Mysore Kadur Hiriyur (600 Kilometer Brevet)

Date: 8 July 2016 - 10 July 2016

Total distance: 605 Kilometers

Start Time: 4:00 pm 8 July 2016

Return Time:  5:30 am 10 July 2016

With: Rajkumar Khot

Altitude Profile:
Lavelle Road – Mysore – Holenarsipura – Hassan – Arasikere – Kadur – Hiriyur – Tumkur – Lavelle Road

The short ride to Harohalli and Thattekere the previous week was a good work out, however, at the back of my mind I knew that the ride was not sufficient preparation for the 600KM brevet. Even though I wanted to get a couple of small rides crammed in before the event, I was laid low by sore throat/cold. Fortunately, I had just enough time to recover to be able to ride.

On the day of the ride, I was feeling good and stepping out in the morning helped to raise the mood which had been down over the past couple of days because of the cold. It gave me enough hope that I was ready to ride and that I had sufficiently recovered.

The ride was scheduled to start at 4:00 PM. I took the cycle to the mechanic and had him adjust the gear setting so that I do not have any issues during the ride. I had a heavy lunch at 1 PM which was meals and binged on rice. Prepared the cycle and packed the electrical accessories, tools, enerzal sachets and snickers packets. At 2:45 pm Rajkumar came home and the two of us rode to Airlines hotel, the start point.

We reached the venue at 3:15 pm and as soon as we reached I realised that I had forgotten to wear the reflective vest. I immediately called Priya and requested her to bring the reflective vest to Airlines hotel. She co-ordinated with Gaurav and he weaved past the Bangalore traffic and brought the reflective vest just as the ride was about to commence. I started the ride on the Strava app, by which time the remaining riders started the ride. I hurriedly stuffed the phone into the zip lock bag and pushed it into the handle bar bag and while zipping the bag the zip lock bag got stuck in the zip. I looked at the bag and since it was closed with a little bit of plastic sticking out, I decided to start riding.

There was a lot of traffic and we had to push/ride the cycle on the footpath for quite a bit. Just as we entered the Kanteerava Stadium stretch I saw that the handle bar bag was open and that the zip had given way. I was forced to stop and had to work on the zip. The zip did break at the edge, however I was able to close the bag and fortunately most of the zip was still functioning. When I resumed riding, Rajkumar had gone ahead with the remaining riders and although there were a few other riders it was largely a ride without a ride partner.

I navigated past the bad roads and heavy Bangalore traffic and  made it to Kengeri. It had rained in Kengeri, which led to the road being slushy and also huge traffic. Worked my way around the traffic, however, the clothes where left muddy with all the slush thrown off my cycle and also the other cycle in front of me. Although the ride had just started, the traffic was irritating and I was desperate to get onto open roads so that I could enjoy the ride.

After I made it out of the NICE junction on Mysore road, the traffic cleared and had enough space on the road; immediately the ride quality improved and was able to appreciate the scenery and mainly pick up speed. I did not ride with the intention of catching up with Rajkumar, focused more on riding to reach Mandya by 9:00 pm since I knew that I would over strain myself at the beginning itself if I tried to catch up with Rajkumar and also was confident that he would wait at the first control point. However, to my pleasant surprise, he was riding slowly and I caught up with him just after Bidadi.

The gradient was mostly downhill and in spite of the head winds the speed picked up and we were able to make up time. We took a break at Channapatna to fill up on snacks and juice. It was 8:00 pm when we stopped and the break re-energised us. We opted against stopping at Maddur for dinner and rode on to Mandya. We reached the first control point at 9:00 pm. Quickly took the photo and started the ride again. We decided to ride further as we were not hungry and opted to ride instead and stop for dinner at Srirangapatna.

The gradient of the road picks up after Maddur, although the climb till Mandya is not much, the climb goes up a notch after Mandya. I knew that the gradient was going to be difficult for me; I was riding at the maximum speed that I could and was getting dropped by Rajkumar very easily. I did not want to try and catch up and do damage as only 20% of the ride was completed. Rajkumar would ride ahead and wait up for me. We reached Srirangapatna at 10:15 pm and although I was not hungry I wanted to stop as I was tired and also because we ran the risk of not getting anything if we rode further. More than the meals that we ate, it was the rest that mattered. We took 45 minutes to get restarted and start the climb towards Mysore and further.

