Hyderabad Bicycling Club

500 km long London to Paris cycle challenge by D V Manohar

2011-06-19T16:18:00.001+05:30

It’s great to be back home after my cycling adventure. As most of you are aware, I participated in the London to Paris Cycle Challenge organized by the U Foundation, UK from 1^st June to 4^th June. I am delighted that I could successfully finish the over 500 kms long London to Paris Cycling Challenge at the age of 57 years. In all only four Indians, all from Hyderabad viz., myself, my two children Deekshita & Dharmin apart from Srinivas Simhadri participated in this grueling challenge ride through steep mountains, dense forests and picturesque countryside of UK and France. My wife Sujata was also part of the ride as volunteer and infact won the best volunteer award. What made this tough ride a pleasure was the thought that we were doing it to support the cause of education to the under privileged children.

I have taken to cycling after a gap of 40 years basically to combat diabetes which struck me last year. Gradually cycling became my new found passion and stress buster in addition to dramatically containing the diabetic effects. It is gratifying that dear neighbors from Whisper Valley also started joining the regular Sunday morning rides and our cycling group’s strength has gone upto about 15 now.

I attach below the day wise activity brief of the ride, just to let you know how it went off each day. The third day night, I could not sleep for two reasons: the first being my son Dharmin was considerably injured that afternoon when he had a bad fall while sliding down a steep mountain & I was in two minds whether to continue or be with Dharmin. On the other hand after completing about 400 kms of cycling by then, we were only 100 kms away from our destination. However I continued and rode together along with Deekshi most of the time that day. Once we reached Paris, it was a memorable time riding on the main thorough fares of downtown Paris and reaching the finishing point viz, Eiffel Tower to the cheers and applause of both Parisians & tourists there.

But the greater memorable moment was when we reached home around 10 pm on 7^th June and were received with Champagne and flowers at Whisper Valley entrance by all our dear neighbors. I would cherish this for a long, long time to come.

Daily activity brief:

“Day 1 - 1^st June: London Paris Cycle Challenge flagged off @ 7 am on 1st June in London. Covered a gruelling 145 km distance to Dover port through mountains with steep climbs & thick forest roads along with Srinivas Simhadri. Crossed English Channel on Ferry & rode down to hotel in Calais town in France. My children Deekshita & Dharmin also participated.

Day 2- June 2nd: Very picturesque ride spanning another 140 kms on the second day, savoring the beauty of French countryscape. Though there were numerous steep climbs, the scenic charm outweighed it. Inspired by infectious enthusiasm, my children Deeskhita & Dharmin did about 80 kms today despite no practice. Enroute, Mayor of Roquetoire joined us for lunch & hosted champagne.

Day 3 - June 3rd: Third day was quite eventful. Left Arras @ 8 am & rode towards Compeigne. France is the most cyclist friendly nation with people in towns & villages enroute waving at us & greeting us. Today is a very hot day in France but the amazing countryscape is perfect antidote. Finished about 400 kms end of day 3. Just 100 kms left to raise our flag @ Eiffel Tower on 4th June.

Day 4 - 4th June: We did it. Left Compeigne @ 8 am & headed towards Paris. It's a hot day again. After reaching Paris, rode together on main thoroughfares in downtown & finally reached Eiffel Tower @ 3 Pm. It's gratifying to note people applauding & waiving at us all over particularly as we were reaching Eiffel Tower. While me & Srinivas did the ride fully, Dharmin & Deekshi did about half the distance. Most participants tumbled atleast once during the ride but Dharmin's was a bigger fall y'day. He'd be alright soon.”

The question before us is what next? One thing for sure, I have decided to do one challenge every year. I feel that is the best way to feel as well as stay younger. Further along with U foundation, we are planning to organize a similar ride in India probably coming December/ January.

Trillion Thanks for all your support and good wishes which contributed enormously to our successfully finishing the above challenge.

Lastly, the organizers viz., The U Foundation, UK have done a great job & ensured that every detail is meticulously planned & executed. A big thanks to them. I strongly recommend their future rides.

I give below the link of the album where some of the pics of the above event have been posted.

Pictures shot by us

https://picasaweb.google.com/105505145242008701608/SucessfulCompletionOfLondonParisCycleChallengeByMrDVManohar?authkey=Gv1sRgCOjNqu6mgMWLmQE

and Pictures & video shot by Ted Cottrell, participant and photographer: http://web.me.com/tedcottrell/Teds_Albums/London_to_Paris_2011.html

With best regards,

D V MANOHAR

Just Ride~~

Memoirs of a Brevet Rider

2011-06-16T12:05:00.001+05:30

Here is a small account of a personal achievement for Raman Garimella. He finished his longest ride this weekend at Pune. He is also the 1st HBC member to participate in a Brevet Ride. Hearty congratulations and All The Best to him and all those who are planning to participate in Brevet rides.

Over Raman in his own words:

Pune city is very close to my heart. I lived there for 6 months earlier. The first half of the 6 months, I had lived with 5 roommates and the second half of my stay, I lived alone. During that time, I used to love exploring Pune, and I have a whole bunch of memories from this city. So this visit got me really excited, and the cycle ride was just one of the things that I was looking forward to. I had many friends there, and was eager to catch up with all of them.

I took my car, borrowed Krish's bike rack, found two mates for the onward road trip and left for Pune on Friday afternoon. The highway to Pune is currently in horrible shape. Please avoid.

We reached Pune on Saturday early morning at around 6am. I hated the entire drive. The previous 3 days, I had an average sleep of 3hours/night, and felt exhausted. And this night I had no sleep at all. Naturally, I fell sick right after I reached my friend's house. I felt very feverish and was shivering. Quickly took a Combiflam and went to sleep. The ride was going to start 24 hours later, and I had my doubts as to whether I'd have enough time to recover.

After an evening out in the city, I managed to sleep early. Before going to bed, I spent about 1-1.5 hours just preparing for the ride: buying electrolyte, on-the-bike food, setting up lights, bottle cages, cleaning the bike, lubing the chain, keeping clothes aside, making the rider number boards, packing stuff for the ride, planning breakfast, taking a bath, getting xerox, filling the saddle bag, all while I still had doubts whether I'd even wake up properly the next day.

As it turns out, I did wake up on time, didn't spend much time worrying about bike and gear preparation. I had Khichdi and soya milk and left for the start point. There I met a group of cyclists, all with high energies. Inspection of the cycle was done by the officials and we were given our brevet cards. Shook hands with other riders and started promptly at 6am.

I didn't know the way to the highway so I had to go with a couple of riders - Boni gopalan and Sujit. Boni Gopalan is a famous cyclist on the web, and I wasted no time in going and introducing myself to him. I had a feeling that Boni, Sujit and I were going to do the entire ride together. Just a feeling. Sujit was a runner and loved long distance cycling. He's not into intensity or competition he said. Fair enough... we were, after all, in a BRM ride! So the three of us stuck together till the 25km mark (of which the last 6.5km was a climb @5.7%) and that's when a tunnel had started. I was taken in (literally!) by the novelty of the tunnel. This was obviously my first time riding in a tunnel and I loved it. I broke off from Boni, Sujit and about 4-5 others. Then it was downhill/flat for about 30km. Till this point, I had not eaten anything. So, I knew I had to stop and have something. I had one energy bar and then stopped for refilling water.

There I met a 56 yr old gentleman from Mumbai. He was in the ride too, was riding a steel frame Colnago road bike and he was nursing a puncture. I gave him company till he fixed his flat. We talked a bit. He seemed to have a lot of mileage under his belt... he had started riding only 2 years ago he said. He finished fastest in last year's 400km BRM at Pune – really very impressive. The way he carried his spares was awesome too. He would wind his spare tubes and tires around the top tube of the frame!

Shortly after restarting, I ran into Sujit again. He told me that Boni had "blacked out" after the tunnel. He was not feeling well apparently. In Boni's words, he had bonked. That was unfortunate. I was looking forward to riding with him. It must have been a bad day for him. I guess one never knows when to expect a bad day. Sujit and I happened to talk about food and when to eat, etc. He realized that I was planning to eat at the mid-point (which was a long way away, and we had to do 19km of climb to get there). He was surprised that I hadn't stopped like all the others at a restaurant. I think he thought I was really stupid, from the way I was talking about my food habits on the ride. Then he told me "long distance riding is all about planning your nutrition. So think about it." I was a little scared. Sujit said not to wait for him, so I said bye to him and took off. Then I met Avanti with whom I started chatting about nutrition again, I was slightly paranoid at this point. She said she never has anything outside, and she always carries her food. She was sweet enough to offer her food to me, which I politely refused. I had my emergency stack of bars in my saddle bag. But then I knew that if I needed food, I could ask this lovely lady. Both Sujit and Avanti had previously done BRM rides. So I knew that their opinion and judgment counted. Both these people carry their own food and don't waste time at eateries on the way. Of course, they were wearing bags on their shoulders while all I had was a saddle bag. Anyway, I started to worry a bit and quickly began scouting for Poha/vada pav/anything.

At the foot of the first climb, which is about 7km long @3.7%, I found an omlette pav guy. I had two eggs, pav, water, sprite, tea and I was ready to go. At this place, I happened to meet Arun Ramachandran. He knew a lot of cyclists in our cities (via bikeszone.com, dailymile.com and cyclists.in I suppose), and that was impressive too. He was quite modest and said not to wait for him, he's very slow, etc. So the 7km climb was over, I did it alone, at a steady pace (another thing that I learned). I had been tailing a truck for a long time, let the truck set the pace for me. Something I should have avoided because his fumes really killed me. At the end of the climb, I had a headache. Never again will I tail a truck on a climb. The descent, of course was a lot of fun. I was going faster than most vehicles. One of the biggest rewards of climbs is the descents!

12 km of absolute flat terrain later, I was to start the 12km climb @5% to Panchgani. This was as constant as you can imagine. The road never changes its elevation grade. Although not brutal, it can be really trying. Imagine a constant elevation for 12km. I did 4-5km at a stretch, found a tree and sat under it (the gentleman from Mumbai came there too!), had water, and we both started again. Left him behind and I did the rest of the climb 7-8km at one go, at one hard steady effort. It was most gratifying... the most surprising part was that my heart rate didn't shoot up by much. It was really good news. Perhaps this was due to a steady style up the hill? Maybe it was because I had taken enough care to eat and drink before the climbs? Maybe the climb just wasn't punishing enough...

I reached the top and the officials were there, as cheerful and encouraging as ever. They noted down my time. I had poha and water here, refilled my bottles and then had the shock of the ride. I couldn't walk! My left hamstring had strained and I feared the worst. I thought I needed to quit. I'm over, I thought. I sat and stretched, it was no use. I walked, it hurt, and I didn't want to tell anyone for the simple reason that I didn't want them to know that I may have to quit :) I just wasn't interested to approach the organizers and tell them that I was hurt and that I wanted to leave the ride midway. Now this is really interesting to me too... if this sort of thing had happened a year ago, or even a few months ago, quitting would have come naturally. I'm not saying it didn't cross my mind, it did. But, I wasn't ready to quit yet. So I quietly went to two gentlemen there, who were sort of volunteering at this ride. Their friends were riding on this day. One of the gentlemen was giving out cookies and cake that he had baked... for the riders :) That was a great gesture. It seems he had just started cycling. More interestingly, with him was a man called Satish Apte. It seems he was a cyclist in his day. He had stopped cycling in 1983. He used to race for Maharashtra... he would take part in Bombay Poona race and Bombay Baroda race, etc. That's pretty cool.

Went downhill and it was getting really tough to ride the descent too. Really tough. The left leg hurt with every pedal stroke. Then I saw that the gentleman from Mumbai was walking with his cycle. He had another flat. What a bummer that must have been. And his pump was not working because a lot of mud had gone in. So, I decided to help him out. We changed the tire, cleaned the pump, etc. I told him about my situation and he said that he usually carried a medical kit and he would have given me Volini, but he was not carrying it this time. He said this was a 200km ride, and he didn't feel the need to carry any medical stuff on the ride. Respect! This is the next level... (this is exactly how I felt on my first ride with HBC. It was to be around 70km to Keesaragutta and back. Among many others, Sunil Menon and Phani Rayala were there. I remember seeing them and thinking to myself "70km is nothing for these fellows... look at them coping with it so easily."That's the exact feeling I got when I was talking to this gentleman). He was used to 200km rides a lot. Anyway, the only thing I got from him was that I should look for Volini spray. Somehow, I made my way coasting down the hill, trying all sorts of positions on the bike, to avoid using the hurt muscle. In the village at the base of the hill, I went around for a couple of kilometers, and found a bottle of Volini. Sprayed it over the affected area. "stuff" burned for about 5 minutes and then I was ready to go.

I knew this was going to be a solo thing for me. It was going to be a century ride from here on, all alone, and with an injury. I still wasn't interested in finding out how to quit. I was not going to call any of the emergency numbers. I started off, and believe it or not, the pain was fine. It didn't numb out, but it was easy to cope with. That Volini is wonderful.

The winds on the way back got really crazy. They felt even more so because this was after 150km of riding. I rode on, with one quote in my head. This is one of my favourites from Glenn McGrath "Don't leave anything in the tank." Apart from that, going back to my friend's place for a reunion was a big motivation :) I found a certain rhythm in places, and amazingly, the pain did numb itself out in parts. Truly a great experience. There were some excellent downhill stretches on the way back. I must have easily touched 65+kmph.

I came back to my friend's place, took a bath, ate Maggi and bread, had a two hour nap. Woke up in the night, ate something and slept again. Recovery was fairly good the next morning. I woke up feeling fresh, the ONLY pain I had was in the neck from using the dropped bars a lot (something I still have not got used to). There were slight sores on the bum, but those disappeared quite fast

My notes and observations:

1. "Long distance riding is all about planning your nutrition" - Sujit. Couldn't have been more true... this was the biggest take-away for me from this ride. Think about it. Theoretically, the human body when doing aerobic exercise, if provided with constant fuel, will never stop. Nutrition is not just key, it's all important. If all of us can have enough discipline to eat regularly and sensibly on long rides, there will be nothing to stop us. Best is to carry own food, preferably sandwiches. That way, things stay predictable. Instead of looking out for shops selling the stuff you want, you can get to be on your own terms if you carry your own food...

