Antargange

Date: 12 July 2015

Total distance: 159 Kilometers

Start Time: 4:40 am

Return Time: 3:10 pm

With: -

Altitude Profile:

Received a message from Pavan checking on whether Antargange in Kolar is a nice place. Had heard of the place, however never visited it. It is just 70 kilometers from Koramangala, so decided to ride to Antargange on Sunday.

I woke up at 3:30 am and started to get ready. Was very slow today and was ready only by 4:30 am. Started the ride, weather was slightly cold so the pull over was being used. I took the usual route to go to Sarjapur, so nothing exciting and then the journey towards Chikka Tirupathi. The ride from Sarjapur to Chikka Tirupathi is very pleasant, especially since the traffic is thin. I reached Chikka Tirupathi by 6:10 am. 34 kilometers in 1.5 hours, so was right on cue with the plan except that I had started 30 minutes late.

However, at this juncture, I should have checked google maps for directions. I didn’t and then went in the wrong route. I realized rather quickly after I had gone ahead, then checked the map and had to take an alternate route to get back on track, fortunately only 3 additional kilometers added to the total distance.

Incidentally, at the same time when I missed the turn and added a little distance to the total distance, the wind had also picked up. It was cross winds at this point, so even though it made riding difficult, it was still manageable. The next main town on the route was Malur, an industrial town mainly, checked out for places to eat, but was not too happy with any of them, so decided to go on. I managed with Glucose for the time being.

From Malur I had to go to Kolar, the road mainly slopes downwards, but it had its share of uphills as well. Towards the end of the road, when I was almost at the Bangalore – Kolar highway, I had tailwinds, which was very helpful in the last uphill before hitting the highway. For the first time, I was gaining speed on an uphill without pedaling. The thought that I had even when I was enjoying the tailwind was that the return journey was going to be a difficult one if the wind continued and was hoping that it would change direction by the time I started back. The road from Malur to the Kolar Highway is beautiful, in the sense that the road has trees on both sides, although the road surface left a lot to be desired.

The rocky hills of Kolar are visible from the Malur to Kolar Highway road itself. In fact we pass very close to one of them, a nice place to trek here. After reaching the highway, we take the deviation to go to Kolar town and within 100 meters of taking this road we take a left to get onto the Antarganga road, which is just 2 kilometers from this point. I reached Antarganga at 8:30 am and spent some time looking for a safe place to park the cycle. Finally managed to find a place in the car parking area where there was this huge advertising billboard and locked it to the pole.

Antarganga is a natural spring, where obviously there is a temple and also for the adventure seekers, trek, up the rocky hills. To get to the spring, there is a flight of stairs which has to be taken, probably for a kilometer. The spring was disappointing since the water was trickling down, I guess, because there were these guys permanently stationed up there to fill up cans and each can was taking ages to fill. Waited for a while and then thought that I would head up the hill to get a bird’s eye view of the place.

The climb is steep and it was very hot as well. The effect of cycling was showing up and did not want to risk hurting the legs further, so decided to rest a while at the first sight of the valley below.

Descended down and headed for the parking lot to start the return journey t 9:30 am, which was good till I took the turn from the highway to the Malur road. I had to start the upward climbs and this time with headwind. It was very slow progress and took a couple of breaks for refreshments and by the time I reached Malur which was 25 kilometers away, it was 11 am. Stopped at the first restaurant and had a plate of idli and Musambi juice for breakfast. Resumed the return journey and it was more of the same, heat, headwinds and uphills. When I reached the deviation to Chikka Tirupathi, I decided that I would instead go on towards Bagalur and then get to Sarjapur. This was due to the long uphills from Chikka Tirupathi to Sarjapur. I opted for the Unknown God rather than the known Devil. Which again was a failed attempt since the road from Bagalur to Sarjapur was very steep and the wind speed was at its highest in this section. Made a determined effort to reach Sarjapur and was happy to reach Sarjapur by 1:30 pm. Went further ahead from Sarjapur before stopping for lunch at Nisarga restaurant where I had my favorite lunch when I ride, Curd rice and lime juice.

Rest and then resumed at 2:15 pm. Now, home was only 14 kilometers away. Counted down the uphills and made it back at 3:10 pm.

159 kilometer ride in which the return journey was 79 kilometers. Was very happy that I had come through the return journey in which I had done atleast 60 kilometers with a head wind. Was a very tiring ride, however having completed it, the satisfaction of completing offsets the tiredness…… well quite a bit.