Getting to Mysore from Srirangapatna was pretty simple and at 11:30 PM we were at the Columbia Asia hospital junction. Took the right turn and started the ride around the Mysore ring road. We came across a whole lot of riders who had stopped for water/tea, as we were well stocked we continued riding. Negotiated a couple of huge climbs on the ring road before reaching the turn towards Madikeri, just as we made the turn Gururajan and Roshan were sitting right at the turn resting. We acknowledged and continued riding since we did not want to stop riding. The road continues to climb from here till Bilikere and riding was slow, tiring and frustrating as well, however kept pushing myself to get to Bilikere since the road eases up after that.

Made the final climb near Bilikere and then headed down to hit the turn towards Hassan. The road became a two lane road from here, however it was wide and road surface was good and most importantly it was heading down. Quickly we reached the Lakshmana Thirtha river bridge, I was disappointed that I could not see the view and wished for some daylight just for a fleeting second. As we rode on, we passed by a lot of villages and the worst part of these villages was that it was infested with dogs which would come chasing. On one such occasion Rajkumar bore the brunt of the dogs as they never gave up chasing him, I was riding behind and was anxious about what I would do when the dogs turn their attention on me, fortunately, Rajkumar stopped and chased the dogs away, I did not have to go through the tension of having 5 dogs surrounding the cycle.

We rode a little further and decided to stop for a bit, saw a closed tea stall and parked our cycles there. Guru and Roshan caught up with us and were in a desperate situation with respect to food and water. We had been told that food/water would be available only till Mysore and not beyond that, the next place that we would be able to refill would be in Holenarsipur or Hassan depending on the time when we get there, which was effectively 120 kilometers during which we would not have anything available. However, many cyclists were unprepared for the nature of the road and were not able to ration their resources. When Guru and Roshan landed up, Roshan was pretty desperate for anything to go into his stomach, I gave him a Snickers and some water. We rested for about 15 minutes and then restarted the ride.

We reached Krishnarajanagar within 5 minutes and then passed over a long bridge built over the Kaveri River . Once again missed daylight and the view.  We pedaled on and as it was downhill gradient, it allowed the body to recover and also pick up speed. Rajkumar and I did not realise when we had opened up the gap to Guru and Roshan and when we did look around it was just the two of us on the road. We passed through a lot of villages and empty roads. As the gradient of the road picked up, the water requirement went up and I exhausted my supply of Water and enerzal. We still had about 25 kilometers to go for Holenarsipur and further climbs were in store. We got plain lucky when we saw a shop opened and 4 cyclists already at the store refilling on their supplies. It was 3:30 am and we had just touched 200 kilometers. The other cyclists were on their way out from the store when we entered. Bananas and biscuit was eaten and hot tea guzzled down and water refilled into the bottle. We waited for a few minutes to see if Guru and Roshan would reach, however, they did not and we decided to ride on.

We passed through the next village where we saw a few shops had opened. For a pretty desolate area it was surprising to see that the shops were open at 4:00 am. It was still dark and silent. As we rode on, we were passing through agricultural lands, effectively plain land since the sowing season has just begun. Up ahead there was a lone person standing on the road wearing a white shirt and white lungi, with a head scarf and a light brownish sweater I guess. He stood motionless on the side of the road, being dark and silent the only thing I could see were the clothes, and as I was riding on the side closer to the edge of the road I was going to be passing him in touching distance. It sent a chill down my spine and I held my breath as I was passing him. Just for a fleeting moment, I believed in ghosts and was expecting the unexpected. A little confidence that Rajkumar was alongside; if there was no company, I would have probably not been able to handle the situation. I joked about it after we passed him and as we rode there was a small hint of rain. We were 5 kilometers from Holenarsipur when a slight drizzle started and the horizon looked hazy which I mistook for heavy rains. We opted to stop at a bus shelter. It was very windy and the rain did not arrive, however we spent a good 30 minutes waiting for the rain to pass.

