Horsley Hills (300 Kilometer Brevet)

Date: 11 November 2017

Total distance: 304 Kilometers

Start Time: 6:00 am

Return Time:  9:15 pm

With: Rajkumar Khot

Altitude Profile:
Kanteerava Stadium – Horsley Hills - Kanteerava Stadium

We were back from a very good 2 day tour in which we had climbed Yercaud and my confidence was on a high. The 300 BRM to Horsley Hills was scheduled for 11 November 2017 and I was looking forward to the climb.

The ride day arrived very soon and before we knew it Rajkumar messaged saying that he would be at my place at 5:00 am and we could leave together. I set up the cycle and set the alarm for 4:00 am and slept at 11:00 pm.

I woke up promptly when the alarm rang and got ready. It was 4:45 am when I was down and ready to leave. I received a call from Rajkumar at 5:00 am and he said that he has a flat in the rear wheel and that he would come after fixing it. I waited for Rajkumar and as the clock ticked past 5:30 am I assumed that we would be making a late start today. I was not worried as I was feeling good and knew that I could do the ride in about 17-18 hours.

Rajkumar came at 5:40 am. We started off and it was not the usual slow speed ride to the start point. It was a quick ride and we made it to the start point at 6:00 am. Just as we pulled in to the start point the other riders were leaving. Mohan Sir gave us the brevet cards and we started the ride immediately. We were behind by a couple of minutes max.

By the time we rode past MG Road we had made it past a host of riders. As we had ridden quickly to the start point and started almost immediately, we continued with the same pace for the ride. We were quick off the blocks and were overtaking the riders in front. Although it was early morning, the KR Puram bridge had traffic and we weaved our way past the traffic and made it to the top of the bridge. From here the traffic thinned out and we were able to increase the pace a little.

We took the left at Hoskote towards Chintamani, the road was in good condition and the traffic was minimal. We rode through empty roads and passed a few towns on the way. It was still early for breakfast and I was waiting for the first sight of the hills which would indicate that we were close to Chintamani. I did feel that we were beginning to slow and assumed that it was because of the drop in nutrition and knew that we had to make a stop shortly. The hills came by and we made it to Kaiwara where we stopped for breakfast.

Breakfast comprised of Poori and Idli. Although we would have preferred to make it quicker, things began to slow down when the other cyclists began to arrive. By the time we restarted from the restaurant we were a group of 11 riders.

It took just a couple of kilometers for us to crank up the pace and 4 of us broke away from the group. Ruban, Samarth, Rajkumar and I began to ride quickly. It lasted for about 10 kilometers after which we began to slow down a little. I was enjoying the road which was lined with trees, however, there were stretches with small pot holes which required the concentration to be high and not relax too much.

We reached the first control point just before 10am. We had done 90 kilometers and were happy to see Mohan Sir waiting for the riders. We got the brevet card signed and had an orange. We got to know that only one rider had ridden ahead and two others were having their breakfast at a restaurant just ahead.

We restarted the ride and effectively had only one rider ahead of us. As the road was downhill the 4 of us raced ahead to Gownipalli. We reached Gownipalli at 10:15 am. We had done 100 kilometers in 4 hours 15 minutes with a break of 30 minutes.

The road condition deteriorated after Gownipalli and this slowed Rajkumar and me down. Ruban and Samarth were still able to ride quickly and pulled away from us. Rajkumar and I rode carefully through the bad patches. Last year's memory of breaking my spokes in this section kept reminding me to take it easy as I had sufficient buffer time already.

Along with the road condition being bad, it was an uphill gradient as well which was slowing us down further. We caught up with Ruban and Samarth about 2 kilometers before Kothakotha where they had stopped for a break. We continued riding expecting them to catch up with us as they were riding quicker than us. We reached Kothakotha and rode through a crowded town and when we crossed the town we were back on good roads. We took stock of our water and decided that we could ride on till the base of the hill and would refill just before we started the climb. We passed a couple of lakes and it was refreshing to see that the lakes were full, last year during the ride these lakes were almost dry.

As the gradient to the start of the climb was uphill, the ride was slow and I was under the impression that I was not pushing hard and was allowing the body to recover. The Sun hiding behind the clouds was also making things easy for us. It took some time but we made it to the base of the climb at 12:15 pm. A quick stop to refill on water and we were feeling good and thought that we could handle the 8 kilometer climb.

The Sun had just made its appearance and we were all set to hit the slopes and do a quick climb. However, we did not realise that we were low on energy and that we should have eaten up at the foot hill. We had done one kilometer of the climb and I was in the red. I did not want to ride back to the base and neither was I able to continue pedaling. I had to stop and just as I pulled up Rajkumar pulled out two apples and I ate it like I had not seen food in ages. The apple was not sufficient, however it felt like it was and just as we were about to start the organisers passed us in the car and offered us refreshments, which we denied thinking that we would be able to climb the remaining 7 kilometers and would eat at the end of it. Another mistake which we realised just when we had done another kilometer.

