seeing. We parked our vehicles and went in search of the Maurya hotel where we spent the next hour and a half feasting on whatever the hotel guys could fetch. We then tried to either get rooms for the night or would have been happy enough if we were allowed to camp out at night, but the former option was not possible as all rooms were booked and we were not allowed permission for the latter.So, we decided to camp out at the base and so decided to ride down. And boy what a ride it was!! ,after all the rest and water breaks and the 3 hour ride up , we needed just 8 mins to get down:).That probably is a good example of irony.
We put up a tent on the opposite side of the road of a dhaba. And then about 7:30 went into the dhaba to have dinner. And surprise surprise they had all kinds of biryani and palao but with one rider no curries!! , how was one to digest dry rice without them?? Pat came the reply 'I will provide ketchup':) . We needed to eat properly for the next day's ride and so set out in search of a curry. After some more work for Chirag ferrying us to another hotel some 6 kms away , we were able to find some peas curry and had probably half-filled our stomachs when the rain gods decided to impress us with their presence. We then rushed back to pack up the tent and get our luggage out to the safety of the dhaba where the owner was kind enough to let us camp there for the night.
The best sleep one can have is when one has spent every ounce of energy in the day and is totally satisfied with one's efforts, the location or the environment doesn't matter a bit and so I had a good 8 hr sleep that night.
We got up at about 6:30-7:00 in the morning and after finishing up with the morning chores, set off to the place where we had our dinner to have some breakfast.After some idli-vada and tea , we started on the return journey.
I expected that it would be tough trying to push back home after the tiresome day we had before, but the breakfast seemed to have done some magic and once I hit a rhythm after just about 10-15 mins and boy!! what a ride it was , I reached the junction with the National Highway in no time and was just sailing past the milestones.We had a break at this point and when we started again it was as if the bike had suddenly developed wings, it probably helped that we were going downwind. I just had the time of my life riding the next 25-30 kms or so, kept up the speed between 15-20 k for an hour and a half and jumped all the signals on the way !! , cyclists seem to be classified under both pedestrians and motorists according to convenience it's seems:).
Chiraj gave me company for most of t
he way and whenever he increased his speed I would try to keep up with him but invariably fail. It was a total all-out effort and I started tiring down around the time I reached Yelahanka and then Sunil caught up with me , we had decided in the last break that the next stop would be at Columbia Asia but the fuel in our stomaches was totally empty and we stopped a couple of kilometers before , after having something to drink , finally reached the hospital which has a good cafeteria and so we spent the next hour re-fueling and enjoying the effort we had just put in.This was the point where I had to leave the group and it was time for the last Bike salute.The ride back home from there was boring and difficult as the heat now was taking it's effect and the bunch of climbs over flyovers did not help ease things much. I just set a target of making it back by 3 and finally at aroung 2:35 I stepped into the basement I had left 34 hrs ago. Tired but satisfied and euphoric , a nice bath ,good food and a good night's sleep later I was good as ever.
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