2. No matter how much you think it's going to be in a group, it's going to be a solo experience. You've got to find your own rhythm. You can't ride on somebody else's rhythm. Everybody has their own pace and styles.

3. BRM rides are a great way to meet new people. There is mutual respect because all riders who do these long rides show a certain spirit. Think about the guys who did 600km and the guys who are going to do 1000km this month-end in Bangalore. Don't you think it takes a certain mental maturity and steel to do it? I certainly think so. That's what they have in common and that's what puts them in a separate league. This is what test cricket must be like!

Above all, there is the one thing we all have in common - the cycle :) Be nice to everybody on the ride. Help them when they're in a tough spot. You never know when you'll need their help.

4. Plan and prepare. Get to know everything about the ride. Terrain, temperature, directions, road quality, shops, check-points. Plan and prepare for the ride in advance. Plan when to take a break, when to eat, what to eat. While on the ride, set small goals for yourself. "I will finish the ride in 9.5 hours" or "if I finish riding this hill in 1hr, I'm on track" and so on. Make sure your cycle and gear are all ready and available for the ride.

5. Bag up. I didn't carry spare tube or pump. Very risky that. Need to load up on all these necessary things. I don't like shoulder strap bags much - they are extra load on the shoulders and back. So I think I will buy one of those things to wear on the waist. Put sandwiches, electrolyte, spares, money, phone, etc.

I look forward to the 300km ride in Bangalore. I'm sure we're all going to give it our best shot and take home a huge memory!

Here is the map:

http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/23003942

Here is the Garmin page (I had forgotten to turn it on many times... about 4-5 times)

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/92305767

whisper1 ride to gandipet lake sunday 19dec2010

2010-12-24T23:21:00.003+05:30

--< drsuniljaiman >Team HBC

On a Wintery Night

2010-12-17T20:44:00.001+05:30

Don't read further if you are weak hearted . . . . .

Probably I should say, 'On a wintery morning'. It felt like night, so I put it that way.

After quite a long time, I set out today, to do some early morning ride, to be precise, at 4:45 am. And after an initial tussle with the security, as to why he was sleeping instead of patroling, that too with the lights off, I moved on to the main road. It was like any of my other morning rides. Riding some 4 kms and on to the Express Way of Outer Ring Road, I realized it was quite chilly. I couldn't believe it was so cold right here in India, in Hyderabad, so bone-chilling cold, me having survived seven Chicago winters. There was not a bitch on the road, leave around human population. Too early for most morning walkers. Other than an occasional vehicle that would pass by, trying to reach the airport in a high speed mood, the road was totally deserted. Surviving the cold, I pedalled and pedalled. The idea was to do a 25-30 km ride at minimum. As always (or mostly), I decided I will pedal until it was a little less than half time of my confortable return time. For this day I set that at 7:30 am when my son leaves to school. I eventually completed 50 kms in this ride.

It was quite dark and if I did not have my cycle light on, it would be barely possible to pedal, although I knew it is unlikely there are pot holes on the express highway. After riding through some 15 kms, at Police Academy, I took a diversion to Chilkur road. the diversion takes down to the road from express way. It was so dark, so dark that I actually had to slow down to near stop, since I wasn't sure where I was riding, although it was a well known diversion to me. And here comes the main story . . .

The Chilkur road was pitch dark, much darker than I explained in previous sections. God forbid, if I my light stopped working, leave alone riding the bicycle, it would be difficult to even walk! I wouldn't feel comforable not knowing if I am stepping on to an odd snake crossing the road. There were plenty of bushes on either side of road to support this possibility. To admit, I felt a little eerie to ride on that road, all alone with not a soul around; unable to see anything other than the very small road section that my cycle light lighted. I have no idea of the road taking a curve until I actually reached it.

And . . . . I saw someone from a distance crossing the road from other side of divider on to my side. I could only see a somewhat darkish frame. As I approached the person crossing, I felt it could be someone in a burkhah since face was not visible (there was a small amount of my cycle light reaching that area). And I wondered why would a muslim lady walk on the road at this hour, when it was so 'pitch' dark (I shiver even now, as I write). As I further bridged our distance, the person appeared even darker, now completely black, and I am still not able to see the face. I asked myself, what am I doing here, at about 5:30 am, so chilly, so dark, with no soul around, and no signs of sun coming up (Sun is also lazy during winter to show up early). It is unlikely that a burkhah clad muslim woman would be walking on the road in this hour. Should I return back? No. Not me. I don't like calling myself a scary cat! Surely ghosts never existed. Although I did have some experience from my childhood, I never wanted to admit myself that ghosts existed. And if they did, they wouldn't be visible.

So I continued my ride, to face it as it may. Let that be a burkhah clad woman. Or, a ghost! It showed up even darker as I approached, and by this time, it had crossed over the median completley and came on to my side. And still face is not visible nor clothes in any color. Now there is barely any gap between us. Let's face it. And that's when I realized . . . . . it was my shadow!

Evidently, there was a vehicle (in my climax, I could hardly notice if it was a four or two wheeler) behind me following from a distance. As it got closer and trying to overtake me, it my shadow move from right to left and darker (since the light from behind became brighter).

Mallik Kovuri - Team HBC

Let The Races Begin... HBC Championships-Race1

2010-11-17T18:49:00.010+05:30

A line up of 16 riders. Prasad on his target, Raman on his Act110, Dasari Rajashekar on his roadpro, Sunil DesiSuperman Menon on his Orbea Mud, Gokul on his Schwinn Cutter single speed, Krish of TBA on his Merida Crossway, Maninder on his Lumala, Sreekanth on his SRAM Force decked Cannondale, Srinivas on his Act110, Bala on his Bianchi Nirione7, Krishna, Sam on his F9, Gordon on his PlanetX mean machine, gr on his Sport1 and Puneet on his BSA Mach. It was a spectacular sight.

There was no gun fire signaling the start. A simple get, set, go.. and off they went. The bikes jumped into action. The riders fired up to do well.

There was Maninder channeling his teen adrenalin to power-up his Lumala truck. There was Gordon's calculatedly high cadence and rhythmic surge. There was Sunil's lung power display keeping ahead of the pack as always.

As expected, the first lap finish was with riders more or less coming in bunches. But as the lap count increased, the field was very much spread out. Even then, there were quite a few races with in the race.

Gordon and Sunil played cat and mouse for almost six to seven laps before Sunil was finally able to shake Gordon off. That was a great display of experience and grit by Gordon giving the younger rider a run for his money.

Sreekanth and Bala fought hard for third spot for almost five or six laps before Sreekanth's steady effort managed to build a gap between himself and Bala.

Bala was then given a chase by Sam on his knobbie tired Cannondale F9. They played catchup with each other for almost eleven laps before Sam managed to just pull ahead and finish fourth overall. A commendable show on an MTB. Bala fresh from Himachal MTB, the toughest MTB race in India, has put up a great show although his war wounds from Himachal MTB just about healed.

Another race with in the race was between Krishna and Maninder. The smart chap that he is, Maninder just managed to hang on to Krishna's tail for eleven laps on his Lumala truck. He then accelerated by using up every ounce of his energy in the last lap to pull ahead of Krishna. But at the end of it he is still asks the question if Krishna slowed down wantedly to gave him the minor victory. He is a question bank running around on a Lumala truck. :)

gr who turned up with the intent of volunteering ended up racing as not many volunteers were required.

gr, Prasad, Dasari, Raman, Srinivas, Gokul and Krish all maintained a steady effort and competed with themselves to finish the race strong.

Puneeth on his BSA Mach single speed put in a good effort dispite struggling on his bike. I observed that even his seat height was not set up properly. He needs to raise the seat a bit further and needs to lose that aero bar immediately. Its just extra weight. Puneeth, are you listening?

Pravanjan Das who arrived a lap late still went ahead with his participation and finished strong. Good job.

Sunil who has managed to build up a decent distance between himself and Gordon finished first. Gordon came in a close second followed by Sreekanth at third overall. Sam finished next followed by Bala. Then came Maninder and Krishna followed by the rest of the pack.

Krish took care of refreshment for the tired racers in form of energal packs, lots of bananas and bisuits. Deena who came in to race ended up volunteering to keep track of the lap counts as his bike began to leak air. Gareth kept the time while Aleem was busy with video coverage of the entire event with the help of his friend.

Here are the race results:

Here is a link to race photos:

http://picasaweb.google.com/hivenkat.d/TheFirstHBCChampionshipsRaceNov2010#

Here are the videos from Aleem and his friend:

It was a great start to the races. A great show by all the participants and volunteers to make it a huge success.

-- Venky
Team HBC

mtb Himachal 2010 - Bala Aluru's experience

2010-11-07T13:43:00.001+05:30

Its been a week since I returned from the mtbHimachal. And from the moment I returned I have been siphoned back into the grind. So its only today I am managing to write something.

Mates, I have to tell you, it was one helluva rock and roll! I thought I will let my emotions flow in this blog rather than record a chronology of events in the race.

First, the locales left me breathless. Being the HBC guys we are, we need no explanation that the best way to see a place in not my motoring around it at a fast and frenzied pace but by biking and walking through it and living there. This is what exactly we did there. We rode up and down the mountains and "felt" the wilderness, the altitude, the greenery, the landscapes, the snow clad peaks and lived in the camps to actually be a part of them. And this was the objective of my visit too.

The mtb Himachal was a bike race in the Himalayas, but also an endeavor to promote Eco- friendly tourism. All this in an entertaining way.

The race was flagged from the Hill Ridge in Shimla. We went from Sainj - Tanni Junner - Kullu Sarahan - Bahu - Chwad - Luhri - Shimla.

The entire event was to be over 8 days riding through the Himalayan ranges in Himachal pradesh. People could participate as eco riders and opt to only ride the first two days. The rest would continue with the further riding routes.

Each day would have stages. Stages are timed and hence are aggressively ridden. There are distances between stages which are not ridden competitively. But for people like me whose idea is to complete the distance there is no way to distinguish the stages from the free rides.

Of the 8 days one day was reduced because of certain logistical issues on the 3rd day and snowing of the Jalori pass. But that day's distance was off-set to a certain amount on other days.

In addition to the riding pleasure the learning during the event too was immense. I got to know first hand the effects of not cleaning your bike well with all the slush from the previous day still lingering on the bike. The ride was painful as was the hard chain and the extra weight on the wheels and the frame. I never knew my bike had the feature of turning of the shocks when required. After knowing about it uphills became a little bit easy.

mtbHimachal says its India's toughest mountain biking challenge. I couldn't have agreed more. The downhills are scary. Let go off the brakes and you may not be able to successfully negotiate the hairpin bend. Hold it too tight and if you don't manage your weight well and push yourselves back out of the seat you might well topple over. There were some sections where I felt crawling down might be the best option after letting the bike slide down! Absolutely crazy! After each crazy off-road downhills the wrists and knees are the ones which are left smarting. You just can't for a second rest on the saddle. You will get catapulted out down the cliff. And the hike section on day 2 set a precursor of what we could expect during the rest of the days. There was barely any space at times. With the bike on your shoulders one weak foothold will send you tumbling down. Talking about tumbling, I had a couple of big falls. But the injuries are barely proportional to the catastrophic fall. Day 2 free ride from the camp to the stage 1 starting point. I was driving well. At one section the calm road suddenly starting getting nasty. It had rained the previous day and the road was slushy in that part. I was driving well though through that slushy downhill route. The Army team suddenly zipped past me in their US$ 8000 Treks. I can't clearly recollect the entire sequence of events. But something overcame me and I let go of the brakes and followed them. In one split second decision I had to decide whether to brake or change over from one part of the road to another part. And then it happened. I was down sliding through the slush on my right arm. And my bike was tumbling and racing with me! Fortunately, just a bruise on my left knee. No broken bones. I am sure the speed was not less than 50kmph during the fall.

If you are going for the mtb then your practice too has to be on those daunting hills and ruthless off-roads. Narne hill which I did up and down a hundred times will barely be a good simulation. You would only have trained a bit for elevations. But that's not of enough use.

Another point I wanted to make was about the bike. The Merida Matt Krish sold me was a tremendous buy I did. It never let me down once. In fact I had to live up to its abilities. Downhills, its brakes were phenomenal. One thing about the discs are that they are fantastic. But you got to be as good. If you don't have strong wrists and when you squeeze the brakes the bike will stop but you won't if you can't push yourself back enough and bring down your center of gravity. I suggest Merida for off-roaders. I can't remember one rider except me not having a puncture. Well, I did too actually, but it was just after I finished the last stage on the last day. I took it as a good omen.

Some of the sceneries of Himachal I remember during the ride are etched in my memory forever.

The view of the Sutlej river above and the bridge across it after the uphill ride remind you of the Phungsuk Wangdu's scenes at the last part of the 3 idiots movie. In Kullu Sarahan we had a cold evening. But that evening I saw a phenomenon I wouldn't have even thought of in the city's hustle and bustle. One of the several Himalayan mountains just beside our camping side was snow clad at the top. In the moonlit sky you can see only a silhoutte of the mountain but the snowclad peak appears clearly visible. Quite a sight.

Some other memories. Day 4 was a much welcomed rest day, though unplanned. Washing the clothes soaked in slush along the stream which was flowing beside the campsite. It was good water flowing from the Himalayan mountains.

And the lazing in the sun which shined that day was fantastic. Having a Maggi in the evening at a very very small "dhaba" at such as altitude. The sight of the Shrikhand range of the Himalayas makes you feel so humble. There they are the Himalayas so majestic, tall and bright. The school kid who immediately agreed to pluck an apple and in return asked to ride my bike a few meters. The Shimla apples them selves need no explanation about.

Above is a snap of a shop. The guy was sliding in and out of that aperture selling cigarettes. This was the day 4. I had the luxury of taking snaps.

I couldn't ride on day 4 from Kullu Saharan to Bahu. My ankle was paining from a slip I had from the pedal the previous day. But I did reach the highest elevation point of Jalori pass. I was the last for that stage because everybody behind me had dropped out for that stage. Jalori pass was steep, long and off-road. But I reached 3500 meters altitude. I had started feeling at home with the altitude by then. Of the 16 stages I could not ride 3 stages. All the other stages I started, I could complete. My timings though, are not enviable. But my intention was not to race either.