We restarted when we saw other cyclists passing us. We took the cycles and went about 30 meters when I stopped Rajkumar and told him that I had left my glasses behind. I went back to the bus shelter and looked around for the glasses, however I could not find it. I was surprised that it could have disappeared and checked my pockets and t-shirt to see if it was there and at that point I realised that I was wearing the glasses. I knew that the lack of sleep was beginning to take a toll, however, we had to continue riding as we were falling behind on the time front. We reached Holenarsipur where we were joined by a few more cyclists. It was day break time and as the light improved, the head lights were switched off. The scenery was beautiful as we were surrounded by hills with wind mills on all of them, the only problem was that the road to Hassan was all uphill and the climbs were steep. We had covered about 10 kilometers out of the 30 kilometers to Hassan when it began to rain. We stopped again for the rain to pass. The wait lasted for 30 minutes when the rain oscillated between a drizzle and heavy rain and finally we had to start riding in the drizzle so that we could make it to the Hassan control point in time. A lot of cyclists had passed us and had ridden in the rain, we opted to wait, although we could rest, we did not sleep. We started the ride and at the next village we saw a group of cyclists had stopped for breakfast, we did not stop since the risk of missing the control point timing was high. We made slow progress as the road continued to climb. The climbs were never ending and as we got closer to Hassan they were getting worse. We made slow progress and just as we reached the Hassan highway we caught up with Guru, Roshan and Karthik. Further 2 kilometers off we saw a Canara Bank ATM and stopped there to take the photo. It was 7:50 am and we had made it in time to the Control Point.

Rajkumar and I wanted to have breakfast, whereas the other 3 riders opted to continue riding. We made our way to Krishna Hotel and freshened up. I filled myself up with a Masala Dosa, Poori and Kesari Bath. I was very relaxed after reaching Hassan since the climb was done and now it was going to be downhill to Arasikere which would give sufficient time for the body to recover. We spent a good hour on breakfast before leaving the hotel.

Rajkumar had told me that the initial 5-6 kilometers of the ride would be uphill before the gradient changes. As I had a very heavy breakfast I was slow out of the blocks and even before I knew it Rajkumar had ridden away. I made slow progress on the uphill's and looked forward to the downhill. I caught up with a group of 10 riders who had stopped near the railway crossing and as I made my way past they also started riding. I was not able to keep pace with them as the uphill's continued and would catch up only when they took a break. The wait for the downhill continued which was beginning to tire me mentally. It was very frustrating that I was still pedaling and not relaxing in a downhill section. Finally when the downhill did arrive it was only 2 kilometers long. That is when I realised that 3 weeks back when I had done the ride from Arasikere to Hassan, the head wind had made the downhill's also seem like uphill's. I made it to Arasikere town and had to negotiate few more very steep climbs to get to Coffee Day by 11:00 am.

I checked in the brevet card and freshened up. Rajkumar had reached 30 minutes earlier and was looking very fresh and ready to go. I was not hungry, however I opted to fill myself up since the next place where food would be available would be at least 100 kilometers off, not considering Kadur here since I would not be hungry by then. I quickly ate up. During the brief stay at the Control Point the riders who had arrived and the ones that arrived after me were discussing the route and most of them were not very happy with the climbs and more with the unavailability of the water and food along the route. Things did get heated up and since the patience levels were already low due to the physical and mental exhaustion, things were beginning to go a little out of hand before the organisers stepped in to diffuse the tension. For the route ahead they said that it would be a easy ride for the next 170 kilometers as it was going to be downhill and that the climbs would start only after Sira. Even though I had ridden from Arasikere to Kadur and did not remember the route being downhill, I fell for the statement that there would be rolling downhill's and wanted to get started earlier than I wanted to. I was still very tired and would have preferred to rest more, however, opted to leave after just 30 minutes of rest.

