Hosur Hoskote

Date: 30 September 2018

Total distance: 122 Kilometers

Start Time: 4:00 am

Return Time: 10:30 am

With: Rohit Bidkar

Altitude Profile:

Koramangala - Hosur - Hoskote - Koramangala

I did not have any specific plans to ride on this weekend. This was supposed to be a rest weekend since I was planning to ride to Trichy for the 400 BRM the next weekend. However, when Rohit enquired about riding on the weekend, I was open to doing a quick ride. A 100 kilometer circuit would do no harm. Not having ridden from Hosur to Hoskote, it was an opportunity to try this route. Decided on the route being Hosur - Malur - Hoskote. As we wanted to be back early decided to start early.

Woke up promptly with the alarm and started the ride at 4:00 am. Rohit was waiting at Silk board junction when I reached. I was having an issue with the new chain slipping on the old cassette and although I was not keen on riding the road bike, I opted to ride it in the hope that the chain would stretch a little and would stop slipping. I tried the gears on which the chain slips and it was a lot, so restricted myself to riding the high gears on the flats. I was spending a significant amount of time off the saddle on account of riding on high gears.

The ride till Electronic City was slow and rather tiring on account of grinding on high gears. The rolling terrain after Electronic City eased the pressure on the legs a little as I was able to carry speed. In a short while we were at Hosur and I was looking at Google maps to ascertain where we needed to take a turn towards Hoskote. Rohit was in the mood to race and took off behind a truck and chased it for a good kilometer or more before turning back and getting back to the location where we had to turn to Hoskote.

It was day break when we got onto the road towards Malur. It was a struggle to climb as I had only the high gears. Jogging on the wheels was also painfully slow and Rohit had to wait a lot for me to catch up. There was a lot of truck traffic as well on this route. Although the road was good, the trucks kept us alert and also doused the enthusiasm to ride on this route since they were throwing up a lot of smoke and dust. Every time we got a clear piece of road, we tried to make the most of it, since it was only a matter of time before the next truck came by to slow us down. Used a couple of trucks to keep the pace up by trying to keep them behind us as long as possible.

The road condition deteriorated near Malur. Road work was in progress when we got out of Malur towards Hoskote, we had to do a little off roading and then got back onto a single lane road. The body had warmed up to the high gears by now and I was riding rather quickly and was able to match Rohit's pace in this section.

It was not long before we reached Hoskote. The ride was in familiar territory and it was easy to negotiate the flyovers and then the long KR Puram flyover and made it to Indiranagar for breakfast. Although the chain had not stretched sufficiently to stop the slipping, I was slightly better off at riding high gears now.

We had breakfast and then headed to Bhaskar Pandeti's house. Bhaskar had crashed on the Twin Hills brevet and had to have a surgery since his skull was fractured in the fall. It was good to see that he was walking around and talking. Further, he was very keen on getting back to riding and his positivity in spite of a crash just a few weeks ago was an awesome take home.

We headed back home after the visit. It was 10:30 am when I got back home. Another 100 kilometer ride done, a ride in which I decided not to risk the road bike for the Trichy brevet and decided to ride the MTB to Trichy.