Some tips for aspirants.:
1. Carry enough warm clothing.
2.Practice for a week in Himachal before the race.
3. If you lose any of your biking stuff you can't purchase another there. I lost one glove of the full fingers' gloveset. I had to manage with the half fingers' one.
4. Know your bike well. Practice changing tubes. Will need it. There won't be too much time for leisurely doing it. Its a challenge for people like me who have to complete all stages before it gets dark. You can't imagine how suddenly it gets dark.
5. Get used to Parathas. That's the staple diet there.
6. A good bike and good accessories will give you a good experience. And the mtb Himachal especially requires good stuff.
7. Carry a good pencil torch, the camp sites are not brightly lit like a shopping mall.
8. Book all your return tickets also in advance. Though the mtb Himachal guys are very friendly and accomodative its better to not let them get mired in these activities. They are all busy.
9. Keep your mobile on.
10. You will need disc brakes.

In summary folks, I take the mtb Himachal as an achievement in my life. I might not do it again, given the time it requires away from work, how tough it is and a bit far from where I leave. But the memories will be there for me forever. By the way, I was told this year's event might be on TEN sports. I am not sure if that's true.

--Bala Aluru Team HBC

New Personal Record - Nonstop Ride of 64 kms

2010-09-26T14:07:00.002+05:30

Yesterday I have set a new personal record by bicycling 64.42 kms nonstop! I did not get down from bike and rest for a minute!

Having not bicycled to office the entire week this week, thanks to the lock breaking and the newly ordered lock not arriving yet, I got restless. Driving the Skoda all the week started bothering me that while I talk about going green and reducing pollution, here I am driving to work every day by car. And yes, there was this 'itch' too to ride and a fear that if I give too long a gap, I might just get used to the comfort of a car. I decided the previous evening that since lot of mail was getting piled up, I would work from home the next day, the Friday. Working from home often is more productive than at office.

So here I am on the Friday morning, taking out my bike at 6 am. Because I was going to work from home anyway, even if I am not able to reach back home well in time, heaven is not going to fall. Usually I keep a target to leave at about 4:30 am, and manage to actually leave by 5:30 (one hour slippage - Indian Standard Time!). But today, it got further delayed leaving at 6 am. I said to myself, as hopped onto my bike, "I will do a shorter ride today, perhaps only a four hour ride". It didn't give me a good feeling to know that I will do a ride shorter than my usual. So I was asking myself, "am I progressing or regressing?". And pat comes the idea, why don't I do a shorter but nonstop ride? And if I do a nonstop, probably I will still be able to do a long ride since I waste no time.

I move on to the Rajiv Gandhi Outer Ring Road. After going 3 kms plus, I realize I did not start the GPS based sports software micoach from Adidas correctly. I start that and bicycled off. When I completed 10 kms, I felt I probably needed a rest. But did not rest . . . laughed at myself wanting to stop so early on my ride. It was a beautiful morning. Although sun had come out, it was still not sunny yet. I knew if I had to have a good ride, I needed to finish before it gets very late. I wanted to make sure that I am back home before 10 am latest, so I can get on to my laptop on time and start office work.

Riding solo is lot of fun. It's like meditation. Just all by myself. I put some music. And into my own thoughts, or enjoying the music, or analyzing all that comes on my way, such as when I wondered how does water flow from within a rock when it is all rock-solid. How did the water seep in, store, and leak through cracks. As I analyze the deep crevices and look around the entire rock structure, I noticed that it is not all rock, there are pockets of mud/soil. It is interesting that from some small crevices there are tiny plants growing up! These mud pockets are the culprits which store water during rain and allow the water to seep in and leak out from crevices. Enlightened :).

Not many early walkers that I usually get to see during my weekend rides. The experience of riding on a working day seem to be different from the weekends. There aren't any encouraging my cycle ride. I rode and rode and rode. As I was to get on the flyover, I was wondering if I can easily make it to climb and ride over the flyover without stopping or slowing down too much. So I picked up on pedaling. To my pleasant surprise, I did not have to go down even one gear. Yes, by the time I got to the top of the flyover, it did exhaust me. As I passed and peek over the highway beneath, it was so tempting to stop and take a snap. I resisted the temptation not to break my vow to ride nonstop and moved on.

I suspected the security who check vehicles going to airport will certainly stop me and may not allow me to ride further. I did not think the road was meant for trespassers not going to airport. And I cursed myself for making some last minute changes to my packing and not carrying an identity. To my pleasant surprise, no one stopped me at security. I just biked off. After hitting the airport roundabout for air traffic services, I pause right on my bike, take a couple of pictures, and pulled up my snack from the hydration bag - a peanut jaggery pack. Not stopping or taking rest to eat them, I continue riding as I eat the snack. Contrary to my fear, it wasn't difficult to pull out the laddus and eat as I ride. As I exit the airport road getting on to the Bangalore Highway, in the last moment I saw there was a barricade to the exit and a bypass was provided to get to the highway. Lucky that I still had one full second, to steer myself out right and continue the ride. Did not fall :).

The ride on the return was uneventful. The objective was to reach home before the sun gets on top. Towards the last leg of 10 kms or so, my legs were paining, although not really exhausted. Kondapur, where I stay is higher in elevation. So unfortunately every time on my return when I should already be tired, I would actually have a more difficult ride. Gulping in two liters of water from my hydration bag (don't have to get down the bike to drink water) all the way helps me keep hydrated. So here I am at my home, well in advance, actually one full hour before my targeted time. I reached the place at 8:50 am, clocking 2 hrs and 52 minutes of ride, a distance of 64.42 kms, averaging 22 kmph, and burning 1500 plus calories. And not exhausted at all, albeit the legs did pain somewhat.

The silver lining was, someone riding on a scooter stopped next to me, as I got down few yards from my home to avoid the traffic from opposite. As he introduced himself, it was a very pleasant surprise that he was Venky, my pen friend on biking, who had been in the US and just returned India two weeks back!

Nonstop ride for 64 kms! Feels good. My next goal is to have a long ride and then have one more the very next day. Not sure how it will be. Usually every long ride does bring in some sweet body pains, to be able to do one more the very next day!!

- Mallik Kovuri (Team HBC)

My Dream Come True Possession - Bianchi 105 Mix

2010-08-24T20:13:00.002+05:30

Mallik Kovuri - Team HBC

Oh! I am so happy! My dream possession, Bianchi arrived. Finally!

But. I couldn't take it for a spin until it was a few days (till the weekend). Right when I saw a Bianchi (the older 2009 model) at BSA GO, a year ago I was in love with it. Didn't know much about bikes then. But found it prohibitively expensive at about Rs. 57,000. I decided for Aeron Sport which was around Rs.30k. Then my both kids wanted an upgrade to their bikes. And few more domestic expenses. So I did more research and settled for Hero Thunder Racer at Rs.6k. While I was certainly enjoying cycling, including to work on work days and long ones during weekends, I continued my research for the upgrade. Nine long months to be precise. Yes, believe me. These were nine LONG months!

After a lot of research and riding several road bikes, and particularly after riding the Bianchi Volpe, I decided I was not going to settle for anything less than STI levers for gear shifting (don't have to lift my hand while in drops to change gears). And there wasn't anything in the market that offered STI levers. When the 2010 models of Bianchi came in, it was ONE clear choice for me. No more need to consider the 2009 Trek 1.5 or the Orbea, or the Giant or whatever. The Bianchi 2010 models offered the best of both - beauty and the beast! The components were good (based on my limited knowledge of 9 LONG months of research and reading hundreds of articles). I knew it wasn't going to be anything less than the Tiagra. Was it worth the extra Rs.29k for the 105 Mix from a Tiagra at an MRP of Rs.78k? Well I realized there were nearly every component upgraded; some I understood, some I didn't. I finally said, 'okay. I don't know when I will do an upgrade again. Let it be!'.

So after it finally arrived, I decided to wait till the weekend. I knew I would only thrill, if my first hop on to bike was a LONG one, to compensate for my LONG wait! No, a short spin wouldn't do. So I wait. And on the Sunday (July 18, 2010), I get ready early and go out in the dark.

Oops! I realize in the dark after a short ride, my handle is err, misbehaving. The stem was loose. Some more distance, my goggles slipped down . . . and few more small irritants. Got down and fixed all of them. Continued on my first long ride for 80 kms to & fro (Trip details here). My onward ride averaged 23 kmph being cautious and return ride averaged 26 kmph (realized later I forgot to correct the wheel size in cyclocomputer, so the numbers are slightly on the higher size). Here are my thoughts on the bike:

Beauty: Yep! The bike is a beauty! Absolutely stunning! I just love it for appearances alone.
Size: The 53 cm size is probably slightly bigger for me. My height is 5'4". At the saddle's minimum height, the height is just right for me. No flex. I would think a right size would be one which allows flexibility to go up or down at least to some degree. That having said, I have zero issues as far as the fit is concerned based on how I feel on it. No issues at all.
Ground Clearance: The bike has lower ground clearance than the Hero Thunder Racer (HTR). In other words, for an inch or so higher saddle position when on pedals than the HTR, the toes actually meet ground just as the HTR did, when not on pedals. So I liked it. If this was not the case, it would have been a disaster for me (scared to think!), since the saddle wouldn't go down any further. Will a lower ground clearance improve stability just as it does for a car? Nah! That's an exaggeration.
Handle Distance: The overall length of the cycle is WAY (several inches) shorter than the HTR. The handle is closer to saddle. I liked it. Gives a very comfortable position during the ride. I don't have to stretch my back for reach.
Control: The cycle over-steers in a big way when compared to the HTR. For a small effort from my hands, it turns lot more than I was used to. Yes, in a big way and scary. So much so that it took me nearly 50 kms of ride to get used to it. I suspect it is because of the shorter wheel base (distance between two wheels). But once I got used to it, it was not a problem. So much for the manufacturer's claim that the longer bike length helps in complete control better during turns.
Saddle: The saddle is so so so comfortable. I did not have to change my position on the seat almost in the entire ride. Definitely one of the best things I like about this bike.
Comfort: Bianchi is definitely lot more comfortable than my HTR. After riding the same 80 kms distance that I often do with the other bike, I found myself not exhausted at the end of the ride; almost 20%-30% less exhausted. But legs did ache in a different way that I never had on HTR. I notice this even on shorter rides. I get far less exhausted on the Bianchi. But I quite don't understand one aspect though. I used to have a whole body strain on the HTR but somehow it's only legs on this bike.
Weight: The bike is very light at about 9 kgs. I can very comfortably lift and walk anytime I needed (yesterday there was a huge traffic jam when coming from work; and I happily lifted my bike and just crossed over and cutting over the traffic, smiling myself at the poor guys in cars). The reduced weight induced me into getting rid of my seat post carrier of my other bike (just after my first ride), and learned to survive with a backpack instead!
Shock Absorbing: With all due regards to its Kevlar technology and the carbon fiber material to its forks (and probably seat post), I have to admit that I did not find the Bianchi anymore shock absorbing than the HTR, probably due to significantly thinner tires. That having said, the ride quality was pretty good. While I can feel every bit of the road, it was dampened enough to not bother me during ride. Overall, I am pretty happy with shock absorbing. It never gave me a feeling that I should have gone for a cyclocross bike with a slightly wider tires or the Volpe which was definitely more comfortable ride.
Speed: Thanks to the 23mm thinner tires and light weight, combined with good components, I could see a significant difference in my speed. Usually my average speed is about 16 kmph. On the Bianchi it is around 22 kmph.
Brakes: These are fantastic! Their stopping power is pretty amazing. It improved my confidence in a big way of riding at a high speed when going downhill and still feel confident that I can stop at the speed braker along the way in a short distance. Also the brakes are very light to operate.
Gears: After fiddling around and fine tuning a few times, both the front and rear gears shift well. There is very little sound when down shifting. I test rode the Tiagra model, and did not like the large sound it made when shifting. One pleasant surprise that I noticed was depending on how much I pushed the brake lever, it actually shifts up to three gears at a time. Three discrete steps were available. Since this is a ten speed on rear, it helps sometimes not having to move one at a time only. The gearing ratio is excellent for achieving high speed. I noticed that even when going downhill at about 45 -50 kmph I could still spindle the pedals and go further up on speed; thanks to large gearing ratio. However when going uphill, the gearing ratio is not small enough to make uphill riding easy unlike the Bianchi Volpe. Not having a third gear in the front adds to the misery. That having said, I always have a tendency to remain in higher gear ratio at the cost of slower pedaling.
Levers: They are very easy to operate. The STI levers are extremely comfortable when compared to the other type (not sure what they are called), since I don't have to re-position my hands for up-shifting or down shifting. Thank God, I am not exposed to double tap levers yet, lest I would have missed them!
Drops: The drops position and the handlebar are VERY comfortable. I can use the brakes very effectively while I am on the hood. And I am also comfortable going to drops anytime. There is lot of space on the handlebar for other positions of holding.
Tires: It is amazing to notice that while I had to re-fill air on my HTR at least weekly, it is more than a month now, and I did not have to refill on the Bianchi. The locking mechanism on the valve is probably helping it retain the air pressure, despite being higher at 120 psi. Ironically, not knowing the locking system, I struggled a lot trying all combinations in the pump, to figure out how to fill air!!
Overall Ride Feel on the Bianchi: There are two things I like best about the Bianchi 105. The bike often makes me compare it to the BMW car. Firstly, the ride is extremely smooth. Quality of wheels, hubs, cranks etc., are of excellent quality giving it a very smooth ride. The manufacturing tolerances are very tight and the gaps between moving parts are very slim, giving the bike a very robust 'single piece' feel just as the BMW did. Secondly, the BMW always encouraged me to push the accelerator further. There was something springy about that pedal that it constantly encouraged to push further and take-off from current speed. The Bianchi 105 is something very similar. There is something about it that it encourages to push the pedal harder and make me feel the moving parts. There is this unexplainable beautiful feel when it pedals. They are NOT light. They are smooth albeit grinding. Love it!

All in all, the bike is pretty good. I have not yet found any limitations, other than it is probably very delicate. I dropped it once and had a minor scratch on a lever and dislocated itself. As long as I am 'on' it, I feel a little bumpy road is not something you enjoy, but certainly not something you will be scared of riding over.

I ride it to work every day and enjoy the commute!

More bike pictures are here.

