Predictably irrational - B2C1D Ride Report

The Elevator version or the Twitter version

On 9^th Aug, 2013 I rode from Bangalore to Chennai (B2C) in 15h:18m – a distance of 355km in 1 day, hence the B2C1D*

 *term coined by my cycling inspiration Venkat

Socrates said “The Unexamined life is not worth living”

And a 140 character spew hardly qualifies as examining. I will, therefore, examine the ride while you bear with me.

I have also been reading Dan Ariely’s “Predictably Irrational”. While behavioral economics has little to do with riding, the psychological aspects seem to explain some of the ‘who-what-when-where-why’ questions. All quotations in the post below are from the book…

The Why?

“Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.”

“Imprinting: Sticking with a decision once it has been made”

A few decades ago, the naturalist Konrad Lorenz discovered that goslings, upon breaking out of their eggs, become attached to the first moving object they encounter (this is generally their mother). Lorenz knew this because in one experiment he became the first thing they saw, and they followed him loyally from then on through adolescence. With that, Lorenz demonstrated not only that goslings make initial decisions based on what's available in their environment, but that they stick with a decision once it has been made. Lorenz called this natural phenomenon imprinting.

For me the ‘anchor’ was Venkat’s B2C1D, done in 13.5hrs in Dec 2010 which created the ‘imprint’. The opportunity presented itself when Shreya went to her maternal home for delivery and I had been on this mission B2C1D since.

Most weekends were spent in clocking those 100k rides. Notable rides in the last few months:

• 2 century rides in April (to Chikkaballapur) in 4:34 and 3:45
• 2 century rides to Nandi in May in 5:19 (118k) and 4:11
• 130k in 6:15 – Dabaspete – Doddaballapur on June 15^th
• 75k in 3:10 – ECR ride on June 9^th
• 300k Brevet night ride in 15:30 on July 22^nd
• 100k, including the 49km SKSrace on July 28^th

The When

When you ride to Chennai from Bangalore, there is a net elevation drop of about 900mts, that doesn’t change with day of year or time of day. The southwest monsoons pick up during July-August, with strong winds blowing eastwards – very favorable. One of the proven methods to tackle headwinds, is to reverse direction and ride!

To beat the Chennai heat, budgeting 20hrs for the ride, starting at 4pm and riding through the night, would mean, I would avoid riding during the hottest hours. On Venkat’s advice, I decided to start at 3pm, to accommodate the Chennai-Bangalore bus traffic I would hit around 3am.

The What

So, I started at 3PM on Friday, 9th Aug, Ramzan holiday. Plan A was to ride through the night, with a dinner stop at Vaniyambadi before 9PM. I had borrowed headlights from Venkat, had my own for backup, 2 sets of Garmin to record the ride, 10 chapati rolls, Electral sachets, camelbak for water, a bottle for electoral, extra sets of batteries, detailed ride plan, spare tubes, puncture kit. Plan A was stocked up.

What about plan B? There was none!

There was a swarm of butterflies in my stomach right through the week leading up to the ride. There were plenty of what-if scenarios that cropped up. But sometimes, you just need to take a leap of faith. Wading my way out of traffic, while cruising on electronics city flyover, it struck me that was no looking back now.

Ariley talks about “closing the alternatives to increase focus”.

In 210 BC, Xiang Yu led an army against the Ch'in Dynasty.  While his troops slept, he burned his ships and smashed all the cooking pots.  He explained to his troops that they had to either fight their way to victory or die.  His troops won 9 consecutive battles.  Eliminating options improved the focus of his troops.

We feel compelled to preserve options, even at great expense, even when it doesn't make sense. Yes, we need a plan B, but not at the expense of distracting us from the real objective.

Cumulative distance	Plan	Actual
0	0:00:00	0:00:00
29	1:15:39	1:13:00
50.7	2:12:15	1:52:00
101.7	4:25:17	3:22:00
156	6:46:56	6:11:00
222.7	9:40:56	9:05:00
252	10:57:22	10:29:00
286.4	12:27:06	12:22:00
316.7	13:46:08	13:39:00
349.3	15:11:10	15:04:00
355.3	15:26:49	15:18:00

Ariely’s experiments on “Effect of Expectations”, led him to conclude that the mind gets what it expects. When we believe something will be good, it generally will be good, and when we think it will be bad, it will be bad.

