My first brevet- 200km night ride to Krishnagiri.

It has been exactly one year since I started cycling. Let me use the right word- Biking :P. Why/ how I started the biking is explained here My first longest bike ride.  I will just give a background about myself, so that newbies can take a thing or two from this. 

My longest bike ride ever was 5 years back, a 76 km ride which I completed in one day and was literally half dead. After that I never rode but I got addicted to it last year. I’ve done a few 150’s so far, probably 7 or 8 but had never attempted a 200km in a single day, rather half day in case of a brevet.

I started running too last year, biking which was started as a cross training tool for my running has now found priority as equal to running. Now I use each other to cross train and mutually benefit the body. Biking is more risky compare to running. Running injuries are generally internal and Biking injuries leave a lasting physical scar or sometimes take the life itself.

Having said, I live by the principle everyday that this body is temporary and we are born to die. So these physical injuries are to your body and not you. Once the mind takes control over body, nothing is impossible. Pain is just temporary.

Coming to the brevet now, I had registered for a brevet last year but didn’t go as I wasn’t confident yet. But it was there at the back of my mind always. 

I have a rockrider 5.2 (MTB). My good friend Paul had done the recce for this route and told me that it’s doable but challenging for a first brevet and asked me to do the kolar easy brevet and then think of tougher ones. As it goes with my character, I wanted to challenge myself harder and show off. I told a couple of biking friends about this. One guy had a knee pain and so couldn’t risk it. The other one joined. 

Even till a week before the ride, I was skeptical whether to do it or not. I was dual minded, finally decided to get rid of the devil in me and registered. Still there were thoughts whether to participate. I came up with a plan, to publicize this news. I told my triathlete training group and office running group about this, wishes started pouring in and now I had the only choice to do it and keep up the faith they had in me.

N-2 days to the brevet, my friend told me that 2 more of his friends are joining us which was a good news. 

N-1 th day

I made a list of items to carry. This being a night brevet, I have only one experience of riding in the night, that was a normal ride and not timed. It was from madikeri to mysore. We reached mysore at 10pm but this is a different ball game. 

This is the list I made.

1. Helmet (With bandana)

           2. AIR no (Audax registration no)

           3. Front (2 no’s) and rear lights (1 no)

            4. Reflector

            5. Battery power bank

      6. Hydration water pack (Pick 3 lts pack from decathlon)

      7. Enerzol (2 sachets)

       8.Collect the brevet card at the start point (Don’t forget)

      9.Wallet

      10.Gloves.

      11.Water bottle.

      12.Tool kit and puncture kit.

      13.Spare tube.

            14. Dry fruits.
      15. ID proof.

One week to the ride, I was thinking of the various strategies to complete the ride. As I had understood from the recce that it’s a downhill one way and return is going to be uphill. I had planned to complete the 100km in 25kmph and the remaining at a slow pace with multiple breaks and try to make it within the allotted time of 13 hrs 30 min.

Nth day

After a very long time, I slept at 12am to make myself be ready for the night ride but habits don’t change in a day. I woke up at 5am, which is my regular time. After seeing my whatsapp messages and playing with facebook for a while, caught up sleep again, this time I woke up at 8:30 am. 

Afternoon I had a meeting with a social service organization. It rained the whole time; I got stuck in rain and was wondering if the event would take place. I called the organizer and he said no matter what may happen, the event would go and I was free to decide. I said I’ve chosen the right sport. Come what may, I will participate.

I reached my home at 6:30pm, it was raining heavily. Thanks to the list I created I packed everything in 15min except for the enerzol and left home. The rain was bad. The start point was 14km from my home. Within the first km, I lost my rear light which fell probably when I was adjusting it; I had no patience to go in search of it in the rain. I wanted to request the organizer to somehow arrange it. 

The rain wasn’t stopping, traffic jams and 2 feet water on most of the roads. I biked, I pushed, I ran and somehow did everything possible to be there on time. My shoes were almost 10 times their normal weight now. Since last February, I have been wearing power glasses. Rain made it poorly visible. I had to remove it and ride, causing stress to my eyes but no choice. 