Thanks for a patient reading. Comments welcome!

easy morning ride gopanpalli 19maj2010 onsdag

2010-05-21T11:06:00.000+05:30

--< drsuniljaiman > Team HBC

farewell ride for oli 9may2010 sunday hyderabad

2010-05-11T11:20:00.000+05:30

--< your name >Team HBC

bicycle rally to promote environment awareness 8may2010 hyderabad

2010-05-11T10:54:00.001+05:30

farewell ride sandy saturday 24april2010

2010-04-25T18:08:00.003+05:30

drsuniljaiman

earth day ride thursday 22april2010

2010-04-25T18:02:00.001+05:30

drsuniljaiman

easy morning ride wednesday 21 april 2010

2010-04-25T17:55:00.004+05:30

dr sunil jaiman

Cycling Spirits

2010-03-28T13:42:00.001+05:30

Well could not think of an apt title for my fellow cyclists. They have been inspiring and have gone out to reach all to encourage cycling at all levels.

Let me start with Wg Cdr CSV Ramany. His meetup posts say it all. Need I say more?

“Sunday, January 17, 2010 5:30 AM: We have not been going for our weekly fix for a couple of weeks - reason being training for the Republic Ride. However , since there is a slot available for 17 Jan for the Oxygen Addicts , we are having one. Newcomers and the ladies who have been riding with us , do join - regardless of pace/distance you will have company.
Like Drug Addicts we are not able to do without our weekly fix of oxygen. We meet at Apollo Hospital Vikrampuri . Start is at 0529 hrs. For those delayed a bit , please give a ring and Krishna will gladly wait for you for 5-10 mts. We go to Trimulgherry Crossroads , and turn into the Cantonment area. Then it is pure Oxygen all the way. Ride past Army Mosque , Army Gurudwara and the Army Temple. Sunrise on 17th is at 0639 hrs - so the pre-sunrise prayer chants from all these places will mingle beautifully - you will feel spiritually invigorated. Further past the War Memorial and them a 5 minute halt at Bison Chowk to regroup , and have some fun interaction with each other. Then to the end of Cantonment Area. Some of us turn back from here and return. One way distance from Apollo Hospital till here is 11 kms Most of the riders continue - on to Kowkur Village , some of the best off-road tracks I have seen , on to the RAF Station. Here is open cultivation and the time would be just right for Sunrise(0639hrs). Your eyes will have a great treat seeing the sun bathing the fresh crops . One way distance from Apollo Hospital till here is 18 kms. Some of us turn back from here too. The rest continue to Shamirpet. Krishna has discovered a great track here , so you are on the Highway for a very short while. A stop at a village there - our riders have become friends with a few of the villagers already. Buy some fresh vegetables - plucked just that morning. So please carry a cotton or jute bag along if you wish to have fresh Organically grown Vegetables for your Lunch.

Sunday, February 14, 2010 5:30 AM: All of us seem to have become a bunch of junkies who need their fix in the pollution free environs of the Secunderabad Cantonment. Thanks to Ram , there are enough weekday rides on a fixed time slot. However this Sunday we will do our normal Sunday ride , all through the Cantonment - to Kowkur Village - the great off road discovered by Krishna - to RAF Station. Then on to Shamirpet.
There are enough addicts - each has his/her own pace/distance. The common factor is that ALL have good company , and all enjoy interacting with each other at the two small halts at Bison Chowk and the RAF Station.
We start at 0529hrs sharp. Krishna's Mobile: 9440117444. Do be there - your company makes a very good ride - GREAT.
There have been several peacock and two Blue Bulls which have made the Army Golf Club and the Surrounding forests as their new home. They have strayed here due to defoliation along the National Highway to Nagpur. The Sun will just be rising when we cross their New Home , and with some luck we should be able to get a visual Bonanza.

Sunday, March 7, 2010 5:30 AM: This Ride is for Shay.
We meet at Apollo Hospital Vikrampuri . Start is at 0529 hrs. For those delayed a bit , please give a ring and Krishna will gladly wait for you for 5-10 mts. We go to Trimulgherry Crossroads , and turn into the Cantonment area. Then it is pure Oxygen all the way. Ride past Army Mosque , Army Gurudwara and the Army Temple. The pre-sunrise prayer chants from all these places will mingle beautifully - you will feel spiritually invigorated. Further past the War Memorial and them a 5 minute halt at Bison Chowk to regroup , and have some fun interaction with each other. You should be able to see the Moon and Planet Mars , both looking their very brightest from here.Then to the end of Cantonment Area. One way distance from Apollo Hospital till here is 11 kms Then we continue - on to Kowkur Village , some of the best off-road tracks I have seen , on to the RAF Station. Then we go on to Shamirpet , where we meet with the riders from Hyderabad - including Shay of course. We then ride back to Secunderabad. Total distance both ways will be around 52 Kms.The road is Beautiful. Laloo Yadav once said that he would make the roads of Bihar as smooth as Hema Malini's cheeks. He has not succeeded , but the Shamirpet - Secunderabad Road comes fairly close.
We finish the planned ride at my residence , where my wife and me request all of you to join us for Breakfast , and to say Three Cheers for Shay and our Club. We stay quite close to Apollo Hospital , Vikrampuri ( 1 Km ) , so distance wise it should not be inconvenient to anyone.”

Krishna Prasad Mandava, has been crusading Bike to work, Biking for small errands. He is a true environmentalist.

“Friends, As you all know we have been successfully 'Biking to Work' week after week for the past four weeks in a row.
Let us continue to do this with renewed enthusiasm. Let us resolve once again to 'Bike to Work - once in a week to begin with'. If it is not possible for some to bike all the way to work for obvious reasons - try taking the bike out today to attend to small errands even.

The starting time given here is optional. Those who are willing to Bike to Work this day - please indicate your starting point and time so that others (can be our members or otherwise) who are interested to cycle and will take the same route or part of it might find good company in you to start with.

Please note - this is not a scheduled bike ride with any specific trail. Individuals can either start an easy ride or plan to ride to work on their own at their convenient time this day. These 'Bike to Work' rides are initiated by HBC to encourage all its members to take to cycling as frequently as possible. The key element to the success of this initiative is nothing but the members cooperation and participation. May we expect these in abundance!.

We are here as a group, principally for the cause of Cycling. HBC, without any dispute, meets all the criterion to be the sole entity with Bicycling Activity in twin cities in this regard. As on date if not we as members of HBC, who else would initiate, inculcate and bring back the habit of Bicycling to the friendly citizens of Hyderabad/Secunderabad?.”

“Beg, borrow or steal a Cycle for tomorrow i.e., Friday - the day we have been cycling once a week starting from 12th February, 2010. Let the HBC's saga continue. Experience cycling this day and see the reaction of your mind and body - the issue for the coming Friday will be taken care of automatically.

Look at those of HBC members who cycle around regularly apart from the leadership team and Deena's team in Atlanta Foundation. To name a few Sreekanth, Prasad, Mallik, Bala, Arnuld, Atlas Vishnu, GR, Ranjit, Girish, Sashant and many more are regular in taking their cycles out. Its not that they did not have any difficulty while initiating this activity for fun or whatever. They do have problems - but they tried to find solutions while actually attempting the activity by themselves. They did not wait for others to tell them the solutions. And they literally found the solutions and reaping the benefits out of it.

I once asked Deena, looking at his Road Bike, how much distance he must have covered with it till now. His answer was... Oh thousands of miles.... the expression with pride on his face I could never forget . Thanks, we have Deena and such people around us to share their experiences and inspire us. Especially the one Gentleman from Bangalore who has recently done 1,800 km of cycling that too at 60+. He did not wait for a backup van or a support vehicle to follow him.

Boy... Arise, Awake and stop not till you become obstinate and addicted to walk a mile, Run for fun and Cycle to infinity. Get the commands from within. Trust me, You are the one who is going to inspire thousands.

Its the need of the hour - to stop pollution on roads. Because the hell emitted on roads doesn't live there. It peeps into our houses, going to stay with us and takes the hell out of our lives.

We are capable for bringing into our lives the positive change with minor efforts of us. Comrades, join the saga, Click the Mouse and Hit the Pedals - to look back and see, much to our delight, thousands follow suit.”

Cor van de Water’s 40 years of cycling, is a truly inspiring story.

“I received my first bicycle on my 6th birthday, now 40 years ago, because we were moving to a new home in another town in The Netherlands and my new school would no longer be walking distance.

It was only 3 kms that I had to cover all by myself as my dad worked in a different city and my mom was due to get my youngest sister the same month my school started. It felt like I had to travel very far, cross dangerous streets with lorries speeding and giving little space to a cyclist and my mother worried every day if I would come home safely again.

Finally a number of parents got together and requested a new cycle path be built since there was only a school in the other part of town, so many kids had to make the same dangerous trip each day. Once that was built, only cycles and pedestrians were allowed to use it, it cut through a nice park and reduced the distance and it allowed the ride to school on residential streets and this new path only.

All through my school career, I have used the bicycle to get to school, usually about 5 km each way and for the last 6 years combined with train.

When I started working, I had no car so I had the choice of living close to work but since this was in an industrial area, I chose to live in a nearby town with train service to the city, I could also go by cycle (about 10 kms through nature and military terrain - I still own a plot of land there where I grow many thousands trees) and this would take me just

30 mins, only slightly longer than the train. When I had a car later, the time to queue with other traffic made it the slowest way and that has not changed since - even in Hyderabad that is the same situation except very early or late in the day.

In my second job I lived 7 kms one way from work so only 20 mins as I could get to work via local roads and cycle paths without encountering a single traffic light, while by car there were many lights on my route. Note: in The Netherlands you have to stop and wait for a red light or get a ticket which is approx 5000 rupees and which you have to pay in full...

Only for this job we had moved far away from our family, so every other weekend we drove the 200 km to the other side of the country (Netherlands is small) and then we parked the car in the garage for two weeks again.

When I moved to the USA the decision to live in the same city as work was easy - I would again use bicycle and my wife use our car when needed. There was a group of people who were and still are promoting the use of bicycle for daily transportation and I calculated/guesstimated that I had done a lifetime distance of about 150,000 kms on bicycle and about 140,000 by car, so I was still more a cyclist than driver.

Unfortunately one year later the company moved two cities away so the bicycle ride became more than 15 kms instead of 6 and some parts were dangerous (passing Freeway on/off ramps) so I think that I did only about 10,000 kms in the 5 years I lived here and drove 20,000 miles in "my wife's" Prius and another 10,000 miles in my electric truck.

So now the distance by car is more than my cycling distance, even though I have covered the circumference of the earth about

4 times by bicycle now.

Since moving to Hyderabad I have lived in Miyapur and Nampally.

Bicycling to Hitech City was easy from Miyapur, only one stretch uphill close to the Hafeezpet flyover, but cycling from Nampally is a one-hour challenge of hills and traffic clogging streets before intersections such as Masab tank / road 1 and road 12 / 1.

But cycling still is highest on my list of transportation with the highest joy-level, especially the amount of freedom you have on a cycle, the contact with your environment and a lot of other benefits, not the least to stay healthy and slim.

But I have also re-discovered the train as commute vehicle and most days I walk from home to the station, go 15 kms by electric transport and walk from station to office.

Total time spent is about equal, whether covering the 15 kms by car, bicycle or train (15 min walk, 30 min train, 15 min walk) in normal business hours it all takes just over 1 hour.

This means that the difference between my distance driven by car and the kms I rode on bicycle is not changing much except when we take a trip outside the city, then I may be driving hundreds of kms.

So to balance that I am still trying to break out the bicycle every week and ride to work, even though it is hot in summer.

This list is a great reminder and motivator for that!

And of course all the local shopping trips are preferably by bicycle...

I am actually borrowing my wife's bicycle until now as my US mountain bike has an electric motor but the battery died, so it is a little heavy and hard to ride now until I fix it.

And the Indian cycle that I rode for almost 2 years (I bought it before moving here, to get around in Hitech City while visiting on business trips) is given away to a good cause.

You may notice that I am a utilitarian rider, I hardly ever ride my cycle just for fun, it is usually to get somewhere, as a means of transportation, not hobby.

But some day I might be able to drag myself out of bed at an unusual early hour and join others on a group ride.”

There are many more crusaders doing their bit for the environment and encouraging others. Will surely have another blog with their experience and crusade, let the words spread across to even wider audience why only Hyderabad.

Just Ride!!

HBC Sunil

My Maiden Non-Stop Century on Bicycle

2010-03-20T21:23:00.001+05:30

The plan was, me and my son, Sreemukh would wake up early and go for a ride. We love going together, all by ourselves, before it dawns. Thanks to a late night visitor who insisted on coming at that odd time and converse past eleven with my son (a customer for his gaming console that he decided to sell), Sreemukh wouldn't wake up early the next morning. So I decided to go alone as I do mostly. There has been this 'itch' for a while that I do a non-stop 100 kms on the bike. I knew it could be difficult but not impossible. I wasn't sure if I wanted to do this that day, as I was not mentally prepared for it. So here I am, out on the road to make at least a 50+ that day.

Left at 6:15 and the early morning weather was fantastic. It's heaven to venture out early. Thanks to summer, it isn't too chilly. I hop on, and ride away in my usual route of Outer Ring Road (ORR), and go past the AP Police Academy. Had to struggle a bit to figure out how I take a right on to the Gandipet road from ORR. Our R&B department works fantastic. They have completed a bridge at AP Police Academy, but did not care to provide an exit to take right. I go past the place where I needed a right, but wouldn't find any scope as far as I could see. After some distance, I noticed there was an unofficial U turn to take left that eventually could lead to the road for Gandipet. I took that and was racing on the beautiful Tarmac trying to imagine how many deer could be there in that deer park (or did just say vanya mriga?) to my right. I get on to the road that goes towards Chilukuru Balaji temple, and was confident I can easily make 50 km for this ride (round trip).

It was then, I decided I will ride whatever I felt comfortable, not pushing myself to the edge. I calculated if I rode for 3 hours roughly one-way, I could surely complete a century even if I had significantly slowed down on my return. But then riding near about 12 noon on my return could hazardous, 'given' that Sun and I don't go together! Ever! (All one has to do was leave me under the Sun for few minutes in summer, and I would get giddiness for sure).