I have always been an advocate of the self-fulfilling prophecy theory too, but the effect of expectation (plan) on experience (actual) in this case was stunning.

Apparently, we tend to always overvalue what we have (the high price of ownership effect), so I shall take you through a little more of my cherished clutter.

• Rode the first 100k to Krishnagiri in 3h:20m, a personal best for the distance
• Just as I was getting complacent about the ride, the head lights started acting up. I had to switch to lower lumen, but more predictable backup lights
• And then rains caught up and played spray-sport after Vellore for nearly 100kms or so, on and off, effecting pace and rhythm. The spray from the passing trucks and buses were so strong, I needed to get off road for my regular dose of chapatti
• Total stoppage time was 1h:30m including a dinner break at Vaniyambadi, chai stop at Vellore and chapatti stop at Kanchipuram
• At the Vellore tea shop, the shopkeeper found it impossible to believe that my bike wasn’t battery powered
• After the rains, I was so numb, I couldn’t push on my gear lever to change gears and stuck to a single gear for the last 100kms
• Some stats to wind up - Total distance 354kms, total time 15h:18m, Average speed 23kmph, Average moving speed 25.8kmph. Complete details at on my Garmin site here 

My daughter, Neha, decided to award me the effort - by choosing the very next day to roll over for the first time!

SFS Bangalore Road Bike Race in pictures

Student Foundation for Sports (SFS) organized the 1st Edition of District level road cycling championship - a 49km race starting from Emerald Isle resort, Hoskote on NH4 on 28 July at 7AM IST (= 8AM)

Mass start: Riders tune in to instructions - NH4 completely blocked to traffic on one side for the ride till U-turn point at Volvo factory ~12.5km away. Ride back to start point, to complete 2 loops for the 49k distance!

The peloton: The tail winds make the ride to U-turn easy as the bunch averages 35kmph on the undulating highway. A pilot car, support vehicle & ambulance make it picture perfect.

Braving the winds: The group easily neutralized early charges by solo riders. It sure was tough work on the return leg with heavy head winds to tackle.

Falling back: On the second lap, after about 30k, I began to fall behind trying to get sweat off my eyes... there was no catching up the accelerating peloton.

The Sprint finish: With 6 places to fight for, the teams sprint off the saddle with the finish line in sight.

The Finish line: I finished 10mins behind the lead pack, managing a respectable average of 32kmph, finishing 49kms in 1h:32m (the first 25k @ 35.5kmph and last 24k @ 29kmph).

The icing: There were medals for the top 6 in each of the 3 categories (women, under 23 men and above 23 men), championship trophy for the top team. Kudos to the organizers SFS foundation, to the Bangalore police for the support and Bangalore Amateur Racing (BAR) for marketing the event and Veloscope for the excellent pictures.

Additional reading:
Perspective of a lead rider. Venky in this report
My previous efforts at bike racing here (the motorized kinds) and here and here 

All photo credits: Veloscope

Bangalore Hiriyur 300k Brevet - A report

One night to remember, One night to forget

Nights have an odd lure to us humans. The darkness creeps in a sense of fear, the lurking danger of unknowns, of delusions and hallucinations. But when you live the night through, when dawn breaks; you are awake to a little more of yourself, awake to a little more of your partner of the night. And by that I mean both - the nights you want to remember and the nights you want to forget!

Pre-read

Read about Brevets, Randonneuring, Paris-Brest-Paris and Bangalore Brevets.

The Start

Despite plenty of preparation for the Bangalore-Hiriyur-Bangalore 300k Master Brevet, I came up short at the start. Venkat & I are both growing old, evident from the fact that we troubleshot the headlight problem to the batteries, completely missing out the faulty LEDs.

End result: I don’t have a strong head light for a night nide!

With the Brevet starting at 11pm on 22^nd Saturday night, I had to do with a weak commute headlight. No lights meant I had to quickly collaborate with fellow riders for the most needed commodity during a night ride – light! Arvind I had met on the CAM ride to Bekal fort. Yogesh was the other one with the brightest lights. And Arun, coming from Chennai had no idea what rolling hills meant, I had no lights. We were a team!

At finish, with Arun and Yogesh

Arun stuck around with me till we got out of the city on to Tumkur road. The roads were well lit till Nelamangala and I was making good progress. By now my head light was totally dead, and guess what, Mr. Genius did not even carry AA batteries!