Karthik, Guru, Roshan, Rajkumar and I started from the Control at 11:30 am. However, it took just 5 minutes for all of them to ride away. I was tired and the heavy food had slowed me down. A passerby also shouted out that "I got no soup", which although was derogatory was the truth, I was struggling and the others ahead had disappeared and the rolling downhill's never came by. I was very frustrated, however the sight of Rajkumar waiting for me cheered me up a bit, rested under the tree for about 15 minutes and told him that I would have preferred to have rested for 30 minutes more at the Control Point if I had known that there would be climbing to be done till Birur.

After a brief stop, we resumed riding and once again Rajkumar rode ahead. I was tired and the body kept asking for rest, however, I knew that if I stop things will only get worse and that it was better to keep riding as it would reduce the remaining distance. I made slow progress and made it out of Kadur at 1:30 pm and as I approached Birur I stopped for Coconut Water. 2 coconut's later, I had calmed down and asked for directions to Ajjampur, the next Control Point.

I got to the turn from the highway to Ajjampur, took the right and within half a kilometer the road was non-existent, that is, the road had been metalled and the tar was off. It was a pot hole laden road or rather only pot holes were left in the road. This is supposed to be a state highway and it was in worse shape than a village road. Alarm bells started ringing that I was on the wrong route. I asked a passerby who said that it was indeed a highway and that work on the road had not been undertaken, he said that I was on the right route and that the road improves within 2 kilometers. I rode very carefully and was hoping that I would not suffer a puncture or a tire burst. On crossing 2 kilometers, the road did not improve, it remained the same and another enquiry with another person yielded the same reply that I was on the right route and that the road would get better. I was about 10 kilometers from Ajjampur, when a person coming in the opposite direction told me that all the cyclists have already reached Ajjampur and questioned what I was still doing so far out. I ignored him and rode on and hoped to make it to Ajjampur by 3:00 pm. The road was going from bad to worse and I reached a railway crossing where the gates had been closed. I waited for the train to pass by during which time I had to answer questions of the people standing around and waiting. It was a goods train and it took a while for it to cross, when it did and the gates opened, the same bad roads welcomed me on the other side of the gate as well. Concentrated hard and tried as much as possible to avoid craters on the road and made slow progress and finally when I did see the Ajjampur junction it was a huge relief. It was 3:10 pm when I reached Ajjampur and I headed straight to the Canara Bank for the photo and then came back to hit the road to Hosadurga.

The first few kilometers towards Hosadurga was beautiful, in the sense that it was downhill and I was flying through this section. It got my hopes up that I would be able to make up for all the lost time, however within 5 kilometers all my hopes came crashing down because the road went bad....again. I had to slow down and tried to negotiate the pot holes. Stopped to refill on water when I was told that the road improves after about 10 kilometers. I rode on trying to clear the 10 kilometers during which time I passed Ashok who had to abandon his ride since his tire had burst. I continued riding and hoped that the road would improve. I had lost track of where I was as well since there were very few kilometer stones. The road improved after 10 kilometers, however in a short distance it again went back to being filled with pot holes. The road was not road bikeable, the body was taking a lot of beating because of the vibrations. I was tired, exhausted and frustrated and was on the verge of losing the plot mentally. I was venting my frustration by shouting/cursing loudly when I was passed by Sayi who was sporting a broad grin. I rode up to him and asked him if he had encountered such bad roads in any of the 23 brevets that he had done this year, to which he said that even though there were bad roads there were not this long. I managed to stay close to Sayi and entered Hosadurga at 5:15 PM. Just as we entered town, Guru was also standing there and we decided to eat up. A boy told us that a few cyclists were already at Hotel Guruprasad which was just up the road. When we reached Hotel Guruprasad, Rajkumar was there along with Shashidar and Siddalinga Swamy. They were half way through their meal when we placed the order. We also ordered meals and filled ourselves up. Rajkumar, Shashidhar and Siddalinga Swamy left about 20 minutes before us from Hosadurga.