I was struggling a lot, so I would ride ahead of Rajkumar and when the gap opened, I would stop and wait for Rajkumar to overtake. Once he was ahead then I would ride quickly, get in front and stop again. The stop start nature of the ride was not helping and mentally I had entered the 'how much more' zone which was not good. The gradient eased up for about 2 kilometers after we had done 4 kilometers which made things easy as we were able to cover a little distance and mentally it helped that the remaining distance was down to 2 kilometers. At the first hint of the gradient getting steep I was struggling again and was back to stopping, resting and riding. I tried walking by pushing the cycle up, but it was more difficult than riding and so opted to ride rather than walk. When I saw the last turn I knew there was not much left and pushed with whatever little energy I had left. I was happy to see the turn to Haritha Resort, which was the control point and was relieved to make it to the top. It was 1:15 pm when we reached.

I was happy to see the organisers and quickly washed up and headed for lunch. I asked for extra serving of the Puliyogare and Kesari Bath. I went back for a second serving and then ate a banana, an orange and a chocolate bar. I was bonking and was eating whatever was available. I realised it only after I had overeaten and had to calm down. Raghu Nandan had reached an hour before us and just as we were getting ready to leave Lokesh and Sangram reached the top. We were surprised that Ruban and Samarth had not made it as yet. We filled up our bottles and started 20 minutes after Raghu had started his ride. It was 1:35 pm when we started.

Within 100 meters from the restart we began to see riders. Most of them struggling to ride up the hill and many of them walking up. The heat and the climb at lunch time had combined to make it a very difficult climb. I was pushing on the downhill and was riding quick as I planned to stop to take a pic further down. I stopped when the view opened and waited a couple of minutes for Rajkumar to arrive. Rajkumar was riding slowly as he was informing the riders he passed about the distance remaining. We quickly took the photo and got back on the cycles and raced downhill.

The base of the climb arrived very quickly. Without wasting further time we hit our straps and continued riding. The Sun was blazing and it was making riding difficult. However, the gradient being downhill helped and we were riding quickly. I wanted to make use of the good roads and ride quickly as I knew that we would slow down after Kothakotha as the roads are bad for 17 kilometers.

After we crossed Kothakotha the ride as expected slowed down. We again began to negotiate the bad roads carefully and tried to avoid as much damage as possible. When we reached the Karnataka border we stopped to take a break.

We resumed the ride at 3:30 pm and rode carefully till we reached Gownipalli. The road was good after this and we began to increase the speed. The gradient was uphill which made it a little difficult, however, we were riding pretty quickly. We made it to the Bangalore Chintamani Road at 4:15 pm. We had done 200 kilometers and were left with 100 kilometers. We decided to continue riding till Srinivaspur which was a further 12 kilometers away before stopping for a break.

The ride to Srinivaspur was quick. However, as the light had begun to fade we were also beginning to feel the effects of the ride. The pace was decreasing gradually. We got to Srinivaspur and had to ride slowly through the town as there was a procession passing through. We stopped at a shop just outside town for bhajji's and water before resuming the ride.

Kolar was only 25 kilometers away and the target was to reach Kolar in daylight. Having ridden this section in the dark last time round I knew that it gets difficult in the night as there are no lights in the area and visibility will be an issue. We tried to push the pace, however, it was getting difficult and we were beginning to tire. The pace kept coming down and I made a couple of stops to take pics of the setting Sun which slowed us down further. We reached the outskirts of Kolar and just as we rode into town it became dark. We reached the KSRTC bus stand and found a bank, outside which we took the photo as this was an unmanned control point.

Just as we reached the highway we stopped to fix the lights and also to eat up. Although I had eaten a heavy lunch and had snacks at Srinivaspur, I was hungry and wanted to eat. We ate egg puff and had a Sprite which filled me up. We started from the bakery at 6:30 pm.

It was getting cold and in my bid to keep warm I pedaled hard. This resulted in the pace being pushed up and we were speeding towards Bangalore. As it was dark there was nothing much to see around and it was just concentrating on the road and pedaling to keep the cold at bay. I did not realise that we had covered over 25 kilometers in just under an hour and within the next few minutes were near Hoskote. I was not feeling weak and kept pushing and rode past the flyovers in Hoskote and when we reached KR Puram, the weather which was cold till then became warm. The increase in temperature was a result of the increase in vehicular traffic and this slowed us down. I took it easy on the KR Puram bridge so that I don't struggle within the city. However, on hindsight, I could have pushed harder on the KR Puram bridge as the traffic in the city automatically gave us breaks.

The city traffic slowed us down. Although we were tiring, the slow ride through the city was ideal for us as we did not push hard and were able to recover a little. We circled round Kanteerava Stadium and reached Konark hotel. We took the selfie and as Mohan Sir had not made it back as yet we headed to Konark hotel to have dinner.

We informed Mohan Sir that we had reached and were at Konark. Mohan Sir joined us and we had a good dinner and chatted about the Deccan Cliffhanger challenge and Mohan Sir's LEL experience as we waited for the other riders to come in. We hung around till 1:00 am before heading back home and rest.