With no light but only the Supermoon on the perigee cloudy night, I waited for Arvind and Yogesh to lead kindly light amidst encircling gloom. Luckily after about 12km or so, I was able to find a “fancy store” (yeah, in the middle of the night, making brisk business to truckers) and picked up batteries. Now, I was an equal partner in the crime of ‘drafting the winds’. The 3 of us got into some rhythm till we reached a Café Coffee Day just before Tumkur. We had done about 55k in 2.5hrs, time 1:30am. It was a longish break – coffee, cakes, chapattis were gorged down.

Arvind was sure he had seen a biker head in the opposite direction, we dismissed the only possibility of a 1000km Brevet rider returning. But if only we knew Karthikeyan had whizzed past, on target to finish 1000k in about 59hrs!

All about the Paceline

For the uninitiated, Paceline riding at a set pace in a straight line. The idea is to slice through the wind like a knife through butter. The rider in the lead, breaks the wind for the others to follow in his/her slip-steam. Effective when the gap between one riders back wheel is scarily close to the next riders front.

From 2am to about 3:45am, the 3 of us stuck to a paceline and covered quick ground. We hit Sira tollgate by 3:45am, with 106km done in about 4h:45m. Arun joined us here, having stopped earlier for refreshments.

Sometime between 4am till the break of dawn, somewhere on the highway some 100kms from the comfort of home, a single paceline of 4 riders, noiselessly knifed through the still night. The only sound was the hiss of the tires on tarmac. When the lead said “watch out”, it snapped me back to reality.

During my turn to be the lead rider, I would put my head down and try to keep a steady pace. I was constantly riding into my own shadow cast by either Arvind / Yogesh’s brighter lights. And then when the uphill was conquered, a fair distance done, I would signal to the next rider to take over and move over to the left, wait till all 3 had passed and join them at the back.

Chepkaau-fying from http://www.randonneurs.bc.ca/toolbox/paceline.html

When the lead rider's turn at the front is over, he (or she) does a shoulder check for oncoming traffic, then peels off TO THE LEFT and begins to soft pedal in such a way that the rest of the line overtakes him on his RIGHT side. As the last rider in line passes by, the erstwhile leader accelerates enough to fall in behind, thereby becoming the caboose. Now that rider can recover, take a well-earned drink, scratch his nose and grope for a broken cookie in his jersey pocket. As other riders complete their turn at the front they will fall back to the end of the line in turn and our original 'leader' (now hopefully well recovered!) resumes his place at the front once again. In this fashion the entire line recirculates continually as it moves down the road somewhat like a bulldozer's caterpillar tread. Except lighter, quieter, faster, and more graceful.

I was actually using the caboose time to sit up and ride, drink off my camelback, sip from the electoral supply (scratch my nose?), etc. The Supermoon coming out of the shadows, it was an awesome night for riding – no winds, no rains.

At day break, 6:20am we were at the U-turn ATM (yes, a mini statement taken at the ATM from your debit card is time stamp in a brevet ride) at Hiriyur. 161k done in 7h:20m, well within the 10.5h cut off. At the only hotel open that morning, we had breakfast of chow-chow bath and coffee, spending 40mins.

The Return

The plan was to keep to a paceline, but with no winds on empty highways, there was little motivation. Arvind and Yogesh fell behind while Arun was getting stronger. Arun and I maintained a decent clip till the Sira toll gate. Having done 215km in about 10h:15m or so, we rested under a shamiyan, the only shade we could find.

Quiver full of chapattis - (the luggage I had carried)

10 chapatti rolls, 3 chocolate bars, 3 sachets of electoral, 2 ltr camelbak, 1 liter bottle in the bottle cage, 3 spare tubes, mini pump, puncture kit, Allen key set, 1 spare garmin, cue sheets, phone, wallet

My quiver was still churning out chapattis non-stop, Arun & I had one each.

Next stop was outside Tumkur, 250k in 12hours by then. Arun dozed off when we stopped for chai, sleep was catching up and we didn’t waste too much time. Ashwani, a 600k rider, zoomed past, while I had to take mini massage breaks to keep the cramps at bay.