I somehow made it to the start point and this itself was one adventure. Suddenly I remembered that I hadn’t eaten anything and now wasn’t the right time either. So I decided to eat at the 70^th km CCD.

I was the first one to reach, soon a roadie joined me. I was wondering if I will have a MTB company. As it was 8pm, I decided to start with him. Waiting for friends might cost me dearly. Finally had a word with organizer that I’ll use my spare headlight on the rear which he agreed. 

0-41 km

The rain wasn’t stopping. I understood that the roadie was also doing his first brevet but had done a lot of 200’s before. He chose this brevet for the beautiful and CHALLENGING climbs in the return. If these climbs are challenging for a road bike, what about a mountain bike? I lost a bit of confidence now.

There was a traffic signal and I moved ahead. I had to remove my glasses as it made it hardly visible. Directions were not visible properly. I asked a guy how to enter hosur road, he said it’s written so big there, go that side. Well, this was the irony. But I missed the road and entered towards sarjapura. I had been to chikka tirupathi on this route and so for once knew I had taken the wrong route. I called up the organizer and he guided me back to the main route. Probably 20min lost.

After an hour of riding, I stopped at metro wholesale store. I called up my friends to check if they had left, they didn’t receive my call. I checked my running keeper.

Time: 1 hour

Distance 16km.

I was thinking will I be really able to do it. All bad omens. Peddled another hour and found a medical shop, this rain wouldn’t stop and my eyes were straining.

Time: 2 hours.

Distance: 36km

Average speed: 18kmph

Should I quit, my confidence was at an all time low.

I rode another 5km, service roads were pathetic. The hosur road service roads are full of construction sand and stones. Half the sand was in the road. The main road was full of trucks and speeding buses. This was the last option for me and all the street lights were off, maybe because of the rain. Vehicles were coming in both ways on the small service road. There was a very high chance of head on collision. 

The fall

As I was moving through this haywire, one vehicle in the front stopped suddenly. He had to take a left. My rear brakes being bush type couldn’t stop abruptly because of the rain. I had to use the front disc which tossed me over. This was the last thing I expected to happen. One passerby came and helped me. Both the knees hurt and a small tear of skin. Chin was paining, I thought it was just a normal pain after fall and was hoping for no visual injury on the face. Mom would really get upset.

I got up and started riding again.

41- 52 km

The rain was less now but my hands, clothes everything was dirty, I couldn’t clean my glasses and I had entered a place where only trucks were parked on the service road and no sign of any shop. No matter how much I cleaned my glasses, the vision was still blurred. It was to no avail, so I kept it inside and rode again. As I was moving, only 2~4 feet was visible in the front and no matter how much powerful lights you use, potholes are very difficult to identify if they’re filled with water. I saw a big holes right in front of me. Holy ****.  One sec delay in my reaction and I would’ve fallen into it. I removed the rear spare light and put it also in the front. 2 headlights, yet the visibility was poor in this pitch darkness.

This was more like a trail riding than a brevet for me. I knew my time had gone for a toss. So I decided to go slowly and somehow try how much ever is possible. Now, I took the main road, 2 buses passed so close to me that an inch to the left and I would’ve been thrown out of nowhere.

So I had to still manage with service road till 52km. I stopped now.

Average speed: 17kmph.

I cleaned my glasses with some cloth available at a nearby place. Close to 80% visible now, at least it stopped the strain.

The rise

52- 72 km

The service road ended; there was a motor cycle lane in the main road now. I thanked god for it. I kept myself on the extreme left of the lane, to be safe. The hydration pack really helped me, I need not slow down like before, drink water from the bottle and move ahead. With the sipper, I can drink water at my will. The roads are too good but you cannot over speed as the visibility is only for a short distance.

