Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Firefoxed


What looked like an eternal search for a road bike finally ended and I bought a used Firefox Pro 2200 on 20th Nov from this guy called Ramesh from BBC.
Chikka ride to Chikka Tirupati
Chikka Tirupati happens to be a favorite with a lot of biking friends who like in the Kormanagala part of town. Some 20kms from Iblur junction, it’s the perfect get-your-bums-on-the-saddle ride.
Satish, Anil and I rode from home, started as early as 5 in the morning. The new bike responded very well and biking was easy. Anil turned back from Forum and Satish and I were joined by Satsang and Dharam at Agara lake, where we were hoping to meet a bigger (slower) crowd, but that was not to be.
We rode down Sarjapur road, stopping briefly at Sarjapur. The roads were decent – good in parts, but not so bad overall. We reached Chikka tirupati by 9 or so. Dharam cleaned up a Udupi restaurant on the way back. Satish and I decided to take an alternate route which took us to Varthur lake and then rode all the way back on Ol Airport road and back. Towards the end I had begun to cramp and we struggled through the traffic. It was not a bright idea to take this up immediately after the Ultra. The trip-o-meter read 104kms by the time we were back home by 1:30. It was not one of the memorable ones.
Bike Hash 08
14th December 2008 and Mysore farms off Sarjapur road was the lovely location for the last major run of the year at the Bangalore Hash.
Corollary to Murphy’s law:
If something has to go wrong, it will pick the last run of the year, the one that you will hare and all hell will break loose!!
I should have guessed something fishy, when the beautiful farm (some 50acres of coffee and palms) off Sarjapur road is called Mysore farm. When we have 20cycles from Firefox (the sponsor) plus 30 doodhwala bikes (Hercules, Atlas, etc) from a ‘Modern’ dukan in Shivajinagar and some 125 jobless hashers sign up!
It couldn’t have been easier to hare this though. (if you are still wondering what haring is, read this report of last year's bike hash). Jugy, Private soreass, Rekha and I were the hares and we did all of the haring still smugly in Jugy’s suv…
In the middle of nowherenagar, some 100cars pop up and park on all our chalk markings that was supposed to lead the walkers to the water hole…
The Beer van did not turn up in time for the start, lost its way and had to directed just in time before the bikers reached there.
We managed to lose a few walkers as the sun came blazing down and it was quite an effort to shepherd the pack. Our own Desi Santa came in with goodies for the horrors and lunch was breads, peas and cheese was washed down with the amber liquid…
Abnash did the shutter job, as usual. Click here for pics…

Firefox feedback and pics will be posted soon…

Monday, December 01, 2008

The Bangalore Midnight Marathon 2008

The good news is The Bangalore Midnight Marathon 2008 seems to be happening (with just 2weeks to go, I dont think the organizers can screw up much).
You can register at http://www.toimidnightmarathon.in/ or call 08041126004
The last edition of the midnight marathon was in May last year. Report's here.

Update: Site will be up only by eveing on Monday (I spoke too soon, eh)
Update(02Dec): Site is up. Cheerz!
FInd the Route Map below:


Update 05/12/08