Yogesh and Arvind. Photo courtesy -Yogesh

The Finish

It was awesome to see the Garmin show up 300k in 14h:14m, I was riding ahead on one of the flyovers on the toll road and bang on top of the flyover, I get that “here it goes” feeling. I had a flat. I urged Arun to go ahead and finish, but he wouldn’t have any of that. He happily power-napped on the flyover leaning against the parapet; while I set up my puncture shop. It took me 2 tries before I was able to fix it – 35mins gone!

The good thing the flat did – it took care of my cramps and Arun’s sleep & when we got off the flyover, Yogesh had caught up with us. He led us to the finish point, another ATM where we swiped our cards.

We then made our way to the Café Coffee day at Hesarghatta to hand over our brevet cards, ATM slips and have that well deserved Mango shake with double ice cream!

309km in 15h:30m

… and that, ladies and gents, is the story of the night I like to remember...

A Diamond for my dear daughter

Her "Hello World" moment happened on 5th of May. And on the eve of her naming ceremony, it's only apt that I present a 'Diamond for my Dear Daughter'.

For details on how the diamond was cut see here

Coasting on East Coast Road again

One of the motivations to be keep myself fit is that it provides multiple opportunities to be alive to all those places I travel. In yet another cases, a chance chat with Dr. Subash at a Chennai hospital and before long I knew his biking pace and he my PR on a marathon! A few text messages later, I was frantically looking for a bike to join Doc & his friend, Nav on their Sunday morning ride to Mahabalipuram.

Thanks to Venkat, who put me on to Suresh who owns the Cycle mart near Kodambakkam. Suresh was kind enough to lend me a Bianchi Camaleonte Uno Sport Hybrid bike for the ride. All that was required now to get on saddle up, at 4AM on 13th Nov, Sunday.

The plan was to begin riding from Thiruvanmiyur, Nav’s place at 5AM. Doc offered to give me a ride from his place to Nav’s place.

We started a little late at quarter past 5, hit the highway soon and fell into a steady 26kmph on ECR. We hit into some cycling traffic from Reaxion, an organized ride on ECR. Doc was on a BSA kruze and Nav was on a GTR, road bikes both.

We stopped to munch on our snack bars just after passing the bridge across the river Vettar, having covered the first 20k in about 50mins. The next break was a quick one too, at the U-turn point at Mahabs. The road is flat and we stuck to the left shoulder of the road and pace-lined each other right through.

It was on these breaks that I was told (and nonchalantly) that my co-riders were erstwhile, part of the state pro-rowing team! That explained the brisk pace we were pushing.

Nav reminded us to keep focus and average 25kmph for the return leg. We did just that for the last leg, finishing the 82km distance in about 3h:17m, just as the sun was casting these shadows down!

Well, it was not close to an Ultra effort (I was missing the Bangalore ultra this year), but was a truly refreshing experience. This continues my thirst with the lovely ECR, following the relay run to Pondy. Details of the ride here.

Coorg to Coast Ride – Cycling and More

When Shreya and I signed up for the CAM ride, we knew the cycling part. When the weekend was over we knew that “more” meant incessant rains, insane descents, falls, water falls, hills, rubber, awesome roads, aweful roads and lots more.

Cycling and more (CAM) organizes rides in the Malnad area and manage transport of bikes, food, accommodation & support. All you need to do is saddle up and ride. It was a full bus load of cycling enthusiasts boarding the bus from Bangalore to Bhagamandala in Madikeri on Friday night. The plan was to start the ride on 6th Saturday morning and ride about 100kms on day 1. Then to rest at Kasargod for the night and ride another 50kms on day 2 to Jalsoor, Sulya and then board the bus back to Bangalore on Sunday.

I was suitably warned by Vikrath & SriHarsha from CAM that the first section of the road, well, is not road really. I decided to push ahead with my road bike for this trip. I did read the instructions and changed my brake pads, thankfully.

Day 1: 6th Aug 2011 Bhagamandala to Kasargod

There was one constant throughout the ride – that was rain, heavy drizzle to downpour. So while you read the ride report, unless otherwise mentioned, it was raining!

The bikes were un-loaded from the Cantor at the KSTDC guest house in Bhagamandala, while we had breakfast and geared up for the ride. Yes, it was raining steadily. The initial couple of kms was an uphill – about 100mts in 5kms. The downhills and patchy roads began as we entered the Talakaveri wild life sanctuary. The route was brilliant, water falls, dense forests and rains of course. But I couldn’t take my eyes off the road or relax those fingers off the brakes, one moment.