I encountered motor cycle riders twice asking about me. Strangers talking to you in the middle of the night are scary. I didn’t want to lose my wallet and phone. The first guy asked where am I going to, I said krishnagiri. He asked whether it was the final destination. I said yes and 10 of my friends were waiting there. He asked if I was doing this for fitness, I told yes. I didn’t want to build a conversation. He wished me luck and passed. After a few km, there were 2 people on a motor cycle. He asked me where I was working; I said I’m still a student. He said amazing boy and left. Good or bad people, I don’t want to encounter anyone on a secluded high way.

 Nevertheless I was faster than on the service road. It was downhill. I was riding cautiously, fear gave away and confidence started showing up. I reached the CCD at the point. I took a selfie as this was unmanned control point. Went inside and with all the dirt over me, people were throwing shabby glances at me. I just thought that it is me going through shit, I didn’t bother. I went to the rest room. The guy in front of me gave way and stood 5 ft away. I smiled and went inside. Ok, I had a scar on my face. Convincing mom will be another task when I go home.

I took a tissue and cleaned my glasses properly. 100% visibility, this gave me even more confidence. I wasn’t really hungry, so I thought I will manage at the 100km point.

Distance: 72km

Average speed: 21kmph.

This was not bad but still a long way to go.

72-100 km

 This was a roller coaster ride, complete down hills, if it was a morning ride I would’ve crossed 35 to 40 kmph easily but as it was dark, I had to be really slow. Nevertheless I enjoyed the weather and the sky. Left and right, I could see nothing, probably there were lot of mountains. I reached the 100km checkpoint. This was manned and organizer was waiting for me. He asked me if I would like to continue as I had just crashed. I told all is fine with me. My seat was a little bent which I couldn’t adjust.

 I was very hungry; I asked him if he had food. He gave a small plate of biryani and maaza to drink. Although, I was still hungry I had to take this and leave. I refilled my hydration pack to 2.5 liters; I had consumed 2 liters of water till now. If I pour more water, the bag would get heavy and will make it difficult for me to ride.

I poured the enerzol into the water bottle as I may need it to climb the hills.

Distance: 100 km

Average speed: 21.5 kmph.

The steep down didn’t help me at all as I hadn’t improved my pace. Time was 12:45 am. I had 8 hr 30 min to complete the return. The organizer gave me a shocker; he said he took 8hr 30min to ride back in his roadie. I said maybe sun played a huge role for him. There was nothing that was going to stop me from completing the ride back.

100- 130 km

I remembered all the cross trainings, running dd hills, iron men I knew, tour de France, raam, the iron man record holder who’s planning to do 50 iron mans in 50 consecutive days and my running partners in bu. So this was nothing.

I started back, the climbs were never ending. Every km was painful, but my running skills helped me. I stood and peddled for a while, relaxing my muscles and body, then the slow lsd’s (Long slow distances). I had lot of water, probably every few meters. I had to save water too. I saw one mangled car, hill climb and seeing an accident spot closely sends shivers to your brain (When I read the paper the next day, there were details of the accident, 2 women were killed and he was sleepy when he rode it). 

As I did the climbs, there were four trucks with wind mill wings; they were huge, really huge. I had never seen them so closely. I was wondering the amount of time and efforts to design and develop them. 

I soon began to enjoy the climbs, it was very rhythmic. The places were all named giri, I saw atleast 5 giri’s there. Giri which means a mountain in kannada. I was Saigiri, climbing these giris. After some time, I saw a motor cycle fallen on the ground. I wanted to see if he had fallen just now.  Next to the motor cycle, I could see a pool of blood. Am doing a climb and seeing something like this was the worst thing that can happen. There was nobody nearby. Probably, he was taken to hospital. I continued my journey.

I reached the CCD now, the climbs were good. I was maintaining a good pace. Middle of the night, only slow moving trucks and hardly few buses plying in this route. I was relaxed. I ordered a burger and coffee. I had emptied half the water in the hydration pack. I took enerzol filled water, probably 300ml. This refreshed me. The salts I had lost was regained. I was standing or pedaling all the while, finally I sat and had coffee. I recalled my journey so far which was tough and this day would make me stronger. I would boast about this for the rest of my life. Haha.