I have started enjoying more as I moved on to the outskirts of the urban, and get to see farm fields, stray dogs, a hut or a house here and there where the home-ministers were lazily brushing their teeth and getting ready for the day when the entire family will get to be together. It was a Sunday. As I went past Moinabad, I knew I could go for 'some more' distance comfortably and be sure of my return as well. I figured out all my options, what I would do if I was unable to ride further for my return or had a flat or a 'technical snag' with my bike (call my wife – she wouldn't like it driving to an unknown terrain, get my father to get a taxi, or me requesting an inter-town auto, or use one of those RTC buses to get me to Hyderabad . . . .). Then I saw the milestone that indicated Chevella was 17 kms away. I decided I will reach Chevella, have a breakfast and return, even if I wouldn't complete century. It didn't matter. Doing a century wasn't too important a goal for that day; just wanted to have one long ride. I decided I will not look at my cyclocomputer and tempt myself to push further to reach 50.

So here I am, reaching Chevella eventually, not tired at all, but yes was looking forward to a sumptuous breakfast. I was slowly getting concerned that I couldn't see any restaurant. After riding a couple of kilometers I think, I got to see a reasonable restaurant. Chevella is a bigger town that I imagined, as I saw nearly the entire city visible from a distance. Tied up my bike to a pole that I could find conveniently and got in to the restaurant. For sure I was an alien to the crowd, what with my fancy looking bicycle, helmet, biking gloves, ear phones, goggles and all. Although tempted to have a decent breakfast, I felt I would be better off with a lighter one to keep me active. I had a plate of idly and tea, and back to work! Albeit light, the breakfast made me good. It was then that I looked up my cyclocomputer and realized I had already covered 47 kms and would just have to manage a few more kilometers as I approach my home to make my dream of nonstop 100 km ride true. Picked up couple of biscuit packets, just in case I needed for my return and started riding back.

There were all several curious on-lookers and some would dare and ask where I came from and where I was going. There was this young adolescent motor cyclist and his pillion rider, who with their curiosity came in my way suddenly slowing down and almost made me fall down. They rode with me for some time, made me stop and asked several questions on the bike components. I decided I will get rid of them and rather take a souvenir with a farmer who I left behind me in the field on my way. The conversation with the farmer was very pleasing. He was surprised that while he couldn't (wouldn't?) go to the nearby village from his village by bicycle, that I would ride all the way from Hyderabad and back. He said he watched me during my onward journey as well. Farmers in this country are among the most hard working from what I know. For a country that thrives on agriculture and had been among the most civilized since several centuries, isn't this the most disappointing? (Read my other blog on status of agriculture in India here). On a Sunday, here is this guy tilling the field, even as early as my onward journey. I am sure he would work till the dusk. And his companions are the bullocks who work equally hard, for him! Will there be a day when farmers have equal comforts as most other people do in this country?

Rest of my ride till I reached the ORR, was uneventful, although very enjoyable. The sun was going up, but I wasn't going down!! Now here I am on to the ORR, did not feel the need to stop before that road to get a cup of tea by the road side cafe. Usually the ride on the ORR isn't too bad, except for one killer uphill flyover. But this time, the Sun was blasting at 11:15 AM and wind blew so hard that I would have to 'pedal' even down-hill and barely reach 20 kmph speed while it usually is 35+.

There was some computational error, or more likely the cyclocomputer did not work (it occasionally happens) for part of my return ride, that I realized I had to make another 20 kms to hit the century. This last 20 was a real struggle and I did have to push myself for finding odd routes to complete the balance distance, and push myself under the hot Sun. My speed came to down a bare 10 kmph. Eventually I completed it, and felt very complacent when I reached home, after riding for a near nonstop five and a half hours. The only stop was for breakfast for 15 minutes and minute here and there for picking up biscuits or water bottle. Sure, I could improve my average speeds. But I am never concerned of my speed. My goals are more on distances rather than speed.

Now I know, I can make an inter-city ride by bicycle, all by myself riding at least a hundred kilometers a day! Some day!! Not too bad ain't it?

Mallik Kovuri
Team HBC

Farewell…

2010-03-07T16:11:00.001+05:30

Thanks a lot for all of the riders who came to my farewell ride, and to all the people who couldn’t make it and sent their greetings on the site. Special thanks to Wg Cdr CSV Ramany for hosting us for brunch with great Idly, Ukma, Lemonade and more. And another special thanks to Sudhansu who made it all the way from Bangalore for this ride, this is really awesome!

It was a great ride, I was really happy that we were able to go in a paceline for so long in a good speed, able to do some trails, ride inside the city and basically taste a bit of every thing that Hyderabad can offer.

It was a very important day for me, seeing how many people are now riding on both side of the city and to know that the club will continue to go and grow. I am proud to leave something like this behind in Hyderabad, and I hope I made something for the community, the environment and most importantly to the people I rode with. It was a great experience for me, helping to create such an initiative and growing it, with the help of so many people like Sunil, Sandeep, Ed & Juli, Krishna, Ramany, Prasad, Matt, Deena, Shilpa, Sudhansu, Satish, Maddy, Karthik, Krish and many many more. There is still to be done, and I am happy to see so many enthusiastic people that will continue to promote cycling for all its good causes.

It is hard to leave such a great group of people, I will surely miss you, but I hope to be back for a tour or some other big ride. I will definitely stay as a member, so I will get all the mails and get jealous about the activities you will be doing. Any one of you is always invited to visit Israel and I can assure you that you will have cycles to ride there, great trails and my company. I will try to arrange some trip for us in Israel, so whoever will want to join will be able to experience the holy land while cycling.

My contact details are: shay dot mandel at gmail dot com, and I am also on LinkedIn.

So I hope to see you soon, and in the meantime…

Just Ride!

The trail need RAF

A group photo near the Masjid

The whole group in Ramany’s house:

Ride to Bhongir Fort

2010-02-15T23:14:00.003+05:30

Three months into bicycling since last November, I have made my first century ride on the bicycle. Last Saturday, the 13th of February, along with a few riders from Hyderabad Bicycle Club, my sixteen year old son, Sreemukh and I rode to Bhongir. We covered a distance of 108 kms. Being my first maiden century, it definitely feels great. And what a wonderful ride it was. Apart from the fact of covering a long distance, the other experience during the ride made it very special. I am sure my son and I will remember this ride for our lives.

We started off at 4:50 AM in the morning and reached up the venue some 5 kms away. After a short wait, a group of us riders, eight to be precise, started off at 5:35 AM. And what a beginning! It felt wonderful seeing off the city so early in the morning, as Sun was waiting to shine the urban. As I started relishing the beauty of an early ride, off on the highway with literally no traffic, here comes the big disaster! Just over 20 kms probably from the city. Not too close to destination to dare a walk, and not near enough to retreat to city either!

We just did a 28 km ride the previous day, to give a stretch for my son, before we take on this long ride that both of us loved to do. Heeding to frequent suggestions, I had been experimenting to change to lower gears (easy to pedal) as necessary to ensure that cadence (pedaling) is at least between 60 to 80 rotations per minute. This, in reality, was putting more strain on my thigh muscles than I would with a higher gear. Although I did not see a significant difference in speed between the two approaches, I did realize that this approach of lower gears actually is strengthening my thigh and calf muscles due to the imposed higher cadence. So although my legs were aching (28 km distance shouldn't have been a long one for me otherwise), I continued to experiment this during my Bhongir (Bhuvanagiri Fort) ride.

I was climbing on a steep uphill and was fiddling with the gears changing to lower that wouldn't engage accurately, thanks to the low cost components on the bike. And oops! The chain got stuck between the wheel casket and the largest chain sprocket. Since I was pedaling hard due to the uphill task, the chain got stuck real hard. The organizer, Krishna and I were happily conversing on common topics and were already lagging behind the entire group, including my son, who was actually among the slowest. Krishna and I tried our level best with the limited tool kit I had to pull out the chain. Nopes, no luck! Krishna contacts other senior friends in the group and took over-the-phone suggestions, but realized it would be hard to pull off. Walking up to a nearby village and roadside bicycle repairer wouldn't help since they wouldn't have the particular needed to dismantle the sprockets. I called up my son, and asked him to return, for the next course of action had to be planned. Probably call my wife to come in car and pick us up. Knew that two cycles would never fit in 'her' car (an Opel Corsa 1.6L). As my son started retracting, I wouldn't give up, and made some more attempts to use a small hex tool as a lever with the sprocket edge as fulcrum. Inch by inch, the chain came out eventually. Ooph! Finally! More than the elation that I was able to salvage the situation, I was happy that I did not ruin the interests of my son, and Krishna who was the organizer. Good friend as he was, he had actually intimated others earlier to carry on with the trip since there was no hope of this bike getting alright. Thank you, Krishna for your moral and physical support - all I could say to myself.

So we proceeded. Is there something as going back, if there was one failure? Nope. I didn't think so. And, reached Bhongir. The ride was good, except that at times I felt the group could have ridden a little slower so we could enjoy the environ as we rode rather than target to reach destination. As we reached Bhongir, I realized it was a bandh and all shops were closed. A pre-arranged restaurant allows us to get in through a back door and have an eagerly waited breakfast. We proceeded to Bhongir Fort base area and saw off the rest of the group to climb up.

I had earlier decided I would not do the climb to fort top. One, I preferred to do that along with my rest of the family and two, I did not want to strain myself too much with the 500 ft climb and make the return ride a tired one waiting to make it to the destination. So here are the guys at the base.

I then took off to scan the town Bhongir. Thanks to the bandh, all the shops were closed. I had a challenge to provide a second round breakfast to my son, who for sure was hungry after such a long ride of over 50 kms nonstop. I took a few pictures during my 'walk' within the town.

The experiences we had in the town was amazing and unforgettable. With the helmets, gloves and my road bike, we were like aliens to this remote town. We had enough followers of children all our walk. Not just that, there were groups of adults too, who would throng to us and ask a billion questions. Here was one group, as I was taking pictures of a small temple. One guy ventured into getting onto my bike!

As we parked our cycles and were having breakfast, I had to have a watchful eye on the bikes, although they were chained to a pole, given the overly curious onlookers. There was a police group who wanted to know details of our visit of why we were here, and how many of us were here in the group, what is this about cycling rides and such. Did not look like they were questioning our visit, but just curious of our ride. There was a local political leadership group who were amazed at our attire and asked us several questions. The leader of them wanted to know all the details, 'in detail' as he called it:

Where we were coming from?
Why were we riding such a long distance?
Wanted to know details of various components of my cycle such as the cyclo computer, and the front light
How fast would the cycle go?
What was the purpose of the gears?
What was the maximum speed I achieved and how much it could go?
How easy was it to control the cycle when I rode it at my maximum of 47 km/h? He was amazed that when RTC buses had been set a maximum of 40 km/h, how I could control the cycle at such high speeds.

There was then another group who called themselves from Press, requested from behind us to stop as we were riding by on the main road and asked similar questions. There were umpteen number of other people who asked similar questions, all our way through to Hyderabad the entire route. There were several motorcyclists and other commuters who would slow down, ask similar questions. Boy! We are in India. We have so much interest in what is going around us and why. Thank you India and comfort of having a village every couple of kilometers of ride. I know I could survive in this country anytime. I am sure, need be some of these will offer some hospitality. As I rode by, slow and steady, along with my son, having a good heart-to-heart talk with him, I started wondering, if his objective was to understand India in its breadth and depth, why did the Mahatma Gandhi travel by third class passenger train and not ride by bicycle by country's breadth and depth!

Watch more pictures at here.

Mallik Kovuri

Team HBC

For the directionally blind: mapping your GPS

2010-02-12T22:19:00.001+05:30

This is mainly for the ‘directionally blind’ people like me, who solely rely on the friendly GPS device to help them cross the road. No kidding!

With a Garmin, it is easy to upload any map onto it and then use it later while riding. Due to popular demand, I’ll try to put down the steps (yes, a little bit that needs to be done before it starts rolling) that I use to do that.

1. Get a Garmin device :) It looks like this -->

Preferably a Forerunner 205, 305, 405, Edge etc.

2. In your internet browser, create a new favourite link. For IE users, do: Open a blank page –> Favourites –> Add To Favourites. Now go and change the properties of that favourite: Favourites –> Right click the blank-page-favourite you just created –> Properties –> In the URL field, add this:

javascript: (function(){var%20script=document.createElement('script');script.src='http://mysite.verizon.net/kyleyost/googlemap_cuesheet.js';document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(script);})()

Just copy-paste the above and save it. IE might throw a warning, but ignore that (it has a habit of doing it).
3. Construct your map route: http://maps.google.com
Use the ‘Draw lines along with the roads’ feature when you create your new map. NOTE: Make sure that the entire map is chalked out with a single line, i.e., don’t add multiple lines along the road, the technique has a bug wherein it reads only one line in the G-map. Too bad, but yeah. This is what I get for tomorrow’s 13 Morning Square ride.

4. Now, while still on the map page above, click on the Favourites->New Favourite Created in Step-2. This is the magic script that parses the map created on G-maps and takes you to a page where it can be converted to a Garmin map file.
On this page, you can add a name for the map, give a speed to the Virtual Partner and when all done, click ‘Garmin Course’ for it to generate the map file. Copy the generated text and save it in a text file and have its extension .crs. For this ride, it can be 13MorningSquare.crs

5. One caveat here: CRS seems to be an old format and not all sites/devices understand it. So, we need to convert it to the latest TCX format.

So, goto http://www.gpsies.com/convert.do and in select ‘Garmin Course TCX and hit convert.

Done!

6. Now just need to upload this to the Garmin device. Open the Training Center –> File –> Import Courses –> load the TCX file

7. Now just send it over to the Garmin!

8. Now to the ride: switch on the Garmin. Goto: Training –> Courses and you will find it there. Select it and off you go!

While doing the course, you see lot of different screens that the Garmin does not shows in normal mode:

The map screen is the most useful, showing the planned course in a thick line, and the actual travelled track in a thin dotted line, and the current location is shown using a small triangle.

One thing, the Garmin displays a "Off Course" message too often, even when you are on course or off by a tiny bit. But that’s fine, for it finds the course on its own and you are back on track.

That’s easy! Well, if you know a ‘better way’ then please do ping me.

A note of caution: Once the map is loaded on the Garmin and you have used it, then delete the course from the Garmin. This is because, Garmin’s Training Center has problems with ‘non-standard’ maps and it stops to work with the device. So, delete the map from the Garmin to make it work again with the Training Center. Little annoying, but, again, gotta do it!