I thought of this ride as an answer to “God, I need a break”. But, He had other plans and said, “Take two brakes – front and back & hold on to it like you hold on to your dear life.”

Shreya was doing well till she pulled the brakes and noticed they were not responding! So skkidd she went, into a pile of bamboo shoots and thorns. Luckily she walked away with no serious bruises or broken bones. Vikrant, in the support car, helped fix her a new pair of brake pads and she was on her way. It was laudable that she continued to ride despite the fall till the lunch break.

For me, it was how long I could push without a puncture. And sure enough, after 28kms, just as I was taking off after a photo break, I noticed the flat. I had a spare tube, found a reasonably dry spot under a massive tree and began the routine of fixing the puncture. It took me about 15-20mins to fix the tube, by which time, my veins had 3 punctures! Those wormy leaches had hunted down my warm blood and I was bleeding profusely from my feet.

Since I wore those ‘Hawai chappals’ for the ride, I was easily able to spot the bright pink, as the oozing blood mixed with the rain drops. The punctures fixed, the leaches taken care of, I resumed the ride from behind the pack, with the sweep cantor breathing down my neck.

Lunch was near the Udayapuram turn, after we had done about 55kms. Shreya decided to ride in the Cantor for the rest of the day. After a short lunch break, I decided to up the pace and attack the hills. The first one was a 200m climb in 4kms and then the hills began rolling and the roads much better. I averaged 20kmph for the 28k distance till Bekal fort via Kanhangad. Shreya soon reached there and we spent some quality time in walking around the fort. In case you forgot, it was still raining!

Photo courtesy: Srinidhi

The ride from Bekal fort to Kasargod (our overnight halt) was on patchy, scaled roads and right along the coastline. I reached Speedway Inn with 97kms done for the day. After parking the bikes safely, it took us nearly an hour before we could park ourselves in the rooms. Dinner was at a modest Udupi hotel and the room served as a drier to salvage whatever we could from the wet monsoon day ride.

My lower back was sore or what!

Day 2: 7th Aug 2011 Kasargod to Jalsoor

We started from Speedway Inn at 7:45AM, the plan was to ride East towards Jalsoor, Sulya. I started out ahead of most of the MTBs and stayed up in front right through on fantastic roads right up to the breakfast point after Cherkala. After the Uppit-Kesaribath breakfast I managed to keep good pace, again on fantastic roads. Today I had done away with my raincoat and was enjoying the light drizzle.

Photo courtesy: Ganesh

Somewhere after the Adhoor temple, on that empty speedy road, amidst the din of the crickets, I was suddenly aware of forceful companion riding alongside. When the canopy cleared, I almost fell off the bike when I first saw her. The Payaswini river was flowing alongside in its full glory, the recent monsoons having filled her wide course to the seams.

With about 4kms to Jalsoor, I rode past the suspension bridge across the river. I reached Jalsoor right behind the Cantor to the applause of the ‘cheerleaders’ riding in the Cantor. I had averaged 22kmph for this superb stretch of 32kms, which was the best of the entire tour.

I had a quick bath by an open well and got into dry clothes. While we waited for the others to trickle in and the bikes to be loaded into the Cantor, I got a big lesson in Customer Service from the tea-stall owner Venkatarama Bhat. In the middle of this little rubber growing town, this barista had more wisdom than many managers in large corporations back in the city. Well, that is a story for another day perhaps.

We were treated to lunch and Gudbud at Sulya. The return trip was sprinkled with movies, bakras, mafia and wild jokes. It was past the mid-night hour when we crashed for the night at home – High & Dry!!!

Photo courtesy: Venkat

The Garmin log of my ride (for all the dirty details) visit the activity log here

Scaling newer peaks at Kodaikanal – Part 1 Cycling

The hills and valleys of Kodai were quite like our own mental state, as we swung from sheer disappointment to speechless awe in Kodai. And whether it was the cycle ride, the trek or the jog, whether it was the hills, the lakes, the pine forests or the gardens – we scaled newer heights of our relationship.

The highs and lows of Day 1 (9th June 2010):
Train, Taxi, Cycle
We took the overnight train, Tuticorn Express from Bangalore to Kodai Road and then found ourselves in a taxi (very outside of our frugal budget limits) to Kodai. The contrast of the beauty of the hills and the insides of our hotel was evident even without having to enter the ‘Guru Priya’ hotel where Artha Options had booked us. The hotel was pathetic, but we decided to stay on, in one of their better (less stained) rooms. The idea was to spend as little time indoors as possible.

