Nandi Hills

Date: 13 March 2016

Total distance: 142 Kilometers

Start Time: 3:30 am

Return Time: 1:00 pm

With: -

Altitude Profile:

It’s time to test the fitness levels and also to know whether the leg can handle the climbs. Madhu Mandanna got his cycle ready a couple of weeks back and we have been going on night rides together. We ride approximately 30 kilometers and do at least 3 rides in a week. I have been aching to go on a long ride, however at the same time I am apprehensive about the leg holding up. Though I do not feel any discomfort when riding, after every ride the leg gets swollen and there is mild pain. The Chikka Tirupathi ride went well and also the city rides are also regular, therefore there is confidence that I can handle long distances. I dabbled with the idea of doing Yercaud and Mysore before settling on Nandi Hills. The ride will be a precursor to long rides and am hoping that I can make it back unscathed. I would have preferred riding on Saturday; however Madhu Mandanna is free only on Sunday and the ride is scheduled for Sunday morning. Plan is to leave at 4:00 am and be back by 3:00 pm. It is a conservative estimate; however, considering that both of us are just about re-starting it would be good to be back by 3:00 pm unscathed.

I had my doubts about Madhu making it and checked with him on Friday if he would be coming and he confirmed. Madhusudan meanwhile said that he would not be able to come. Saturday evening I informed Madhu about the accessories and refreshments that he needs to bring along. He confirmed that he would. However, at 8:00 pm he said that he would not be able to come and will be dropping out. I was disappointed that he dropped out at the last minute, however, was motivated to go for the ride and decided that I will not wait for anyone to join.

I woke up at 3:00 am and was ready to leave by 3:30 am. I did not wait for the clock to get to 4:00 am to start. The half hour early start would give me an additional buffer. I clicked the customary start photo and was off at 3:30 am.

I have always considered the first hour of riding to be the most difficult of any ride since all the aches in the body tend to show up and since we are close to the house there is a strong temptation to stop the ride and get back home. Today’s ride was similar; I was struggling from the beginning and was putting in a lot of effort to keep the speed above 20 kmph. This should not have been the case since I was using the road cycle and am not used to putting in a lot of effort to keep this cycle above 20 kmph. On all the previous occasions that I have ridden the cycle, speed of 25 kmph is a given and I was able to sustain the speed over a distance. Coupled with the speed issue, all the small niggles were showing up, the left knee was hurting, the butt was feeling a little sore from the rides during the week. I was very tempted to call it a day, however, fought off the thought and kept pedaling so that I could get past the hour mark and also put some distance between home and the location that I reach at the end of the hour.

At the end of the hour I had reached Yelahanka, distance wise I was on target, however, I was very tired and the thighs were beginning to hurt. I stopped for a break and was on top of the Yelahanka flyover. I replenished the body with water and ORSL and then checked the tire pressure. That’s when I realized that the tire pressure was very low and was the primary reason for the struggle. I should have checked this the previous day and it would have saved a lot of energy. Pumped air and then restarted the ride. I was able to keep the speed up after this; however, the body was beginning to tire because of the effort in the first hour. I enjoyed the ride here since there were sections where I was flying and compared to the speed in the first hour this was much better. As soon as I crossed the airport toll, I saw a lot of cyclists. Some were waiting near the toll; others had hooked up their cycles to the car racks and were heading to Nandi hills. Also, other than the cyclists there were a lot of people on bikes making a beeline to Nandi Hills. I knew that it would be very crowded on the top and was hoping that there will not be any crowd related issues. I took the turn from the highway towards Nandi and stopped for another break here. I had water and ORSL to re-energise the body and more importantly rest to allow the body to recover.

When I started from here, it was still dark, however, within a few kilometers it was day break and the light improved. I did not push myself for speed in this section since I wanted to save up a little energy for the climb. As it was day break and the light improved, I took the opportunity to click a few photos and this slowed the pace down. Took me an hour to reach the foot hill and I had decided to take a break after covering half a kilometer of the climb as this is the steepest part of the climb. On all the previous occasions that I have attempted to climb this hill, I have not been able to get past this section without the legs getting cramped. I was tired and also given the condition of the Achilles Tendon, I was hoping that I could clear this section without any damage. I had changed into the lowest chain ring so that the legs will not have to feel too much pressure, however, as always just as I was getting to the top of this section, the cramps struck. As I had decided to stop after this, it did not seem like a forced stop; however, even if I had not planned this stop, I would have been forced to stop. Walked a bit, rested, ate chocolates, ORSL, water and hoped that the cramp would magically disappear.

It was 7:00 am when I started the climb and I did nurse ambitions of being able to do a sub 30 minute climb. I did see about 3 cyclists who had passed me as I was resting and was looking forward to catching up with them. At the end of the second kilometer, I had reassessed my plans. I had taken 6 minutes for the kilometer and knew that my climb would take at least 50 minutes. I was tiring quickly, however, did not want to stop before reaching the 4 kilometer mark and kept pushing myself. I thought that I was doing a decent job, when I was passed by another cyclist and it was a disappointment that I could not keep up with him as well. I made slow progress and reached the 4 kilometer mark and was happy that I did not stop earlier. Took a break and I was passed by a couple of other cyclists.