Finally: A wonderful site to check whether the tcx file generated is good or not: http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/

Hope it helps the ‘directionally-blind’ :)

Just Ride!
Sandy

Never knew that so many things can wrong!

2010-02-11T22:23:00.001+05:30

Never knew that so many things can wrong in a simple mechanical equipment like bicycle!

I always felt that cycle was a

very simplistic equipment, and hence very dependable. Not to be so :(

Since buying the Hero Thunder Racer just one month back and using it in past two weeks (first two being sick, I couldn't ride), I am facing any number of problems; continuing with me having to walk from office at 10:15 PM last night.

First it was the brakes that wouldn't work too well. I tried adjusting the tension. Didn't help much; noticed that the problem was brake pads not properly aligned, and so contact point was too small. Got the vendor fix the rim by adjusting the spokes tension. It ain't too bad now, except that I have to use ONLY the drop bar position levers to stop. The other set of levers for use in upright position on bars only slow down, never stop the bicycle.

Then the first gear on rear dérailleur would make noise since the plastic disc next to it was not in perfect horizontal plane and so chain rubs against the disc. Got the vendor fix it for me. The mechanic reportedly fixed a disc or something in between to increase the distance between plastic disc and gear.

Next I was not able to get the chain on to third gear on front dérailleur. The dealer tried to fix it, but the display (shifter) would fall back to position 2 automatically when it was in third gear (big one). So if I had to shift to second from third, I would have to shift to first on shifter. And if I had to shift to first gear, I will have to carefully manage to go to second and immediately go back to first! The mechanic with a sorrow look asks if I couldn't manage, and was display really a problem. When I insist this is really troublesome, he keeps the vehicle for one more (in all three days) and fixes it; only to notice while I ride, that whenever I try to take even a smal turn, due to change in tension in cable, the shifter and thence the gear goes to second gear from third! Vexed and assuming the guy didn't know his job too well, I read up on Internet about front gear and fixed it myself spending more than couple of hours. Only to notice the next day, the problem ain't solved fully well. The gears shift much better then they did when the mechanic fixed it. But the third would go back to second any time. I then take the bike to a different mechanic far away from my location mentioning the problem of display. He tries for half an hour and fixed it so, that I could use either of first and second, or second and third gears only; not all three. He complains the gear shifter and the gear changer were defective! I convinced myself (a perfectionist that I am), into focusing first on riding and worry about using all features at some other time. I opted for the bike fixed to run on second and third gears only, knowing too well, I needed the first gear at two places to my work where the road is too steep to ride on second or third gears :(.

And bingo, yesterday night - tired and suffering from head ache and returning at 10 PM after a very long and stressful day, as I was pushing myself hard on steep road near my office, the whole drive mechanism to rear wheel started slipping. Got down walked over the steep and tried to pedal later, only to realize later the chain was stuck between gear five and frame. Luckily I was carrying a screw driver and an adjustable spanner. When pushing the chain with the screw driver did not help, I ended up loosening the wheel nut significantly and pulled out the chain and put back on a gear. I try to ride the bicycle now, only to realize there was no 'hold' between the gears and the wheel. No matter what I do, pedaling does not rotate the wheel!! My knowledge yet had not extended or expanded into fixing this on the road on the fly, when it was nearly pitch dark. And here I go, walking up to home, while the commuters on the road are bewildered to watch me walking with a cycle, sporty attired with a fancy looking helmet, gloves, backpack and what not.

I mean how many things can break in this bicycle while I am holding on my tenacity to stick to biking for commute? Should I have struck to my original decision to buy the expensive Bianchi? Not sure. I can't believe, just because it happens to be manufactured by an Indian manufacturer, despite being the largest cycle manufacturer in the WORLD, the product could be so defective.

Thanks for your patient read.

Mallik

Team HBC

The Journey of HBC So Far..

2010-01-17T20:57:00.017+05:30

The online community of the GHBC was started in August 2007 with around 22 members to start with. Eight of them were present on our first ride, which was an off-road ride in Vikarabad. Mr. Krishna Vadi is the founder while Danika Durant was the first member of GHBC. Mrs. Uma Maheshwari along with her son was among the first members on the first ride.
Around August 2008, Shay Mandel has taken on the responsibility of organizing the club and the club never looked back. His enthusiasm and the love for cycling and the guidance he provides to other riders are unparalleled. Slowly, as enthusiasm and love for cycling as the only criteria, a core organizing team has formed with people like Sunil, Matt, Ed, Sandy. The online membership has now grown to around 600. Although, not all of the online members are active on the rides all the time, it nevertheless shows the amount of growing interest for cycling and fitness in Hyderabad. The average number of riders on most of the rides is around 10-20 riders.
Members are from all the walks of life and give the club an exquisite and distinct flavor. Our youngest active member is a nine year old Pradyumna, who accompanies his father GR on the rides, while our most senior member is a toss between Ramany, a retired Wing commander and an ex-fighter pilot now manning a cycle, and Dr V Nagesh. Habeeb, an intermediate student, is our youngest assistant organizer. The experience levels of the members is as diverse as well, ranging from cycling novices who manage a few kilometers of riding a week, to contestants of marathons, triathlons and Ironman like competitions, who manage hundreds of kilometers at a stretch.
HBC organizes the rides every Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. There are two chapters of HBC one of which operates from Sec’bad area while the other operates from Gachibowli area. The Sec’bad chapter, with a core team of people like Krishna, Ramany, Chandra and Habeeb, takes care of organizing the rides around Necklace road and around Cantonment areas. The Gachibowli area chapter, with a core team of people like Shay, Sunil, Ed, Matt and Sandy, goes all around covering areas like Vikarabad, Narsapur, and any place with in the radius of 50-100kms. A few cycling tours to historical touring spots like Warangal and Hampi are also organized from time to time for all those who are interested.
The Wednesday rides are usually short power rides while the weekend rides cover beginners to experienced riders with a whole range of distances and routes. The organizers and assistant organizers usually make sure that even the slowest of the riders is accompanied and taken care of. Many of the riders carry basic tools and puncture kits to take care of small repairs and punctures on the rides.
The feeling of flying with the fresh morning breeze on the face is something most of the members of HBC are addicted to. One would not have thought that there are so many places and trails in and around the city to explore until one joins the HBC family and our many rides. The simple joy of cycling keeps the hearts and minds alive and the guys on HBC always ride savoring the magic of that joy.
“We never lose our way, we only find new trails.” This sums up the HBC philosophy and the spirit of its riders.

"Just Ride" is the HBC motto.

Just Ride..

--
Venky
Team HBC

Oxygen Overdose ride

2009-11-29T19:15:00.001+05:30

Wow!! Wot a ride!! This is one of those rides I would love to do again...Let me turn the clock back and tell you about my experience of the ride…

I was in two minds to go for an Oxygen overdose or the Medak Century ride, I had two obstacles in front of me: I didn’t know the meetup place: Time of the ride was 05:30. Krishna garu solved my 1st obstacle, he hooked me up with Satish who was coming from Kukatpally, to meet my 2nd obstacle, I got up at 03:30 in the morning and started pedalling at 04:30.

Satish and I started riding towards Bolaram and after some left and right turns managed to reach Secundrabad club. If you ask me to trace back the path, I’ll turn blank as most of this ride was in total darkness. Satish was riding as if he could see the road. Satish finally fell in the middle of the ride when we could finally see our road!! Amazing, he always manages to fall for every ride, I guess that’s his way to make it memorable :-)

When the sun finally showed up, I could see the beauty around and that’s when I got pumped up and started enjoying the ride…zooming across narrow lanes, into rough roads and out into the open fields…it was just beautiful…

Pradyumna, youngest rider in our group (he is 9 years old) is a real motivator for all riders. His enthusiasm and aggression is really commendable. Hats off to his dad GR for encouraging him and being his guide and trainer. I am sure this young lad will go places with his determination and commitment.

Shamirpet lake was always one place I wanted to go as I had seen many rides scheduled but never got a chance to attend those rides. Krishna garu and everyone happily obliged to extend the ride to Shamirpet lake!! and lo I finally touched the beautiful lake.

Veggie Delight!! well that’s not the subway menu I am talking about, its the farm from where we get to buy mint, coriander and other leafy vegetables for just 1Rs. Yes, bikers stop on the way back and visit the farm and stack their haversack with all the leafy vegetables and prepare some mouth watering dishes…what a way to GO GREEN!!

Wait!! There is one more surprise element in store!! A Chinese cemetery right in the middle of a remote village!! Well that was a interesting visit…

Final part of the ride was refill our fuel tanks with Dosas and idlis and after completing that ritual we parted ways, each rider following different routes to encounter new challenges that were awaiting them…but before that, they promised to meet again for another wonderful ride!!

Relive some of the moments here…

Just Ride!!

HBC

Sunil

Hyderabad 10K returns

2009-11-23T15:19:00.001+05:30

Hyderabad 10K returned with a lot of enthusiasm and spirit. This time I followed Matt’s marathon workout schedule. Matt’s an inspiration to everyone. At 50 he is our symbol of IronMan. He keeps motivating everyone to give their best and is ready to help us out always.

On the eve of the marathon I went out to register separately just to get the RFID chip to time myself and the same evening I get a mail in my inbox that those registered for half marathon through corporate will also get RFID chips. I ended up with two chips, one on each foot!!

On the day of the marathon I got up at 03:00 and had a bowl of museli and milk to keep my energy levels up. I was surprised to find only one guy in the MS bus. A hot cup of tea at the MS booth woke me up and really warmed me up for the event. It was nice to see Ed too going for the half marathon.

When the event was flagged off, it was still dark, I found it difficult to view the road ahead. After 10k, there were lot of people on the road cheering us. Some even tried to break the traffic barricades to get to the other side of the road.

There were many familiar faces on the opposite way. I could spot Juli, Athanu, Mamtha, Sophie, Katie and many HBCians in the run. When I reached the finish spot, I felt I could run even more!! The moment I crossed the finish line I had a couple of runners telling me that I might be 1st in the corporate category. I rubbed it off as a compliment and moved on…

We had a nice time chatting and snacking at the MS booth. Shay and Rebecca treated everyone with ice creams, we tried (our legs were too tired by now) to dance to the music being played.

The spirit of marathon is to push yourself and discover the youthful spirit in you. I did not expect to win in the men’s corporate category. But any victory is sweet and I must thank Matt for his motivation and guidance. It really helped!!

Here is the timings of myself and Ed (did not get numbers of others). You can also find the result here.

Next year I plan to finish the half marathon under 1:30. Just trying to aim higher. I hope I am able to push myself and achieve this. For more pictures of this event, click here.

Keep running, keep riding!!

HBC

Sunil

Art of Living Bike Ride

2009-11-08T15:05:00.001+05:30

Yes!! the members of HBC are getting spiritual these days. It was a day to connect your mind, body and soul, a search within to find peace and energize your body. 28 members rsvped of which 22 turned up early Sunday morning at around 06:30. I know getting up early on Sunday is a BIG ask…but search for the inner self temped many to get out of their beds and rally to a secret location!!

Our beloved Ed made all the arrangements for a perfect ride along with yoga asanas and ofcourse the mandatory chai. Juli told me that Ed woke up quite early to make sure its a perfect day for all of us and also prepared chai for all of us himself!! Hats of to the old man who is still much younger than most of us in the group in terms of energy, enthusiasm and fun loving.

We started off from our usual meeting place (Gachibowli) at around 06:45 and a few of them joined us from Hill Ridge. While Ed was leading the ride, Shay was riding back and forth to ensure all of us were following the right way. I was at the tail, just to make sure that there is help available in case someone needed it.

After a few stops we reached the secret location on the banks of the Himayat Sagar lake. It took some effort from us to persuade the security to allow us in the vicinity of the lake.

Siddharth our Yoga guru was waiting there for us with a big smile on his face. He looked very happy and eager to impart some yoga asanas to us. Just as we were about to start, we had a guest in the form of horse, greeting everyone. He was obviously excited to see us on our bikes.

The weather as just perfect, the clouds above shielded us from the sun. We started our yoya asana with Kapal Bhati and followed it up with head and hip rotation in the sitting posture. The cat posture asana made us feel really good. We then did some standing asanas for our back and joints.

In Yoga breathing is the most important part, ofcourse the posture should also be proper, else it may not be effective. We did a different type of Shava asana (Squeezing our body and freeing it). When we opened our eyes after the 10 minute meditation there was a feeling of happiness and well being within us. After all we hardly get to spend time with ourselves!!

Chai time!! Ed played the perfect host and gave everyone chai and some cookies. After mingling around we rode back to our respective homes.

Thanks to Ed for arranging this ride and yoga session. Thanks to our yoga guru Siddharth for his time and imparting this valuable knowledge to us. We all are an enlightened lot!!

Moments of this ride are captured here. Ah map to the secret place!! I will put it as soon as I get it :-) The secret it out!!

Just Ride folks!!

HBC

Sunil

De-Tox Ride

2009-10-24T12:19:00.001+05:30

Good Morning folks!! We missed you all in this beautiful ride…riding in the morning chill has never been so much fun!! I woke up at 03:50 in the morning to be there on time for the ride. I met Mallik on my way to the meeting point. It was nice to see the enthusiasm in him and passing it on to his son. After bidding good bye to them (they wanted to do a shorter ride), Diwakar and I did the Wipro circle loop so that Samrat could catch-up with us.

Samrat joined us for a ride after a long time, may be the Nagarjun Sagar ride was the last ride he was with us. We hit some rough roads and climbed the hill for our appointment with Sun. It was an amazing experience. We posed for photographs and started zooming downhill to hit the Shankarapalli road.

We cycled an extra 1.5k just for a cuppa of hot tea!! Must hai!! We were also tempted by the steaming idli’s at the stall and helped ourselves with some idlis. Time to get back on track dude, so we turned our bikes towards Kollur village. Peacocks requested us to stop by and showed us their beautiful colours, they were joined by other birds like parrots, swallow, kingfisher , others (I don’t know their names :-)).

We wanted more!! so we went on the hunt for the mysterious club house and settled on the tree house for some chiki. We then started our hunt for the hidden tunnel that leads to Lingampalli, we followed a famer to his fields!! We finally found our way back through the tunnel and reached Lingampalli from where Diwakar and Samrat took the Gachibowli road and I took the short cut road for my home.