By lunch time, we took a bus to the city center – the Kodai lake. I had a single minded focus to look for a place where we could rent decent cycles or motorbikes. Renting motorbikes in Kodai is out of question, we were told, by an old man renting BSA cycles, who seemed to have all day to dispense such information!
We finally found a bike rental, near the TTDC Boat house who had Hercules Act 110 bikes and was renting them for Rs.30 per hour. (Highly recommended if you are looking to ride around Kodai). We had a quick lunch at Woodlands and hurried to get ourselves on the bikes.

The standard biking route in Kodai is to ride the 5k around the Kodai lake. But, that is not what we had in mind. We started from Kodai Lake at 3pm, the idea was to take the ‘Valley tour’ (as the tour operators call it) and see how far we could go.

The Valley Tour: This loop covers many sightseeing points – the Coaker’s Walk, Upper Lake view, Pambar falls, Pillar rocks, Guna caves, Moier Point amongst others. This is one big loops in the hills bringing you back to the Lake.

Shreya and I had no idea how far we would be able to cycle. We were welcomed by killer uphills that tested the granny gears of the Act110 right away. We huffed and puffed our way to the first sightseeing point – Upper Lake View.
(if you have started to notice how these places are named, wait till you get to Cap’s Fly Point!!).

The ride was out of the world; the dense forests, the misty roads flooded me with memories of my ride to Ooty in 2008. We continued up and down the rolling hills, following the signage from one view point to the other, making our way through villages, Fairy falls without water, roads filled with ankle deep water at places, slush, curious locals & noisy tourists.
The valley tour took us right through the Golf course and up to Pillar rocks.

We had covered nearly 11k riding by the time we reached Pillar rocks. By this time, we had already climbed 250m or so, from 6900ft to about 7300ft. The mist completely covered the view of the rocks. Moreover, the place was packed with tourists who had thronged the place in buses. We chose to enjoy the nature’s beauty like we had done so far, we got back on our saddles to conquer the next uphill...

With some 14k left to get back to the lake, it seemed like we had a task on our hands. The distance was made easy, thanks to some breathtaking views. There were Pine forests growing right into the clouds and at many points, the mist brought down visibility to near zero, albeit for a few seconds. As Shreya rightly remarked on one of those killer up-hills, you really need to endure the up-hills to enjoy the down-hill cruising. Well, it is easy to endure those, when you have a husband who pushes the bike up for you ;)

We were soon blessed with a slight drizzle and more importantly, the milestone that said “6k to Kodaikanal”. It was all downhill from there, right down to the Kodai Lake, offering some more views of the star-shaped lake.

When we were back, we had covered 23k in 3hours, starting at 6900ft to 7550ft, climbing 550m or so! It was yet another celebration of my marriage to Shreya.

The details of the ride are here. Part II & III coming up shortly.

Scenic Sarjapur - 30k family ride

Shreya joins the Guest writers Band wagon with this narration of the 3rd July 30k ride around Sarjapur. Read on...

We not only have places for our cycles in our hall but we have enough for them in our car too. Hollywood is now a member of our family and we gave him his first ride in the city of Bangalore on the 3rd of July 2010. Well, Hollywood is the bike rack Manoj got from the US and we customized it to hold the Giant and the Schwinn.

July 3rd-4th was one of those rare weekends which had no pre-laid plans. We always wanted to go to some nice place, park the car and cycle. The Bike rack made it possible! On Saturday morning Manoj, Tima and I decided to cycle 30 kms close to Sarjapur Road. But something must go wrong in any plan and in our case it was Tima’s health. He was down with fever and his “kick start to cycling” was further delayed. So Manoj and I put our cycles in the rack, drove up to Decathlon, parked the car there, got into our cycling gears and pushed off.

It was a pleasant morning with a slight drizzle. We went across fields, rose gardens, ponds, villages, clubs and International Schools. We were discussing that there are such beautiful places so close by and all we have to do to enjoy them is just get off the bed in the morning. I was also telling Manoj that I would love to cycle in one of the Hash trails as it has its own flavor.