It was 6:00 pm when we started from Hosadurga and we had about 90 kilometers to reach Sira. Had checked with Sayi about how much time we will require from Sira to get to Bangalore and he had said that 8 hours would be a safe estimate. The plan was to get to Sira by 11:00 PM at least so as to keep a buffer which gave us 5 hours to make it to Sira. I hoped that we would have good roads and as we exited Hosadurga the road was good. We made good time on this section, however within 15 kilometers the road again went back to being bad. As time was not on my side, I had to ride aggressively and I was hoping that the cycle would hold and not break down. We were passed by Alok and Pavan who were driving back along with Ashok; they informed us that we still had about 30 kilometers to reach Hiriyur where we join the highway and then the road would be good. We rode on cursing the road and also speculating that the organisers did not know about the condition of the road and that they should add time for the road condition. The traffic had also picked up in this section and we constantly had to get off the road to allow them to pass. At one section there was no road at all and we had to get down and push the cycles. At the end of this stretch we still had 19 kilometers to go to Hiriyur. Fortunately for us, within 4 kilometers the road improved and we had a very good surface. I was very happy with the road and it began to show on the pedaling since I was able to pick up speed. The kilometers where getting ticked off very quickly and as we closed in on Hiriyur I did not realise that I had left Sayi and Guru behind. I saw the highway and when I was passing under the flyover I saw Roshan standing there. I acknowledged but did not want to stop since it was downhill. I had picked up momentum and did not want to lose it. In the next 10 minutes I was on the highway and had about 30 kilometers to Sira, it was 7:30 PM. I looked back and only then realised that Sayi and Guru were not behind me, I stopped and waited for 10 minutes, however they did not come by. I guessed that they would have stopped at Hiriyur for a break and decided to ride alone.

Restarting the ride was a bit of a problem. I had to pick up momentum again and I had to go past quite a few flyovers which was making things difficult. I was passed by Omkar on one such flyover and even before I could respond he was gone. We had been told that we would have tail winds in this section which would assist us. As I was struggling a bit I did not feel the tail wind. It took a good 20 minutes for me to get the pedaling back up and that's when I realised that I was pedaling at a very good speed even on the uphill's. I realised that the tail wind was definitely there, if not pedaling uphill at speeds in excess of 25kmph would not be possible for me. As I kept the speed up, I was able to gain a little bit of ground and I could see Omkar in the distance, probably 300 meters ahead of me. His flickering tail light kept me motivated to keep pedaling and to catch up. Although the kilometers were coming down quickly, I was feeling very drowsy and desperately wanted to sleep. I mentally prepared myself to ride to Coffee Day and as things were looking good for a 9:00 PM arrival at Coffee Day, I thought that I could catch up with at least 30 minutes of sleep there. With this at the back of my mind, I counted down the kilometers to the Sira Coffee Day. As I closed in, in the distance I could see at least 4 tail lights flickering in addition to Omkar's lights. I had caught up with a few other cyclists and on a closer look I noticed the riding style and knew that I had caught up with Rajkumar. I was very happy that I had made up at least 20 minutes and rode with renewed vigour. The Coffee Day was right ahead and all of us almost entered simultaneously. Omkar, Karthik, Siddalinga Swamy, Shashidhar, Rajkumar and me reached Coffee Day, Sira at 9:15 PM. I had reached 1 hour 45 minutes before what I had expected. I removed the bottles from the cycle and took the photo and was heading in when Rajkumar said that the plan was not to stop, but to go ahead for another 5-6 kilometers and then stop for dinner. I wanted to sleep and also was out of water, however, as it was just 5-6 kilometers more, I chose to ride with them. This part of the ride was very difficult, since I had been looking forward to sleeping, instead I was riding; motivating myself to keep pushing for just another 5 kilometers was very difficult. Moreover, the others were riding like they had just started cycling and not like guys who had done 480 kilometers. I was on the verge of breaking when I did not see any signs of stopping even after 5 kilometers. Just another kilometer and I would have stopped the ride if the restaurant had not arrived, fortunately Kamat hotel did come by and I was saved to an extent.