I took my time to get going, when I did, it was not good going at all, I had 4 kilometers to go and the legs were hurting very badly. The initial kilometer went well, however after that I could not go beyond 200 meters at a time, had to keep stopping. I restarted when another cyclist came by and tried to stay on his wheel; I could follow for a further 200 meters before he started pulling away. Stopped for another break and another cyclist came by, this time his pace was similar to the one that suited me and I was able to drag myself behind him, however, I was getting too close and had to back off the speed on a couple of occasions, I decided to put a gap between the two of us lest I run into his back wheel, so I stopped, allowed him to ride, open up the gap and then would cycle as fast as I could to cut the gap. Every time I closed the gap I would stop and allow the gap to open. I was able to get through to the last turn by doing this and then made the final turn to reach the entrance. As soon as I saw the entrance, there was renewed energy and I made it to the top. Some of the cyclists that had passed me were already on their way down and few were still at the top. I made it to the top at 8:20 am, had taken 80 minutes to climb the 7 kilometers, 30 minutes more than I had planned and I had been overtaken by a lot of cyclists which did hit me about my climbing ability.

I was barely able to walk and pushed the cycle to the parking stand. Locked the cycle against a wooden post and then made my way to the ticket counter. I was left exasperated when I was told that a single person is not allowed to go to the peak. I was peeved at the rule, I could not do anything about it and even though I was told at the parking lot that I could request the cops manning the gate and hand over an ID card and go to the peak, I was not interested. The rule is very discriminatory and I did not feel like requesting the cops to allow me through. Took the cycle out and started the downhill ride.

I was greeted with traffic on the downhill and was made to brake twice to slow down for traffic. I stopped and allowed the traffic to go ahead so that I could enjoy the downhill ride. However, the traffic was not showing any signs of abating and it just kept streaming down. I did not wait any longer, decided to enjoy as much as I could. I made a few overtaking maneuvers and was going past two and four wheelers and was getting to speeds over 50 kmph. However, every time I went over the 50 kmph mark, traffic would bring me back down. On one such occasion when I was weaving my way past traffic, ran into a bit of bad road and went into a small pot hole, however the impact was heavy because of the speed and the cyclo computer stopped working. Stopped to set it right and also the front wheel was jammed a bit, so had to adjust that as well before resuming. Took a further 5 minutes to reach the base of the hill and went into a restaurant to have breakfast. If we want to enjoy the downhill ride, then we have to go on a weekday, the weekends are very crowded and there is heavy traffic which is a very big deterrent.

The cyclists that had passed me were climbing the hill again when I was doing the downhill. Another fitness activity that has started at Nandi Hills is running, lot of runners were running up and down the hill and they were doing it more than once. When I was riding up, there were a lot of runners running down and the same group was running up when I was on my way down. Signs that fitness is picking up in Bangalore and people are realizing the importance of staying fit.

The exciting part of the ride was done; now I had to get back home. I restarted the ride at 9:30 am. The sun was out; luckily for me I had a decent cloud cover which kept the heat down a bit. The ride till the highway was nice since there were trees, however, as soon as I got onto the highway, the tree cover was gone and also the wind was up making it a difficult ride. I managed to keep the pace up and reached the airport flyover by 10:35 am and sat on the top watching the flights take off and land.

I resumed the ride only to realize that the body was not doing too well. I was tired and the thighs were hurting and beginning to cramp. I had to slow things down so that I could continue to pedal. It was a struggle to keep moving and mentally I wanted to get to Windsor Manor, as I knew that the ride from Windsor Manor is downhill and not a difficult one on the legs. It took me about 45 minutes to reach Yelahanka when I stopped to rest the legs as the uphill ride was going to start. After a small stop of 10 minutes, I restarted and negotiated the Sahakarnagar uphill and the Hebbal Flyover pretty well, however, when I entered the city, the ride till Mekhri circle, the Mekhri circle underpass and the Windsor Manor uphill was very slow and it can be said that I was on my last sinew of energy when I made it up, that is, the fuel tank was empty. As soon as the Windsor Manor underpass was negotiated, mentally I felt better; I cycled on and made it back home by 1:15 pm.

I was happy to be back, another 100 kilometer ride completed, climb up a hill ticked off, even though it was a struggle. The leg seems to be holding up and the pain in the thighs is nothing to worry about. Disappointed that I was passed by so many cyclists on the climb and also that they were doing the climb for a second time, whereas, I was done with just the once. I will need to improve on the fitness levels, however, am happy that I am back to cycling slightly before expected.

Ride details:

From	To	Distance	Ride Time (hrs)	Total Time (hrs)	Departure Time	Arrival Time	Avg Speed
Koramangala	Yelahanka Flyover	24	1.00	1.25	3:30	4:45	24.00
Yelahanka Flyover	Nandi Hills Turn from Highway	25	1.00	1.25	4:45	6:00	25.00
Nandi Hills Turn from Highway	Nandi Foot Hill	14	0.75	1.00	6:00	7:00	18.67
Nandi Foot Hill	Nandi Peak	8	1.20	1.75	7:00	8:45	6.67
Nandi Peak	Nandi Foot Hill	8	0.25	0.75	8:45	9:30	32.00
Nandi Foot Hill	Airport Flyover	26	1.00	1.25	9:30	10:45	26.00
Airport Flyover	Yelahanka	13	0.58	0.75	10:45	11:30	22.41
Yelahanka	Koramangala	24	1.50	1.50	11:30	1:00	16.00
		142	7.28	9.50			19.51