We deliberately took a 5 min break after 10 kms because we wanted to drink the tang we prepared early in the morning that day and to take some profile pictures. To my surprise, after 5 kms or so we came across the hash trail we laid a month back…yaay I said and pedaled with excitement. It was only 25kms when we reached Decathlon and so we went ahead on Sarjapur Road to make it 30. Thus we would not worry if our weekend is not planned as long as we have our cycles and Hollywood with us.
Ride details here: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/39257384

Manoj Comments: Overheard while climbing an uphill - "Guess what, I am on 3-6". Giggling somewhat "Ha ha, really! I am on 1-2" comes the reply. A very high quality discussion that only cyclists can appreciate. I guess we have arrived as the cycling couple!

3 Idiots on bikes - Sesquehanna River Trail

It was a very memorable weekend, meeting up with my childhood pals and spending a lot of time talking about highways and fairways. It's the season of guest writers on my blog. Introducing my childhood pal and dear friend, Vijay who has this report of the ride in Harrisburg...

The weekend was a hoot and will go in as a fun filled memorable one in my personal history book. It’ll remain etched in my mind for years to come. It was a series of firsts for me. If meeting my chaddi dosts Manoj and Uday, whom I have already known for more than 25 years in my 30 years of life in a foreign land was exciting enough, golfing, biking, playing cricket together in a little known city called Harrisburg in the northern hemisphere was an icing on the cake. Stitching all the events spread over the weekend made a fantastic panoramic mental picture.

It was Sunday afternoon. Manoj, Uday and I were treated with some good food (Thanks to Kalpana et al) at a friend’s baby shower party. After filling our bellies we escaped from the scene to bike the Green belt around Susquehanna.
After a siesta, we left my place in Camp Hill, PA to City Island (a small island in Susquehanna in Harrisburg downtown). We mounted my Giant Cypress hybrid onto the bike rack of my grey Honda Accord and off we went. Just the previous day Manoj had poured in lots of technical details on bikes, tire pressure, psi, cadence, how to mount a bike, how to dress for a bike ride and lots of good stuff. Driving to City Island, I felt the pressure to perform. I was determined to show the Iron man, that I am not a couch potato :)

We reached Susquehanna Outfitters, a bike rental company in City Island around 4 PM, quickly introduced my buddies Manoj and Uday to Steve who owns the rental company. Manoj, was excited and It didn’t take us too long to notice that he was in his comfort zone. It was gonna be a routine drill for him. We rented two bikes; Uday picked up a larger frame Trek and Manoj knew what he wanted. We quickly headed out of the Island to hit the Green belt trail. We biked on the iron bridge, made a steep descent to the trail around the river. It was an exciting moment. While Manoj and I have biked together many times (2 years from Sanjayanagar to Malleswaram) in the past, it was the first time the three of us were biking together. We started nice and easy, clicking some pictures, and headed towards the PennDOT. I picked up a map of the Green belt, as it can be a little confusing in certain parts.

We quickly saw ourselves pretty comfortable on the bikes and headed towards the Cameroon street, under a thick canopy of trees into the Five Senses garden (Uday, would begin to feel his rear sense here). There was one spot where Manoj instinctively was biking on the left hand side of the trail and had to remind himself that he was in the US. As we biked along the trail, we talked. Can’t really remember what we talked about, but I know we were laughing and yelling at each other and we definitely had fun.

We biked past Paxton street, waiting for quite some time for the traffic light to turn green for us pass through. When we reached the Reservoir Park, it was the first of the many uphills we would bike. I was glad that Manoj was around to help me and Uday with the technicalities of gears and we gradually but steadily conquered the first uphill of the day utilizing the granny gears to the fullest…hurrah! Delighted I sure was.

It’s the downhill that makes that salty drop of sweat running down your forehead, those aching muscles that scream at you on the uphill so much worth it. “Don’t be afraid of the uphill, there’s surely a downhill”, I am trying to apply this principle to every aspect of life. So far seems to be working.
We soon hit the State Street, crossed the street to get on to Herr Street, and hit the trail again. Now we were on some 8% -10% grade inclines. Slowly, I was getting comfortable with the bike and the gears. Manoj kept Uday company and encouraged him to push harder. We learnt that of the three of us Manoj is the most patient and I am the least. Soon, we made it Lower field, the Mecca of cricket buffs in Harrisburg. “Whackers” vs “HACC” cricket match was in action. We stopped and caught a glimpse of the match and gulped down a bottle of water.