Distance: 130km

Average speed: 19.77 kmph.

I had managed the hills really well, another 20km would have a few more hills and once I hit hosur, it will be flyovers. It was 70km to go; I was targeting to finish by 7:30 am. I was hoping not to have any more freaky instances.

130- 170 km

At 146^th km, I hit some mud which was placed in the motor cycle lane. It sent me into the main road, thank god, no vehicles were coming behind. After this incident, I slowed down even more. When it was final 50km to go, adrenaline was rushing to make it faster but I had to have higher patience. The main road was empty now, so I didn’t have to take the service lane. This saved a lot of time. I constantly was looking on the other side of the road which I used at the start. 

I was calmer and smiled for being safe at this point of time.  The urge to control when you know you’re best at it is one of the testing times. I didn’t speed up. Injured left knee started aching, I kept repeating mind over body. This worked and has always worked. The goal of life is to get detached from material world and get attached to the supreme personality of godhead which will relieve you of all the effects of material nature. Cycling and running has helped me a lot in getting detached. Well, I will write about this in some other blog. I’m attached to Bhagavad gita. So controlling is difficult.

I stopped at the 170^th km, there was a toll booth, and I drank the remaining enerzol laced water. I got some instant energy from this.

Average speed: Around 20kmph.

170-200 km

At 173^rd km, 4 dogs started chasing me. I sprinted for a good half a km. A bus guy in the back tried to help me by continuously honking at the dogs. 3 of them left, another one chased me for 100 meters more. What a day man!!

The enerzol energy was instantly lost. I kept hydrating myself throughout. This helped me a lot. I was about to reach, another 20 km to go. I felt really happy for overcoming all the obstacles. It was 10 km to go now, I was very hungry. I stopped and ate the remaining dry fruits. I thought about the next brevet and decided to shoo the thought away :P

200^th km

I reached the end point at 6:15am and called the organizer about his whereabouts. He asked me to take a selfie at that place and leave.

Total distance: 200km

Total time: 10 hr 15min

Average speed: close to 20kmph.

Mission accomplished.

I am a Randonneur now.

 I had an injured body and dirty clothes, which made me rethink on the word I gave to Amitava and Pav that I would meet them after their TCS 10K run. I decided to go home.

 As I left M G road, I saw runners there which made me instantly stop and look at them. I took a few snaps.

 Now, I really wanted to meet them. Amitava instantly called me and took me to medical camp there, can never forget his nice gesture. I met Pav, Yash and other runners. It was beautiful and energetic sight. 

I had never seen so many runners at one place.

The return home was one of the longest rides. I enjoyed home coming.

 

I thank the almighty for taking me so far and all that am going to achieve in the future..

I thank all my family and friends who have supported me and guided me.

I’m especially thankful to my triathlete training group- Bu burners. I’m who I’m because of them.

The Moment of Truth (Final Part)

And then I knew it was the last time I was going to see her. The day arrived to save me from further ordeal. Years of pain would soon become history. The dreams would never be true. The wait which was always longer would no longer be waited upon. 

 

Why did I even ask her to meet me today?

Last time I spoke to her was 3 months back. Although 3 months seemed like more than 3 decades, but I still lived every day, every minute in the memory of her. I used to recall all the good memories and wept to bed, slept for a few hours and woke up at the thought of her and die during the day in her memories. No living soul could bring me peace. I fought a losing battle, yet there was slender hope in me of her coming back and brightening my life. 

But today, everything is shattered and an irrevocable damage is caused. The thought of her and the urge to meet her made me call her; but the poor girl thought I had moved on and so agreed to meet. Little did she know that I would be proposing her for the zillionth time! 

All that she said was “I’m in a relationship and I really hope our paths never cross”.