It was 9:45 PM when we reached Kamat. All of us ordered meals. As we ate dinner, I knew that I was going to miss out on sleep if I wanted to ride along with the group. They did tell me that it would take just another 8 hours as we had just 115 kilometers to go. I had my doubts since there was a lot of climbing to be done, almost 300 meters to be gained over 70 kilometers. I ordered black tea with lime after dinner and I sipped it expecting it to be good, however it was very strong and bitter. I did not enjoy the tea, however I gulped it down in the hope that it would keep me awake for the rest of the ride. We started from the hotel at 10:45 PM and the first target was to get to Tumkur which was 40 kilometers off.

We started together, however the group got displaced a bit with everyone riding different speeds. Omkar had gone ahead, however within 5 kilometers he was parked near a flyover which was well lit and was pumping air into his tire. He had done one round of air filling just before leaving the hotel. I was carrying a spare tube and gave it to him. He said that he would only pump air and would join us. We rode on with Karthik opting to stay with Omkar. Surprisingly, I was able to start well this time and was able to keep pace with Siddalinga Swamy, Shashi and Rajkumar, at most the gap might have opened to about 10 meters before I would catch up. Staying on their tail along with the tail wind helped as I did not feel the climb too much and before I knew it we had covered 20 kilometers and had 20 more to go to reach Tumkur. We stopped at the road side for a break and we slept on the road. Although I could not sleep since it was just beside the highway, just closing the eyes for 5 minutes helped. When I sat up, my head was spinning and standing up was a problem. Getting onto the cycle was a bigger problem and it was like my body had gone to sleep. The muscles were beginning to tighten and restarting the ride was very difficult. It took some time for me to get going by which time the others had already opened up the gap. I was again riding alone and tried as much as I could to catch up with them once I got the body going. However, I could not catch up, but on the positive side the gap remained constant, so I never lost sight of their tail lights. This kept me going and I was able to pull myself to Tumkur. After reaching Tumkur, getting through and then out of Tumkur took quite a while with us having to ride on innumerable flyovers. When we did get past Tumkur and reached the toll gate, I was out of water and had decided to stop for a break irrespective of whether the others had stopped or not. Fortunately, they had stopped as well and I was able to refill on food, tea and water and mainly rest, however no sleep as yet.

It was 1:30 am and just as we were about to leave Omkar and Karthik came by and they stopped for a break. We had about 30 kilometers to go to reach Nelamangala and I was determined that I would ride with the group, that I would not allow the gap to open. We rode like a train from here on and I concentrated only on the wheel of the person in front of me and their pedaling, if the person in front increased his pedaling speed, I would do the same, if he slowed down, I did the same. To my surprise, I was able to maintain the speed and also I was not hurting which is what I had thought would happen and that I would have to stop. It seemed like sticking to the wheel ahead, I had saved energy and I still had quite a bit left in the tank. We were speeding towards Nelamagala and it did come as a bit of surprise when I saw that there was still 18 kilometers to go to Nelamangala, because our train was speeding and I wouldn't have been surprised if we had got a speeding ticket. The distance remaining brought me back to reality and I realised that we were fast, but not as fast as I thought we were. However with a rolling terrain we were making good ground. Siddalinga Swamy was doing the pace setting and I was sitting on his wheel. Drowsiness was becoming a concern and I was beginning to halucinate as well. It would feel like Rajkumar is pulling up alongside, however on turning right there would be no one next to me. I was fighting sleep and also concentrating on the wheel ahead. In all this, when I did turn back, I did not see Shashi and Rajkumar. A gap had opened up. I rode up to Swamy and told him slow down since the others had fallen behind. The Nelamangala toll was just ahead and we decided to stop there. We did slow down and by the time we reached the toll, Shashi and Rajkumar had caught up. We stopped to rest and got to know that Shashi had gone off the road since he had dozed off for a split second. We stopped for 15 minutes and restarted at 3:45 am from the Nelamangala toll. We had 30 kilometers left and were comfortably placed on the time front, only sleep taking over was the concern.