We continued to pedal, and made our way through HACC (Harrisburg Area Community College). Uday seemed amazed at how I had discovered the biking trail. It was just talking to folks in my office that I came to know about the Green belt.
When we entered the Wildwood lake area, I could feel that Uday was pushing himself harder than ever. After a few steep uphill climbs, we saw ourselves biking on a thrilling downhill trail. Manoj went ahead of us and captured a video of us biking downhill. Finally, we came onto the Front street area, which reminded Manoj and me of Jayanagar, Jayamahal areas of Bangalore. We biked passed the Governor’s mansion (Governor Ed Rendell) and took a few pictures along the way and finally came back to City Island. It was close to 20 miles and 2 something hours of biking. Burnt loads of calories, thanks to Manoj’s fancy GPS watch.
We returned the cycles and thanked Steve and headed back to the car. The experience was priceless. Blessed we were for the wonderful day!

Some boring stats as usual:
Date: 20/06/2010
Time: 02:39:46
Distance: 32.40 km
Elevation Gain: 174 m
Calories: 1,010 C
Time: 02:39:46
Moving Time: 02:21:17
Elapsed Time: 02:39:46
Avg Speed: 12.2 km/h
Avg Moving Speed: 13.8 km/h
Max Speed: 42.7 km/h
More details from my ‘fancy GPS watch’ here http://connect.garmin.com/activity/37737263

Cycling in NYC

An official visit to the East coast provided an excellent opportunity to bike in the US. The next 3 posts are about my latest exploits from the mouth of guest writers on my blog. Keep Visiting!!

Introducing Srikanth, my cousin from New Jersey, who kept me fantastic company as we cycled on the biking trails and the one-way streets of NYC. Here’s the report straight from Srikanth!!

It’s has been on my mind for quite some time but thanks to Manoj's NYC visit, my bike trip on NY streets became a reality and a pleasant one too. I had bought my Trek7.3 FX just a few days back and was wondering what would be the best way to satisfy the desire to play with a newly bought toy. Right then Manoj called me and said he was planning to visit the city over the weekend. From then on the trip just happened.

Started morning 7 o'clock from home riding on my bike to the NJ transit station. Blame it on my stiff muscles or the early morning chillness during spring, that 10kms turned out to be the toughest stretch of the day!! God I had to do that wearing my jeans, which would eventually end up half way across the globe in Shreya's washing machine in a few days :D. Taking my bike in the train was the part I was most uncomfortable with. Mainly because I had never done it before and I was very skeptical about carrying it on the narrow escalators in Penn station. Escalators that would cramp and suffocate commuters even without a bike. Thankfully I had no horror stories to share with Manoj. 90 minutes gone and I was out on 32nd street, New York, the concrete jungle where dreams are made of!!

In no time I was there at Bops place and in even less time was out of there too. On FDR drive towards Brooklyn Bridge and a ride across it. Then on to Little Italy where we stopped over for lunch.

This is where I first heard about these weird breed of homo-sapiens who first appeared in the SE Asia region and quickly migrated to different parts of the world. I believe they are referred to as hashers and their religion called hashing. I still remember Manoj's purchase of a unique dress which was designed according to hash traditions. A dress that he was hoping would get him better acceptance within that community ;-)

From there on we cycled across lower Manhattan, along Hudson bay went past USS Intrepid and all the way to George Washington Bridge. We could have gone even further but I had a train to catch back home and we had to plan for that. On our way back we went into Central Park and then on to Times Square. This is where we had to go different ways as I had train on my mind and he had Asics shoes on his.

On my way back in train I shared the coach with a group of Puerto Ricans. Drunk yet sober after their annual Puerto Rican day celebration (it was actually the day before). Some of them were bikers and we traveled talking about our trips. Once at Long Branch it was 14kms ride back home. Back from what would be my best visit to the city, I've visited NYC at-least 10 times before and never have I remembered my trip to such details even after a month. I also realized the best way for me to explore any city. Hopefully, more such bike trips in the US.

Some stats from the ride
Date: 12/06/2010
Time: 04:38:55
Distance: 44.25 km
Moving Time: 03:23:49
Elapsed Time: 07:32:45
Avg Speed: 9.5 km/h
Avg Moving Speed: 13.0 km/h
Max Speed: 37.4 km/h

For the maps, statistics of the ride, visit http://connect.garmin.com/activity/36674990