These were the last lines I would ever hear from her.  The little world I had created ceased to exist and the road to the future which I had built was left with no travelers. Time passes but memories hardly fade. It took a few minutes for me to get hold of the present and return my way back. 

It all started six years ago. Two years after the painful breakup with the childhood sweetheart (The moment of truth- Part 1).

 It took two years to get over her and strongly believe that true love doesn’t exist, and a few more days to fall in love again. 

The first day

 

 

The evening was calm and the light was getting dimmer. I just love moments such as this, it brings lot of calmness to a messed up mind. I had a long leisure walk and was returning home. A girl was walking in the opposite direction and her long hair was dancing to the tunes of the wind. She caught my attention for one full minute and disappeared. Her thoughts passed my mind a few times and I soon forgot about her. 

After few days

I was waiting for a bus and saw her walking towards the bus stand. The sight of her for the second time made my heart miss a beat. I glanced at her often and was wondering how could others around me miss a beauty or was it only me finding her beautiful. 

Bus arrived and she got in first. If you are lucky, you will get a seat in a public bus. If you are blessed, you will get a seat next to a beautiful girl. Yes, I was blessed. I sat beside her and my heart was beating faster than ever. It took a few minutes to calm down. It never passed my mind to talk to her but just sitting beside her made my day.

 I had to stop thinking about her and more importantly stop looking at her. I didn’t want her to grow suspicious and make a fool out of myself. I took out a novel and started staring at it. My lips were reading but the mind was elsewhere. And she spoke first.

“Excuse me??”

I initially thought it wasn’t me whom she called. She called again. Now, it had to be me. I was wondering I wasn’t glancing at her now but why did she call me. Was it because I was staring at her in the bus stand or a few minutes ago inside the bus? I looked at her and for the first time made eye contact with her.   This was enough to make me fall for her. 

“Is it Atlas Shrugged?”

“Yes”

“A good novel. Happy reading”.

I could only just smile; no words came out of my mouth. After a few stops, I had to get down. I thought of telling her bye but she was busy listening to music. 

Friendship

It doesn’t take much time for a guy to find details about a girl and it takes much lesser time for a girl to find details about a boy. So was the case now.

I was just done playing cricket and was walking back home. I heard someone call my name and turned back. It was her. I didn’t know her name but she had found out mine. 

“My brother plays cricket with you and that’s how I found out about you”.

I knew her brother plays cricket but didn’t know that they had a conversation about me. He was that little kid who joined us a few days back and was fit only to be a ball boy. His fortunes would change from next game onwards. 

Before I could speak, she introduced herself and told that they were new to the locality and that she didn’t have any friends. 

It’s always good to meet a girl with few friends but extremely great to meet a girl with no friends. You don’t get a chance to listen to the problems of the world. We spoke for a brief while about each others background and departed. 

These short walks continued every day after cricket. After few days, we exchanged our numbers and started chatting. Soon the chats turned into phone calls. After a few months, it so happened that we used to talk all night on phone and meet during the day and hardly slept.

 The downfall

And then the day finally came.

I proposed to her and she disposed. This was the first time we ever had an argument after months of knowing each other. She spoke at length of how she looked at me as a friend and confided in me all her secrets and I had turned traitor by asking her out. Well, I was friend zoned. There was no way out except to shut myself up. 

I think there is not yet a way found to win an argument against a woman in this world. I am still patiently waiting for the day to arrive. 3 days passed and we didn’t talk to each other. She made efforts to get in touch with me, I wouldn’t budge. My mantra was clear; accept me as your boyfriend, after which shall the talks resume.

I could no longer resist. I ended up talking to her but was careful enough not to mention about dating. A few days passed and everything became normal. Whenever I used to retrospect, I found that this friendship was no less than a relationship but was perplexed why she didn’t want to term it so. There were times when I brought this topic up but we ended up fighting harder than the previous time.

We reached the pinnacle of fights after a few years. The innocence had died in both of us and gave birth to ego and greed. It hurt me whenever I spoke to her and hurt me even more when I didn’t talk to her. 