We rode on the Nelamangala flyover, which again had a lot of climbing to be done and at the same time the downhill's also allowed us to relax a bit. The riding in a train formation was helping me a lot and I was able to get through difficult sections pretty easily. I did not realise that we had reached Peenya and was very happy that we had just a little more left. We opted to ride below the flyover this time and I was telling Swamy about how I had bonked at this place during the 400 KM brevet. I do not know whether it was a coincidence or me reminding about food that got him hungry, however, he was tired after that and was not able to pedal as he got hungry. I did not realise that he had slowed down, I went to the front and was doing the pace setting. We had reached Yeshwantpur station when Rajkumar called out telling me to stop since Shashi and Swamy had fallen behind. They came by in a minute and we resumed the ride. Within the next 500 meters we had to stop again since they had fallen behind again. We made it past the Yeshwantpur flyover and then minimised the climbs by riding below the flyover and when we got past the Windsor Manor climb it was day break and we were almost home. It took a further 15 minutes to get to Airline Hotel where Mohan Subramanyam was waiting for us. It was 5:33 am and just a few minutes after us Omkar and Karthik also arrived.

The joy of having finished the ride made us forget everything about sleep and tiredness and we were discussing about the ride. We submitted the Brevet cards to Mohan and co-incidentally all of us had completed the 200KM, 300KM, 400KM and 600KM rides to earn ourselves the Super Randonneur title. We re-lived the moments of the ride and were able to take the part that there was no water/food available on the first night for almost 100 kilometers, the climbs, the non-existent roads all lightly since we were able to finish the ride in time. I don't think it would have been so if we could not complete in time. We hung around for some time, more from a rest perspective before riding back home.

It is the longest that I have ridden at a stretch. I would have preferred to do it at a more relaxed pace, since I could not enjoy the scenic pleasures along the ride as I was constantly riding against the clock. However, I have to say that it has been the best that I have ridden till date because of the amount of emotions that I went through during the ride and for being able to stick through difficult times during the ride and not giving up. Riding in head winds, innumerable climbs, subjecting the body to a lot of pain, hallucinating, physical and mental exhaustion were all part of the ride however the determination to complete the ride won the battle against all the aforementioned deterrents. I cannot forget the host of people that asked where we are from and where we are headed, which was nice in the beginning, however it became very irritating after 300 kilometers to keep answering the same question over and over. And finally, I would not have been able to complete this if not for Rajkumar's tip to get tire liners fixed and also to Swamy, Shashi and Rajkumar for getting me past the last 100 kilometers of the ride relatively easily.

The ride from Airlines Hotel back home was the most difficult part of the entire ride. The body has taken a lot of beating and it will take a couple of days to recover. The cycle also has taken a beating and will require a proper wash.....it has earned it. I am very happy that the cycle survived the ride. I have learnt a lot during the ride about myself as a person and also about my cycling skills and also about how others pace themselves. It was an eye opener towards the way riders time themselves and also manage to enjoy the ride whereas I am always looking at keeping a buffer time for mechanical issues which makes me perennially ride against the clock. The only regret during this ride was that I was not able to take photos of the beautiful landscape that we passed through especially during the early morning hours when we were surrounded by hills with wind mills, it will remain a part of my memory and not on print.

Ride Details:

From	To	Distance	Ride Time (hrs)	Total Time (hrs)	Departure Time	Arrival Time	Avg Speed
Lavelle Road	Mandya	100	4.75	5.00	16:00	21:00	21.05
Mandya	Mysore	37	1.75	2.50	21:00	23:30	21.14
Mysore	Holenarsipur	88	4.50	5.50	23:30	5:00	19.56
Holenarsipur	Hassan	33	2.50	3.00	5:00	8:00	13.20
Hassan	Arasikere	47	2.00	3.00	8:00	11:00	23.50
Arasikere	Kadur	33	1.75	2.50	11:00	13:30	18.86
Kadur	Hosadurga	56	3.25	3.75	13:30	17:15	17.23
Hosadurga	Hiriyur	44	1.50	2.25	17:15	19:30	29.33
Hiriyur	Sira	38	1.25	1.75	19:30	21:15	30.40
Sira	Tumkur	43	2.50	2.75	21:15	0:00	17.20
Tumkur	Lavelle Road	84	4.50	5.50	0:00	5:30	18.67
		603	30.25	37.50			19.93