This ride de-toxified us and now we are full of oxygen ready for another grueling time at work with a Sunday in the middle!! The pics of today’s ride is uploaded here. The link of the route is here.

Hope to see the missing people (Ed baba, Matt baba, Sandy, Shay baba) in the next rides!! See you too there!! So Just Ride and keep riding!!

Sparkling Diwali Ride

2009-10-18T20:43:00.001+05:30

Happy Diwali to all HBC folks!! Matt, Diwakar, Kartik, Animesh, Krish, Irfan and Sunil, early morning birds met at the Gachibowli stadium to start their Diwali with a ride loaded with fun, energy and chocolates. If 05:30 is too early think again, these folks are planning to start their ride even earlier :-)

The plan was laid out in the briefing before the ride by Sunil. We go through the Nehru Outer Ring Road—>take a right from Andhra Police Academy—>ride through the Himayat Sagar road—>take a right towards Chilkur Balaji--->hit the chevella road—> and try to lose your way…yes the plan was to explore a new way back after that.

Irfan accompanied us till the Police Academy and after viewing the Diwali sunrise we hit the chevella road. We then had our mandatory chai stop after around 30k. We distributed chocolates to kids and wished everyone around a very Happy Diwali and then got our bums back on the saddle for another Adrenaline filled ride. We then decided not to take the usual route and ride through the villages and took a diversion towards Chilkur.

The ride back was getting hotter!! We we started the temperature was around 22 degrees and now it had risen to 31 degrees. Krish was the first to admit that he was eager to reach home and kept asking how Kms were left, when he realized there was another 35k left, he was not amused, but the cycling devil in him pulled him through that gave him a big sense of achievement.

The coconut pani break was a blessing for us riders, it always the last few Kms that are really challenging and I just followed Matt and took a diversion back home. A nice 94k ride at 23 km/hr, What a way to start your Diwali day!! We then loaded ourselves with Diwali sweets and spent some quality time with our friends and relatives.

Check the pictures here. The route of the ride is published here. This was my 100th ride with HBC and I am happy it was a Diwali ride!!

Looking forward to another ride with our folks, hey see you at the ride!!

HBC

Sunil

BSA Hercules Cyclothon Bengaluru 09

2009-10-14T21:42:00.001+05:30

The BSA Hercules Cyclothon Bengaluru 09 was jointly organized by TI Cycles of India, manufacturers of BSA Hercules cycles, and Sport18, a media house on October 11th at BIEC (Bangalore International Exhibition Centre).
Satish and myself had the opportunity to participate in the amateur category event. We both boarded different buses along with our cycles on Friday evening to Bangalore.
I reached my cousin's place by Saturday morning and headed to Kormangala indoor stadium to deposit my cycle and complete my registration formalities. The registration happened smoothly and it was hearting to see so many people turn out just for registration. Many people had to go back disappointed as they could get cycles on rent. I met Satish at the venue and we both completed our registrations and booked the bus for pick-up the next day. We got our bib and goodies bag, deposited our cycles and headed in different directions with an eagerness to come the next day for the event. The goodie bag consisted a haversack, helmet, green tea, soup packet, energy drink. Dunno why they gave us green tea and soup packets...perhaps those were companies sponsoring the event. After roaming around the city I hit bed at 23:00 just in time for a good nap.
I woke up the next day at around 04:30 and left for Yelanhanka new town Bus Stop which was the pick-up point. There were already a couple of excited citizens waiting there for the bus. Sadly the bus reached our pick-up point at 07:30 1.5hrs late.

After we reached the BIEC venue we had to hurry to find out cycles and fill in our bottles. Satish and I quickly grabbed some sandwiches and donuts at the food court and headed off towards the starting point. But alas we were late for our category and had to join the corporate category for our race.
I started off at a quick pace with the objective of catching with the amateur group. The route planned was very nice with people on both sides of the road cheering us. There was a huge representation from the army too who cycled along with us.

The recharge counters were set at every 9k. The 36k ride was a easy ride and I managed to finish it in just over an hour. There were lot of events at the venue and I kept myself busy clicking pictures of some beautiful scenes around... :-)
There was a BMX stunt show which I have recorded some parts. You can have a look at it here. Check the fall :-)

I wanted to take part in the Elite group, as this was the only group that had prize money, all the other rides were fun rides...

To be able to get an entry in the Elite group, you need to register at http://www.cyclingfederationofindia.org and should be associated to a cycling club. I will get myself registered to this org.
Most of the participants in the Elite group had road bikes (I guess I will also have a get one soon) and I guess were Asian champions.
The most amazing part of the event was that there were any 7000 people participating, it was a largest cycling event held in India. BSA were selling one of their cycle model for 1700Rs whose original price was around 3500Rs. It was a nice way to promote cycling in India.Overall I enjoyed the show immensely though I felt it could be organized better.
I decided to cycle my way back to my cousin's home which was another 35k. I met a 76 year young cyclist who also participated in the amateur category!! He was cycling his way back home.

I felt really nice speaking to him and hearing his experiences. He started cycling after he retired at the age of 58!!
It taught me a lesson that you are never too old to start a new hobby, just follow your heart, just ride!!

The following were the Race Categories:
Race                                      Distance     Eligibility
Elite Ride & Amateur Ride     36Km        Born on or before 10.10.1991
Teen Ride (13yrs-17yrs)      5K            Born between 10.10.92 - 09.10.97
Fun Ride (8yrs-12yrs)         2K            Born between 10.10.97 - 10.10.2002
Green Ride and Corporate    25K          Born on or before 10.10.1991
10K                                 10K          Born on or before 10.10.1991

For more information about the cyclothon event click here http://bsaherculescyclothon.in.com.

Its time we have such events in Hyderabad too...we would be really proud to organize such a event at such a large scale.
Psst...there is a cyclothon event happening in Mumbai around Feb. 2010. I'll keep you posted about this event.
I clicked nearly 124 pictures, please have a look at them here.

Keep cycling and catch you at the rides!!

HBC
Sunil

Many more articles

2009-10-10T09:51:00.002+05:30

Articles about HBC and its activities have been constantly churning out in the papers and the magazines. More and more people are coming to know about its existence through these snips and the count has already crossed 550! We just hope that more of these turn out for actual rides too, shaking of that slumber.

WOW Hyderabad: This monthly magazine published a small article about the club and its activities in their September edition. Even though the article was small, it drew a large number of audience as its a pretty famous magazine. In fact, we were contacted by the National Institute of Tourism & Hospitality Management (NITHM) to help them turn their campus eco-friendly by helping them buy bicycles!

The Hindu: The main supplement Metro Plus of the national daily stressed on the fitness mantra. For this, it listed both people going to regular gyms and those (read: us) pedaling our way to fitness and greenery. The article was published in the main page of the supplement on the 5th of October.

Times Of India: TOI, Bangalore had a cover article about the Cyclothon to be held their soon. And guess who was on their cover picture? Our very own HBC leaders in their HBC T-Shirts.

News and articles keep on trickling in, we try to keep track of them, but can’t promise if we are able to catch all of them. If you find an article about the club, then please do let us know!

Till then -
Just Ride!
Sandy

Biked more - Lived better more

2009-10-03T17:54:00.006+05:30

The thunders and lightning last night woke me up during my sleep and for a few minutes I was wondering how it would look the next morning. But morning when I woke up it wasn't too bad at all. There were the frequent potholes etc. symbolizing the monsoons season. But it was no where like the large pools I was anticipating. I took it as a good omen.

After reaching IMAX I saw that Steven, Kapil and Saradhi had already reached there. I had to park my car and assemble my bike quickly. I had to take care not to smear tyre marks on the beige interiors of my newly delivered car! That said I have let you guys all know that I have been newly Sparked! It took me a few minutes to assemble the front tyre, the seat and put on the cyclometer. Well, you might wonder if the cyclometer is worth mentioning. But when its drizzling, you got sight glasses and yours hands are a little slippery even this simple task could seem an acrobat. Atleast for me. After putting my car to sleep in front of the Dr. Car parking lot I headed towards IMAX again only to realize that I was late and I had to ride in the opposite direction. Midway, probably around Jalavihar I saw Habib, Steven, Kapil, Saradhi and Srikanth pedaling towards me. I joined them and we took a tiny break after reaching NTR gardens to get to know each other better. We decided that a chai at the diagonally opposite end will be nice too. We then went on on the second lap.

Irani chai is a wonderful invention and I still after so many years wonder if it did have its roots in Iran. It can at times even surprise you. If you are passionate about fishing you might find an opportunity or two to polish your prowess in fishing out the tiny somethings these Irani chai cups can surprise you with at times. In this occasion I did get a chance to use my deft fingers to weed out one. The rest of the tea was impeccable. Steven, however might have other opinions beginning with how tea and milk are not the best friends. Having had tea a.k.a. chai we resumed with our second lap.

The drizzle had started gaining in thickness by then. It was a great feeling to be drenched in the rain. It’s a nature of the tropical climate that one feels good to be drenched in the rain. And this rain in particular doled out a misty aura. Usually like the ones we pay hefty amounts for, to see in hill-stations. It was also satisfying that we were doing our little dharma to help in its preservation by bicycling and not motorcycling. After the second round we were almost dripping like the fish. We thought that we will then exchange the third lap for a walk in the newly developed park nearby. It was there that we HBC bikers again did our bit. Steven, meanwhile preferred to go on for the third and go back thereafter. Saradhi too called it off.

Its common wisdom that what goes up comes down. But occasionally we offer exemptions to such universal knowledge. Cases such as when a truck with a full load is stuck in sludge even along a slope. But for our able shoulders it would have been that way for a long time. Or so I would like to think! :) Such events teach you what they don’t teach you at Harvard. Psst..! I quote this to many people to tell them why I didn’t go to Harvard!

We wandered around in the park discussing all possible trivia and suddenly we realized that it was time to bid goodbye. It was a ride worth a saturday morning. Not to mention the pursuit of our philosophy and belief that biking is a wonderful thing whichever way you see it.

Bala Aluru
Team HBC

More biking - Better living

2009-10-01T12:13:00.004+05:30

There is an upcoming ride on the 3^rd of October. We will be doing three laps of the Hussain sagar lake. Of course fitter bicyclists can keep going for more. The reason to declare a three lap event was to accommodate beginners and make it seem achievable. We have invited the print and electronic media to cover the event.

It is beyond doubt that bicycling helps solve most urban problems. Limited physical exertion, vehicular pollution, breakneck speed driving, fuel expenses and a huge strain on public infrastructure are reasons more than convincing if seen in good introspect for city’s dwellers. There is also a level above the mere benefits when it becomes a passion. Bicycling can be extremely entertaining too.

Amongst my friends and of most of theirs all have driven bicycles during childhood and also till teens. We never realized then how beneficial it was. It is time to revert back to that wonderful mode of transport.

This event is to show that even occasional riders can drive 30 kms easily. And in addition spread the message of the benefits of bicycling from the direct experiences of the bicyclists to the citizens of our city. The meetup will have the details of the venue and time.

Bala Aluru

Team HBC

The Korlai Ride

2009-09-30T21:48:00.003+05:30

Sudhansu and I along with four others had been to the Korlai fort [Maharashtra] riding from Pune last weekend. A quick post on the ride!

The road ahead seems to penetrate into infinity as the sky gets overcast. Sounds from the innumerable streams cascading from the towering ranges abutting the road on the left side, seem to be magically muted by the strong gusts of wind. There’s not a soul on the road kilometres ahead and kilometres behind. I stand upright on the pedals letting the rules of physics govern my motion. As I dissolve myself in the encapsulating ambience capturing every frame with my closed eyes, the stark phenomenon of passage of time becomes evident. One year back I was right here on this road in a cab. Today nothing has changed – Just that I’m on a two wheeled machine powered by just the mind and the legs.

19th Sep ‘09 – Saturday

06:30hrs. The volvo comes to a halt at Jagtap Diary. Bani is right there waiting to receive the four of us from Hyd. Sumanth, Mohan, Sudhansu and I had left Hyd for Pune yesterday. We reach Bani’s house by about 06:45hrs. It’s close to 08:30hrs by the time we refresh, get the bikes set and have a sumptuous breakfast at Yogesh’s place. While I head to Dange chowk to meet Viral and Trupti, Bani and the remaining three head to Vishal nagar to get their bikes mended. We decide to meet at Tammana restaurant, Hinjewadi at 09:30hrs. A quick catch-up here and the ride begins. The target is to reach Roha by 19:00hrs. That translates to about 125kms of biking today and effectively my first century ride!

Ten minutes on the road is more than a glaring pre-cursor as to what we could expect for the next two days. Even before we could hit Pirangut, the gradient starts increasing. We stop over at a roadside shop for a quick refill of water and move ahead towards Mulshi dam taking a right at the Pirangut chowk. The landscape changes starkly as we head towards Paud. The air thins down and the effect shows on the lungs as cleaner air sinks in. The next eleven kilometres from Paud is more or less on flat terrain traversing through small towns and riding by the Mulla river. Bani catches up pretty quickly and we ride in tandem for quite some time. The best part of long distance bicycling is that you get to talk leisurely as you ride on.

35 kilometers into the ride we approach the Mulshi dam at the place where the Mulla river originates. Bani had warned us of a steep uphill climb close to the Mulshi dam and even before we realise the killer climb loomed right ahead. An ascent of a kilometre or so brings the muscles into action. Sumanth, Mohan and I take a short break at the hairpin bend letting the body cool down. Couple of minutes spent here and we push ahead and take a left turn ahead only to find Sudhansu riding back just to check if all is fine with us! A bit ahead we take a brief stop at one of the hotels facing the reservoir, waiting for Mohan to join us. As we relax in the shade munching on jaggery bars, the body starts talking sweetly to the mind. And it’s just about 40kilometres into the ride.