In one of the heated exchanges between us, I slapped her which I regret it to this day. Probably I won the argument but I was utterly wrong and learned the lesson the hard way. I apologized but it wouldn’t heal the inner wound in either of us. 3 months of not talking and then I made another try which became the last ever.

Epilogue

Life is a great teacher; it gives the test first and then teaches the lesson. I learned a few things at the expense of more than what I could offer. There is no point defending oneself or regretting a missed chance. What is not rightfully yours will never be yours and would be futile even if you try again and again. Lesson taken and life moves on. As you grow older, these lessons only make you wiser and we commit lesser mistakes.

My first longest bike ride

It was a long break from writing!

 Finally, tapping my keyboard for a reason which doesn't involve my office work; Off late, doing the things which I missed in my younger days and finding solace in them.

 I started running and cycling. I participated in one of the 10km runs and have just begun to improve my timings. I will publish a detailed blog on how running changed my perspective towards life after I achieve my personal target (Hopefully soon!).

For now, let me keep myself to cycling and other great opportunities life is throwing at me. This post is about my first 150km+ ride.

A year or so ago, cycling flu hit my friends and each of them got a bike. I wasn’t initially interested and considered waste of money to invest on a bike. Although, I was persuaded often to buy one myself, I laughed at them saying it would just rest in my home and not on roads.

I still remember the day. The day that changed my life! It was July 23^rd 2014. I was sleeping and when I woke up to 6 missed calls from a friend of mine. Generally, my friends don’t call up early in the day. I returned the call and asked him if everything was alright, he told me that a particular cycle was on clearance sale and they were selling at a throw away price. Initially, I got mad at him for waking me up for a stupid reason. After a while, I thought about it and called him again to en-quire about the price. 

We, Indians are very good at this. We fall prey for anything that’s available for free or at a lower price. Well, Yes! I fell for it. There was almost a 40% discount on the bike. I went to the store and bought it with no idea of specifications of a bike (After reading many blogs and being part of many groups, now, I understand how seriously people look into the specifications before buying one).

 My first ride was from the store to home, which was around 10km long and I took an hour to cover the distance. It was damn hard to cycle and cursed myself for wasting money and was thinking of a possibility to resell it. Few days passed and my cycling enthusiasm grew day by day. I started cycling everyday to the park where I run and then went on long leisure rides on weekends and fell in love with this great friend and slowly cycling turned into my passion.

One of my friends shared a cycling event post on facebook. It was a 150km ride from Bangalore to Mysore. After doing a few 60 to 80km rides, I felt probably this was the right time to take the big step forward. The constant posts by the organizer on the event page and introduction of two gurus of cycling made my desire grow higher and stronger.

Finally the big the day came! We planned to start at 4:45Am and as is always the case with my group, we were late. We started at around 5:30Am and thus began our first long journey.

We started from Rajarajeshwarinagar and paced towards Kanakapura road, we assumed that all the riders would have passed and we had little chance of meeting them unless they are late like us. On the way, we passed the thuralli forest; cool morning breeze welcomed us. I love the trails in the forest and we remembered a few incidents of our rides in the forest.

We hit the kanakapura road in an hour, we were riding at 15kmph, after which we decided to increase the pace to reach the breakfast venue on time. Here, we met a few more bikers and got to know many were behind. This lifted our spirits up. We were not the only lazy ones :-).

It was a good ride as the sun wasn’t up yet. Well, two of my friends were behind and myself with another guy in the front. When we were about 6 to 8km from the breakfast point, I couldn’t keep up the pace and dropped behind. I was damn hungry and then realized the famous quote “Drink before you are thirsty and eat before you are hungry”. I utterly failed to use this logic and decided to stop over when I find a place to eat. I found a few places but the organizer’s post which mentioned about mouth watering dosa wouldn’t let me compromise and somehow slowly pushed myself. I cursed myself and my friends for not starting early and not reaching on time.

