MC's Cycling Diary

Date: 23 July 2016 Total distance: 112 Kilometers Start Time: 4:45 am Return Time:  12:30 pm With: Madhusudan Altitude Profile: The ride was planned over a month ago and the date was decided as 16 July 2016. However, considering that none of the others had cycled I decided to postpone it by a week to give enough time to start riding. Things did not work out as planned and only Madhusudan and I were able to go for a small 20 kilometer ride around the city as preparation for the ride. Sushanth dropped out due to personal work and only Madhusudan confirmed that he would join. Dabbled with the idea of changing the location to Anchetty, however considering that the distance would be 180 kilometers instead of the planned 100 kilometers, the increase would be a lot for non-regular cyclists, also I needed to be back by 12:00 pm, considering the constraints, I opted not to change the location. The appeal for the ride to Shoolagiri is the downhill from Hosur to Shoolagiri...

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 ...

Date: 2 July 2016 Total distance: 92 Kilometers Start Time: 8:00 am Return Time:  1:15 pm With: - Altitude Profile: Koramangala - Harohalli - Thattekere - Jigani - Koramangala Just a week left for the 600km brevet and I had not done any riding after the 400km brevet. I desperately needed to get back on the cycle, however, had not been able to get back on the bike. 2 weeks flew even before I knew and all that I had done over the two weeks was to plan rides. The wet weather in Bangalore did not make things easy, it has been raining and the Sun barely shows up, perfect to tuck myself in bed rather than to ride. I decided against doing any long distance rides and preferred to do short rides, approximately 100 kilometers which would involve a difficult climb as well. Had two options, one was to go to Shoolagiri and the other was to do the Harohalli-Thattekere route. I decided to do the Harohalli-Thattekere ride as it would be slightly easier than the Shoolagiri ...

Date: 18 June 2016 Total distance: 404 Kilometers Start Time: 5:45 am Return Time:  6:15 am With: Rajkumar Khot Altitude Profile: Lavelle Road – Arasikere – Hassan – Channarayapatna – Lavelle Road All the plans with respect to preparing for the ride could not be executed. The plan to work on the quads before the ride had also not been executed. To add to it, the trek to Kudremukh the previous weekend had left me physically drained. Not feeling right about the ride got me down mentally as well. Deliberated quite a lot and looked for reasons to cancel the ride. However, decided to go for it so that even if I don't finish  I will know that it was not due to lack of trying. Knew that I would struggle, however, as I knew 40% of the route, was hoping that the  knowledge would serve me well during the ride. I got the cycle ready for the ride. Removed the stand, got rid of the medical kit with the exception of Savlon and band aids. Essentially, I tried to ...