Thippagondanahalli Reservoir - Magadi - Shiva Ganga

Date: 11 June 2017

Total distance: 163 Kilometers

Start Time: 5:30 am

Return Time:  3:15 pm

With: -

Altitude Profile:
Koramangala – Thippagondanahalli Reservoir - Magadi - Shiva Ganga - Koramangala

Started planning for the weekend ride and started with distances exceeding 500 kilometers wherein I would have to ride over 2 days at least. Slowly the distance started to come down when it became clear that I would have to be at work on Monday. Further the dilemma over which cycle to ride has been worrying me ever since the maintenance costs have begun to bite. Further with the 600 km brevet coming up next weekend the cycle choice was boiling down to whether I would ride the brevet on the road bike or the MTB. Also, I had not finalised on the location and wanted to decide after waking up on Saturday. In all this confusion I was late to bed and as usual switched off the alarm and went back to sleep when the alarm rang. The only difference this time was that when I did wake up it was past 7:00 am and I had to drop the plan to ride on Saturday and had to push it to Sunday. With only Sunday available for the ride, I had to shorten the distance further and planned to do at the most a 200km ride as I would require to recover to be back at work on Monday. I decided to ride to Thippagondanahalli Reservoir which is only 50 kilometers away. As it would be a short ride, I decided to ride to Magadi, then to ShivaGanga hills before returning on the Tumkur Road. I was keen on the ride as I had not ridden on the Magadi road and also had not seen the Thippagondanahalli Reservoir. Kept the alarm for 3:00 am and went to bed.

I woke up at 2:30 am before the alarm rang. Lay around for a while and before I knew it the alarm rang. Switched it off and dozed off. Woke up in an hour and headed down and took another hour's nap. I woke up at 5:00 am and finally I was up. Got ready and decided to ride the MTB and headed out at 5:30 am.

It was pleasant weather and I made my way through largely empty city roads. The climb started when I reached Nagarbhavi. As it was a new route and thanks to faulty direction boards I overshot the turn to Magadi road and had to ride back a bit to get onto Magadi Road. More climbing welcomed me onto Magadi Road and riding out of the city took time. Another observation was that the city limits have stretched till the NICE road here and there was a lot of traffic till I got to the NICE road junction. The Sun had risen by the time I got to the NICE road junction, however, there was a heavy cloud cover and the Sun could not even peep through the clouds.

I had expected the gradient to be similar to Mysore Road, however I was surprised when there was a lot of climbing on this route as against the Mysore Road which is pretty much downhill till Mandya. To add to the difficulty of the route the wind was having a good day and blowing across me. The budgeted time required to reach TG Halli Reservoir went out of the window as I was making slow progress. The road cleared out and there was minimal traffic and there was a lot of greenery, however the wind and the gradient were making me put additional effort and as such could not enjoy the scenery too much.

I had ridden for almost 2 hours when I sighted the first water body. It was a lake in Marenahalli with clear water. It was close to the road and I expected the road to run right beside the lake, however the road turned to the left and I had to be content with sighting the lake from a distance. As I was riding to Thippagondanahalli Reservoir I was not too disappointed and did not turn back towards the lake. Some more climbing, more wind and as I was counting down the kilometers remaining to Thippagondanahalli I went past the Inspection Bungalow which is 2 kilometers before Thippagondanahalli. I stopped and checked Google Maps and saw that I had overshot the road to the Reservoir backwaters by about a kilometer. I had to ride back and took the turn and headed into the village. Made an enquiry with a villager and got to know that I was on the right route. Continued riding and had to ride through fields which had been prepped for the rains. Few more villagers were working in their fields. I was happy that I was on the MTB as I was riding through the fields which then became trail riding as I got closer to the backwaters.

After getting past the fields, I was on the trail to the lake. There is a clearly demarcated path which leads to the backwaters. A couple of minutes and I could see the backwaters and a little more riding took me to the banks of the reservoir.

The Thippagondanahalli Reservoir used to be the lifeline of Bangalore when it came to drinking water supply. It is a man made reservoir which was created by constructing a dam here which was supervised by Sir M Visveshvaraiah. However, in the recent past due to the dumping of industrial effluents into the reservoir, the water here is not potable and the supply of water from this reservoir has been stopped. There was cleaning work which was undertaken a couple of years back, I don't know if it has worked or not, but by the looks of it the water was looking clean.

With the Sun barely making an appearance, it was like the clouds were protecting the water from the fury of the Sun. I enjoyed the view and wanted to spend time at the location. However, I noticed that the trail continued further and decided to ride on the trail. Fortunately the trail was smooth and was not rocky. I rode around the lake bed and as I got to the end of the trail I came across fishermen who were waiting to transport their day's catch. I saw that they had caught a huge cat fish and was surprised that fish that huge could survive in polluted water. It is possible that the cleaning work that was undertaken has worked and therefore fish are thriving in the water. There were a lot of ducks as well and it was fascinating to see the speed with which they flew across the water when they wanted to get to a safe distance from me.

I spent about 45 minutes at the back waters in which time I had ridden to the lake and also the trail near the lake and made it back to the highway. The trail ride was exciting as I did not use the same route to get back to the highway and was just riding where the route took me and ended up back in the village. Once I was back on the highway I was back to counting down the kilometers to Magadi. I reached the Thippagondanahalli village and saw the entrance to the Thippagondanahalli Dam. The Reservoir is officially called the Chamaraja Sagar Reservoir, I was happy with seeing the dam from the outside and did not bother to request the guards for permission to allow me inside.