This sight almost brought tears in my eyes. Finally, food!! I jumped around, went to the counter and ordered a dosa. True to its publicity, it was really mouth watering. 

After this I had another plate of rice bath and then kesari bath and then a cup of coffee. After a moment, I remembered that the ride doesn’t end here but a long way forward. I realized now that in a ride, you must eat before you are hungry but not so much which makes you unable to ride.

By this time, we had covered 50km in about 2 and half hours. I was wondering if we go at this pace, we should be able to cover the remaining distance in another 5 hours. Sun came up to greet us.

 The next 50km ride to Malavalli was an uneventful ride for me but my friend had an issue with his bike and had to change it but he wasn’t comfortable with the new one and had to get back to his own bike. There was a problem changing the front derailleur to final gear. His passion was too much to worry about this and rode the next 100km with this problem.

 I made a terrible mistake of adding more electral to the water which made me thirstier whenever I had it. A sincere advice to amateurs is to mix the electral or any salt agents in the right quantity. I had to soon refill more water and make the mixture even. 

The roads were flat and not much terrains; it was a ride more like a song on a single pitch. The scenery around was calm and beautiful. I was bored to pedal at the same pace.

 I laid my hands upon whatever I found on the streets, be it coconut water or cane juice or a small shop where we get biscuits. It’s a myth that you have to keep eating to endure a long ride. I learnt this lesson the hard way. It made me more tired to ride eating so much. 

(During one of many stops)

Once we reached Malavalli, there was a hydration point and thanks to whoever organized this, it was bliss! I could refill my water and rest for some time. We had more or less maintained the same pace and reached this spot in around 3 hours.  Stage 2 completed and felt happy about this milestone and a few pictures clicked to show off on facebook. 

Stage 3 and the final milestone of 50km greeted us. My bums were aching whenever I stopped and took a few minutes to get adjusted to the long routine again. I seriously wonder how the brevet guys manage this issue. I was thinking of a bean bag/sofa to ease my pain. These thoughts only aggravated the pain and my saddle enjoyed the show. 

Flat roads again, now, I really started to hate flat roads. I loved up hills and down hills but the sight of flat roads infuriated me. Whenever there was a flat road, my friend used to over take me and during terrains, I used to overtake him. This game continued for a while.

 Soon, we were greeted by many kids and villagers. Answering their questions and curiosity of the villagers made us feel more proud about feat we were going to accomplish. 

Now, we reached a town and I got sick of the sound of horns. It was so peaceful a ride so far and listening to sudden honks from some idiots made me damn angry. I don’t understand why people honk for no reason.

I abused a few and soon realized that this is the story of my daily life in the city. A few hours away from the city makes you realize the value of peace. I so badly wish that honking is banned in our country. 

The sight of Go green cyclists group always brings a smile on my face, proud to have such a group in our city. I am sure they will continue to promote this eco friendly culture.

Once I passed this little town, I was at solace again but was wearied down because of the constant peddling on flat roads. I reached the next hydration point and rested for a while. This was a strategically well planned location. Again, thanks to you, Sir. 

The time was around 2pm and last leg of 13km left. 4km of ride and finally the first true up hill. I have done quite a few like this before but a hill like this at the end of a long ride is always pain in the ass. I somehow peddled up and emptied my water bottle. The last 9km ride was the pride ride, every km passed made me feel great and I stared etching this in my memory as one of the best achievements and a story which I will talk about for the rest of my life.

We reached our destination at around 3, probably I could have saved an hour or so if not for my often pit stops, nevertheless will learn from this and improve. We had a big lunch, went in time to see the elephants entering the palace and took our bus back to Bangalore. Hopefully next time, we would ride back.

A sincere thanks to Go green cycling group for allowing to use their pictures.

My fellow riders, just their sight was enough to motivate me to move ahead. 

A special thanks to Anil, his team and the guys who organized the hydration points.

Last but not least, my friends Bhargi, Nitin and Vinay for being there for me, Always.