MC's Cycling Diary

Date: 22 June 2018 - 24 June 2018 Total distance: 625 Kilometers Start Time: 6:45 am 22 June 2018 Return Time: 8:30 am 24 June 2018 With: Amar Chand, Lokesh Jain, Rajusundharam, Prasad S, Siddalinga Swamy - from Pollachi Altitude Profile: Koramangala - Salem - Yercaud - Tiruppur - Pollachi - Aliyar - Pollachi - Coimbatore - Coonoor The weekend was free, I managed to add Friday to the weekend as I was able to put in some additional hours on the other days. The initial plan was to take a bus to Coimbatore and ride to Valparai, Ooty and Coorg. However, as I was able to add Friday to the ride days, I decided to ride to Coimbatore instead of taking the bus. The plan was to ride to Yercaud, then ride through the night to make it to Pollachi in the morning where I would join the others and continue the ride. It was a busy week, I was tired and went to bed late on Thursday. I set the alarm for 4:30 am, which I missed and by the time I woke up I had missed t...

Date: 16 June 2018 Total distance: 420 Kilometers Start Time: 5:30 am 16 June 2018 Return Time: 4:15 am 17 June 2018 With: Lokesh Jain Altitude Profile: Kanteerava Stadium - Tumkur - Tiptur - Arasikere - Hassan - Yadiyur - Kanteerava Stadium With less than 30 days to go for the Gates of Heaven ride, I needed to get some miles under my belt. Practice rides were the need of the hour and I was more than happy when I received a call from Lokesh enquiring if I would want to ride the Hassan 400 BRM route during the weekend. Nothing much to plan, have ridden the route before, just got a few things together and hopped onto the bike on Saturday morning at 5:30 am and started the ride. I synced up with Lokesh at Yeshwantpur at 6:20 am. Lokesh had just reached and we started straight away. Got onto the Yeshwantpur flyover and we were off to a quick start. There was a lot of traffic and I did get the feeling that we had started an hour late. An hour earli...

Date: 9 June 2018 Total distance: 202 Kilometers Start Time: 6:00 am Return Time: 4:35 pm With: Naveen Kumar Altitude Profile: Kanteerava Stadium - Harohalli - Maralawadi - Thally - Jawalagiri - Anchetty - Denkanikottai - Attibele - Kanteerava Stadium Anchetty 200 BRM is the most difficult 200 kilometer brevet in Bangalore and its legend has grown over the years. The registrations for the event were thrown open about 4 months ago and as the ride date neared Bangalore Randonneurs had over 100 registrations for the first time. It was going to be a huge event with riders coming from Kerala, Hyderabad and Tamil Nadu to ride this route. The USP of the Anchetty route is that it has a lot of rolling terrain and passes through scenic country roads. As the years have passed, the traffic is also one of the factors to overcome in the ride. Mohan Sir had done the recce for the route and we had been informed about the road condition, navigation and traffic conditi...