The climbing started again, I had 14 kilometers to get to Magadi. The road was in very good condition which was the saving grace amidst the climb and the wind. It was slow progress in the climb and when the gradient changed I was able to make up a little for the lost time. It was 9:30 am when I made it to Magadi.

Magadi is the town of Kempegowda the ruler who built Bangalore. He was defeated in war and Bangalore was taken away from him. He retreated to Magadi and that is where he remained. I was excited to be in the town of the person who had created Bangalore. Upon reaching Magadi I wanted to see the Magadi Fort and checked the map for directions. I saw the fort wall and rode around it until I came across a gap in the midst of town to enter the fort. I was disappointed when I saw that there was nothing inside the fort wall, further the fort wall is in ruins. Just rode around the ground and saw a temple and rode back to the highway.

I got onto the turn which heads towards the Mangalore highway. It was 10:00 am and I had not stopped for breakfast. I was hungry and was on the lookout for a restaurant. I did not come across any. It was rolling terrain and I enjoyed the downhill's and cursed my decision to not have stopped earlier for food. I was filling myself up with water to quell the hunger. I took about 40 minutes to ride from Magadi to the Mangalore Highway junction. I was tired and the hunger was tempting me to shorten the ride. A quick calculation of the distance and riding back on the Mangalore highway was a bit too short. So I decided to continue riding.

As I was deciding on the route, hunger had taken a back seat and I made my way across the highway and rode towards Shiva Ganga. It took a while before I realised that I had not stopped for food and now I was almost out of water as well. There were no restaurants around and the closest place with a hotel would be Shiva Ganga. Shiva Ganga was 14 kilometers away. I saw the hill from a distance and remembered reading that the hill face is distinct from each side. It looks like a bull from the East, a Ganesha from the West, a Linga from the South and a cobra from the North.

I had run through my water supply and pushing further without water and food was looking to be very difficult. I reached a small town and headed to a provision store to refill on water. Fortunately, the store had bun and bananas. I ate a bun, couple of bananas and coupled it up with a 10 minute break to recharge the batteries. The usual conversation with the store owner about the ride and the cycle, had to turn down the store owners kid's request to take a ride on the cycle and before things got uneasy I restarted the ride.

I was approaching the Shiva Ganga Hill from the South and was able to see the Linga and as I came to the east I saw the Bull as well. Riding was becoming difficult as the wind speed had picked up. However, I was happy with the wind since it would assist me on the return on Tumkur road if the direction did not change. I kept looking at the hill and as I got closer the temptation to trek the hill was increasing. I was beginning to consider the trek and it looked like it would be a possibility since I had time on hand. I had not been keen on the trek when I started the ride as recovery would take longer. The temptation was beginning to grow since I had time on hand. However, the cloud build up as I got closer was not very encouraging. There were dark clouds which were threatening to open up.

I reached Shiva Ganga hills and as I rode under the Gopura into the town I was welcomed by a traffic jam. I could see a horde of people walking up the hill in the distance. However, I was stuck in the traffic jam and even though I was on a cycle I could not move forward. There was no gap available and it was only getting worse since no one was ready to budge. As time passed the pile up was increasing and it looked like it was going to take a very long time to clear. I lost interest in climbing the hill and wanted to make a hasty exit from the place lest the exit gets blocked as well. I rode back to the exit and started the return journey.

I had 6 kilometers to get to Dabbaspet. The conditions were very windy and for once I did not mind the wind as I had to ride only 6 kilometers before it would change to a tail wind. It helped that it was rolling terrain, however excessive honking by vehicles was getting to me and it showed that I was tiring which resulted in me being in an irritable mode. I did point out to an auto driver that he was honking excessively to which he politely tried to ease me off the road. I bit through my frustration and managed to get to Dabbaspet.

I got onto the Tumkur - Bangalore highway and the ride eased out. It was rolling terrain and with the wind behind me I was able to carry the speed which eased the uphill's a bit. I had been slow during the day and now being able to ride at over 25 kmph made it seem like I was flying even though I was slow.

The rains had stayed away and I was making swift progress. As I got past Nelamangala and got onto the toll road hunger was beginning to bite again. It was 1:15 pm and I wanted to ride back home without taking a stop for lunch. I sipped on water to keep the hunger at bay. However, as I reached the Yeshwantpur flyover I was out of water. I wanted to ride below the flyover since it would give me options to stop for food and water, however, I opted to ride on the flyover since I had not ridden on it and wanted to know if it is a difficult ride. The flyover ride was easier than I expected and was over before I knew it, however, as soon as I got down, the food and water thought began to hinder me and I was happy when I spotted a sugar cane juice vendor. I stopped and gulped two glasses of sugar cane juice.

The stomach had been attended to. I wanted to make it as far as possible before the hunger begins to bite again and rode as fast as I could. I made it to Yeshwantpur, then to Malleswaram and as I got past Windsor Manor underpass, the ride eased up. The only glitch was traffic and rain. I did not fancy getting drenched now that I was close to home, however with all the traffic signals that I had to wait at, when I reached the Hosmat signal, it began to rain. I stopped under a tree packed my phone and when I restarted the ride, it had stopped raining, and changed to a slow drizzle. I rode quickly and made it back home before the clouds opened up again. I was happy to get home without getting drenched.