Breakfast at Shoolagiri

Date: 23 July 2016

Total distance: 112 Kilometers

Start Time: 4:45 am

Return Time:  12:30 pm

With: Madhusudan

Altitude Profile:

The ride was planned over a month ago and the date was decided as 16 July 2016. However, considering that none of the others had cycled I decided to postpone it by a week to give enough time to start riding. Things did not work out as planned and only Madhusudan and I were able to go for a small 20 kilometer ride around the city as preparation for the ride. Sushanth dropped out due to personal work and only Madhusudan confirmed that he would join. Dabbled with the idea of changing the location to Anchetty, however considering that the distance would be 180 kilometers instead of the planned 100 kilometers, the increase would be a lot for non-regular cyclists, also I needed to be back by 12:00 pm, considering the constraints, I opted not to change the location. The appeal for the ride to Shoolagiri is the downhill from Hosur to Shoolagiri and also the return journey is uphill all the way to Bangalore, so it would be a good workout for the legs. The start time was planned as 4:00am so that we could make it back by 12:00 pm.

The start was delayed and we started at 4:45 am. The start was a slow start to get the body warmed up and also not to push too early. As we made our way past electronic city, the speed picked up. Just as we were touching an hour of cycling we had covered 20 kilometers and I asked Madhu if he wanted a break, he said that we should take a break at Hosur, I told him that the downhill starts from Hosur and a break will not be required at Hosur since the ride itself would be relaxing. I told him that we could take a break now instead of at Hosur, however, he was feeling good and did not want a break. We continued the ride and made quick progress towards Hosur since the road was a rolling terrain. We barely noticed the ride from Electronic City to Hosur and before we knew it, we had crossed the Karnataka border and had made it to Hosur.

I had built this ride up as a complete downhill from Hosur till Shoolagiri, however, the downhill starts only after crossing the Hosur Hill and Madhu kept reminding me that the downhill's have not started and that he was still pedaling. I kept telling him that the current climb would be the last and after that it would be downhill. Finally, when they did start, we did clock speeds in excess of 50 kmph regularly and did have to climb back a bit which was averaging the speed. We passed from one small town to another and also passed through the Reserve Forest area where boards draw our attention to the fact that we are riding through elephant territory, the only thing that I noticed in this section was that the gradient drops down a lot and that there are no elephants.

We made quick progress through this section and reached Shoolagiri at 7:15 am. The McDonald's sign was visible from a distance and as we made our way in we noticed that the place was very crowded. The property had Coffee Day, McDonald's and Sree Krishna Hotel as options for refreshments, we opted for Sree Krishna Hotel. We had to wait for 10 minutes to get a place to sit and order breakfast. We freshened up and had a relaxed breakfast. Madhusudan was looking pretty flushed and was struggling to eat, I knew that he was showing signs of tiredness, however I did not want to break the news to him since it might impact the return.

We were ready to start the return journey by 8:00 am and as we started the return, in addition to the gradient we had to contend with head winds which made life difficult. The ride towards Hosur was very slow. We climbed slowly and I had my doubts about returning by 12:00 pm. However, to my surprise, Madhusudan kept pedaling and although we made slow progress we were still making progress and he was not giving up. We reached the forest reserve area and as we climbed, the trucks were struggling to make the climb in this section. There was an occasion when a loaded truck even went backwards, I was ushered off the road by a truck and as I vented my frustration, Madhu was making slow progress up the hill. We counted down the kilometers to Hosur and made it to Hosur at 10:00 am when we stopped to recharge our batteries with Coconut water. We had covered only 25 kilometers in 2 hours, the going was very slow, however the difficult part of the ride was done and although there was climbing to be done, it was going to get easier and quicker over the next 30 kilometers.

We restarted the ride after the break and made it across the border almost immediately. Had to climb a bit and this took its toll on Madhusudan who was beginning to cramp. We were forced to stop for a rest within 30 minutes of the earlier break. Found a place with shade where we cooled off and discussed the way ahead, we were left with 22 kilometers in which the target was to finish 10 kilometers to get to Electronic City after which the road eases out.

We restarted when Madhusudan was feeling better and we rode into Bangalore traffic. We had to make our way through traffic and also small climbs which I presume appeared like mountains to Madhusudan. In spite of the pain he soldiered on and kept pedaling and as we crossed Electronic City the clock struck 12:00pm. We made quick progress from here and took advantage of the downhill sections and covered the remaining 13 kilometers in half an hour. We reached home at 12:30 pm and Madhusudan beat a hasty retreat home to get some much needed rest.

Ride Details:

From	To	Distance	Ride Time (hrs)	Total Time (hrs)	Departure Time	Arrival Time	Avg Speed
Koramangala	Shoolagiri	56	2.50	2.50	4:45	7:15	22.40
Shoolagiri	Koramangala	56	3.50	5.25	7:15	12:30	16.00
		92	6.00	7.75			18.67