At about 13:00hrs we reach a roadside restaurant for lunch. A heavy [and costly!] lunch here followed by a much needed half an hour break and we decide to move on towards Tamhini ghat. The section from Palase to the Tamhini village is interspersed with quite a few scenic viewpoints overseeing the Mulshi waters. The weather gets better and by the time we reach the Tamhini village diversion point a refreshing shower gives the body a cold shock wave. Further about 10kilometres ahead is the breathtaking Plus valley. A brief stop-over for a couple of photographs and then we head towards the Tamhini ghat. It’s about 17:00hrs. The road ahead seems to penetrate into infinity as the sky gets overcast. Sounds from the innumerable streams cascading from the towering ranges abutting the road on the left side, seem to be magically muted by the strong gusts of wind. There’s not a soul on the road kilometres ahead and kilometres behind. I stand upright on the pedals letting the rules of physics govern my motion. As I dissolve myself in the encapsulating ambience capturing every frame with my closed eyes, the stark phenomenon of passage of time becomes evident. One year back I was right here on this road in a cab. Today nothing has changed – Just that I’m on a two wheeled machine powered by just the mind and the legs. Tamhini ghat has always been on the radar of un-accomplished rides for almost a year now. Couple of months back I had to miss one of the planned rides because of work commitments and today as I ride on this heavenly road, I’m speechless. For a couple of moments, all pain vanishes and what I get to experience is something which I guess would remain etched in memories for a long time to come.

Bani and I pullover to the side as Sudhansu, Sumanth, Viral and Mohan zip past us at the beginning of the ghat section. Dusk was setting in and we decide to sweep the team. 9 kilometres of complete downhill on the ghats can be real risky with vehicles spitting in at break neck speeds. We stop for some tea at the end of the ghat section and then proceed towards Vile. The next major town would be Kolad where we would be hitting the NH17. My body starts giving in at about 85kilometres into the ride. I’m compelled to stop intermittently to avoid impulsive heart beat surges. I take it easy for a while intently listening to telling signs and keep moving in a slow pace. There’s just one motivation to move on – to see to it that my first century ride does not turn out to be disappointing. At about 95kilometres I suddenly seem to get energy out of the blue to move on ahead. I take it in stride and gracefully ride ahead of the team. I’d forgotten to take my cyclo-computer for this ride, but the road markings out there were quite reliable and based on a rough estimates I should have completed my first century ride at Sutarwadi. I stop by the ‘Empower adventure training camp’ for sometime for rest of the folks to join me and once everyone’s in, we ride on towards Kolad.

As dusk sets in, things get easier. With LED headlamps and rear flicker lamps navigating through the roads gets all the more interesting. The beauty being we’re compelled to ride together and match the pace of the slowest member of the team. As we reach the NH17, navigating on the roads gets a bit dicey. At about 19:30hrs we hit Kolad. Viral suddenly seems to be smitten by the night queen and he powers down the road like never before. The remaining five of us ride in tandem. At about 20:00hrs we finally reach our chalked out destination at Roha– Hotel Dwarka. A staggered dinner at Navaratna hotel, thanks to the pathetic service and we crash in the lodge. A hot water bath [Geysers here are powered by LPG!] does the trick and even before I realise I’m in dreamland.

20^th Sep ’09 – Sunday

05:45hrs. As I wake after seven hours of decent sleep, I test to see if my ass still pains. Surprisingly it doesn’t! The elation only lasts till the moment I jump onto the saddle after checking out from the place. There seems to be no cure for it and the ride has to go on. Today is going to be one long day. The plan was to head to Korlai fort [About 40km from here], spend about an hours time there, head back to Roha by noon, have lunch here, then proceed towards Kolad, Vile and then finally scale up the Tamhini ghat at night and camp at the start of the Ghat. That totals to about 120+ kms of ride and 9kms of ghat climb at the end.

We checkout at about 06:45hrs and ride ahead towards Korlai. The roads to start off seem to be pretty flat [Rather Pune flats, as Bani calls them]. Yesterdays’ sound sleep seems to have rejuvenated the muscles. I feel real fresh and but for the ass pain everything seems to be perfectly fine. I cruise ahead and go with the swing. Climbs with increasing yet manageable gradients soon pitch in making the ride all the more interesting. About 20kms from Roha, there’s this small dockyard where iron-ore is brought in to the hinterland. We stop here for sometime and then move on.

About ten kilometres ahead we come across a small village. A much needed heavy breakfast [Lip smacking Sheera, peppy hot Vada-Pav and crunchy toasts] at Pooja’s hotel and we move on towards Korlai. At about 10:45hrs we reach the Korlai diversion and ride into the village. The poor villagers are taken back with the sight of six nuts blistering through their streets on bicycles. Bani leads us through the village and then finally after some decent off-roading we reach the Korlai lighthouse. I stop a bit ahead, bank my bike on the rock and conk off for about twenty minutes blissfully sinking in the Arabian sea. The humid air and the cold breeze wafting across your body as you lie there staring into the open sea, with a bicycle beside you that’s got you 160kms from the mainland – Now that’s called living life!

After a five minute snooze, I head towards the Korlai fort where the remaining five folks had already scaled up the fort. The caretaker directs me up the fort and I wait for the team to complete their exploratory mission at the entrance of it. In a couple of minutes as the five get down, Bani reveals that there’s a change in plan. We’d be heading to Kashid beach instead of getting back to Roha and then hit back to Pune the next day. The plan sounded pretty interesting and I was instantly game! Sudhansu and Bani decided to head back to Roha to collect our luggage while Sumanth, Viral, Mohan and I relaxed by the Arabian sea. At about 12:30hrs we head back to Korlai and then to Borili for lunch. With no options left, we had to satisfy our tummies with the veg thali available in the only restaurant at Borili and head back to Korlai and wait here for Bani and Sudhansu to return. Once they return, we decide to find a means of transport back to Pune tomorrow and an accommodation for tonight. At Borili, we manage to hire a tempo for 2grand and accommodation at the same place where we had lunch. Everything in place we decide to head towards Kashid beach and get back tonite to the lodge. Kashid beach is about 15kms from Borili. The roads are mostly flat but for the last section which is a spine thrilling down slope with a spledid hairpin bend. [Viral seems to have had a near miss smooch from a vehicle coming from the opposite direction!].

The Kashid beach is one of the best beaches I’ve ever been to till date – Amazingly clean, Happening crowd and sparsely visited! After a bout of yummy maggi and some real hot tea we decide to head back to Borili. It’s already 19:00hrs and the road is pitch dark. An unwritten understanding passes on that we’re to move together all together for the whole stretch. Bani leads and I sweep. That 15kms is one of the best team rides I’ve ever done till now. All the way through, uphill or downhill, riding in synchronism in darkness – I would call it the real icing on the cake! We reach Borili at about 20:00hrs, have an ‘unhealthy’ oily food at the Chinese stall and retire to our rooms. Sudhansu comes up with an idea to head to the Korlai fort again the next morning and most of us immediately are game.

21st Sep ‘09 – Monday:

05:30hrs. There’s not much to ride today – Just about 10kms probably. We head to the Korlai fort at about 06:00hrs. Viral and Mohan manage to capture some amazing sunrise shots and I get to explore the fort which I missed on yesterday. By about 07:30hrs all of us are back in the lodge. The Tempo lad whom we’d engaged yesterday turns up pretty much on time and at about 08:30hrs we head back towards Pune. A short pit stop at the same Pooja restaurant for breakfast and we’re all set for another ass paining ride back to Pune. We stop by Sudhagad – Pali for respite and then head towards Wakad. With this the Korlai ride comes to an end. A quick catch-up with Trupti, Rahul and Reetika and we head towards Brehman circle for the bus to Hyd.

This has been one interesting long ride! With a special thanks to Yogesh and Trupti for lending their bikes and of course Bani for mapping the whole ride out!

Stats:

Members : 6
Distance covered : Day 1 – 130kms Day 2 – 65kms Day 3 – 10kms
Route : Daily mile
Bikes : 3 carried from Hyd by Volvo, Two arranged at Pune

Duathlon Trial Run – Chapter 2

2009-09-14T19:25:00.001+05:30

Yesterday we witnessed the second dry-run for the upcoming Duathlon, which will be held in October 11th. Why a ‘dry-run’, you may ask. Well, it is more to gauge our preparedness for the D-day, getting familiarized with the race track and above all, getting used to the concept of a Duathlon. And believe me, its a completely different paradigm when you have to run-cycle-run!

This trial run yesterday attracted a fair amount of 18 enthusiasts and a good set of volunteers. With no special-effects and few strategically placed route signs, everything was good to go. We saw many new faces in the run and that was encouraging.

With a not too sunny weather, the race was set for a near-ideal setup. With bikes placed in line in the transition area, it was quite a sight as the participants prepared themselves, placing their shoes, bottles, bikes and what not in the proper position. Remember, in a race like this, every second matters as the clock never stops, so one’s got to have things placed in order to make the transition from running to cycling and then again to running as smooth as possible.

There was a very strong set of runners in the from of Cliff, Kati, Sofi and Scott. Shay was as usual at his cycling best with his Edddy Merckx, quite a lightweight stunner that is! He pulled out after the second round of cycling as his knee hurt badly from the half-marathon he ran a few weeks back.

One of the worst thing happening was that even though we had the company of the IRON MAN Matt himself in this race, unfortunately he got a double-flat in the first 100m of the cycling stage and had to pull out!! Duh! In the morning, we were all so kicked up to compete with the Iron Man himself, but pity he couldn’t complete the race for absolutely ‘flat’ reasons. In his own words:

I double flatted in the first 100 meters of the bike. I got a good workout in cursing myself… I spotted myself out on the course and was the cutest cheerleader these guys ever saw :)… Shay cycled by my cheering station so fast I got whip-lash. He rode the Eddy and made all Belgian’s proud.

Of the total 18 riders, 5 were not able to complete the whole race. Here are the final results and they very much speak for themselves:

So, the final winners were:
1. Cliff
2. Katie
3. Sofi

Photos from Sunil’s camera (I think we can very well declare it the ‘official’ camera of HBC, as almost every HBC picture has been clicked through it and in the process, it has taken most of the beating, but still goes on and on!)

In the end, we had the unique christening ceremony for the new bike. Inspired by how a new yacht is christened with a bottle of Champagne, we had our own way to do it. Can’t help it, we are “drinkers with a cycling problem” :)

Hoping to see an even bigger crowd for the final event.

Just Ride!
Sandy

Freedom Ride '09.. Just Ride..

2009-08-18T04:07:00.001+05:30

There’s the Oasis I was looking for. The hands automatically went on to the brakes and the bike screeched to a stop. They surrounded me in seconds. One offered me a banana and apple juice, another offered to fill my water bottle up and yet another stuffed my waist pouch with Horlicks Nutribars. With all that royal treatment, I felt like a King. :)

The Freedom Ride:
By the time I reached Novotel at 6am, the place was already abuzz with activity. Organizers were helping the riders with registration and tag distribution. I collected mine from our HBC team captain, Habib, and began to wait for Krishna. He came walking for an hour to reach Novotel along with his bike that had a flat last night. Not finding any willing soul to fix it in the night did not daunt his spirit. It only strengthened his resolve to ride on this Freedom ride. I am humbled when I see such passionate and resolute people and I get to see them all the time among this group.

There were a couple of mechanics made available in case anyone needed assistance with their bikes. It helped. We fixed the flat on Krishna’s and Srikanth’s (Team Infosys) bikes. Checked the tire pressure on all of our bikes and used the pump made available to fill them up.

The sheer number of people there with cycles was very heartening. The organizers appeared to have done a fabulous job of getting all these people at one place to ride the 62km for the 62 years of Indian Freedom. There were all kinds of bikes. From the Indian to the imported; from the rickety roadsters to the fancy geared high tech bikes; they were all there to be seen. The riders’ backgrounds were equally varied. There was a team of construction workers from one of the sponsors Alien Group (A Construction and real estate firm), Teams of employees from high flying firms like Microsoft, GE, Infosys, Avaya, UBS etc; there were scores of riders from Invesco (An investment management company and one of the sponsors) and riders from HBC along with many individual riders. That’s about 120 riders in total. There was equal number of volunteers if not more.

We moved to the flag hoisting area and the ride was flagged off after the heartwarming National Anthem. Different teams of riders started out on their 62km ride one by one. For a large majority of them it was their first long ride and after years of being away from a cycle. Many riders have bought a cycle just to be able to participate in the event and got bitten by the cycling and fitness bug.

I began the ride slowly along with team HBC and glided along. The roads were abuzz with kids on their way to school flag hoisting ceremonies. Shay, Sunil, Karthik, Sandy and Maddy went past me and formed the front pack. I’ve decided to draft behind them. These are some seriously fit individuals and keeping up with them would take all I got and much more. I would try anyway.
We went past Patancheru and guided by volunteers took a diversion towards Shakarpally. The GE volunteer camp was setup shortly after but we decided to ride along without stopping. The guys stopped after riding for an hour at 26km mark for some water and a couple of dates and chikkis that they brought along. By this time my lungs were burning from a couple of catch up chases I’ve given these guys already. Only the break they took helped me join them.

We encountered a particularly bad stretch of road here that lasted about 3km till we reached Shankarapalli-Hyderabad road. I tried to keep pace with them on my road bike on a road apt for MTBs. My trusted warrior, my Hero Hawk, complied with out complaining and took me past that bad stretch. The road towards Hyderabad from Shankarapalli was a god send. Although it offered some gradients, the smooth road meant the group kept racing along at crazy pace. Shay and Sunil let their legs loose and the rest of us kept playing catch-up with them. They managed to lose me most of the time as they raced on.

At 40km mark I saw them going past a group of people by the roadside. I was about 500m behind them and the body refused to go past the oasis of the Avaya refreshment stall. I had my share of the royal treatment and rode along thanking them for hospitality. A couple of kilometers later I saw Shay and others taking a break and asked them why they didn’t stop at the refreshment stall as I knew that their water bottles are almost empty. They decided to turn back and refuel themselves while Maddy and I proceeded to ride slowly anticipating others to join us any moment.

Maddy rode like a man possessed and left me far behind while I rode alongside Diwakar and Krishna. Diwakar who started cycling recently after a gap of 14years was representing Deloitte and was riding admirably; so was Krishna on his single speed BSA mach. After a while, we were directed to take a diversion by the volunteers and turned to go past Hindalco factory. Here, I moved ahead trying to see if I can catch up with Maddy and in the process lost Krishna and Diwakar.

I kept going through villages and was confused if I was going in the right direction as Maddy was nowhere to be seen. When I saw a milestone saying BHEL 9km, I was assured that I was heading back into the city and not away from it. I kept riding and went past Alien Space station where they were having a flag hoisting. I was to later learn that the rest of the riders had fantastic reception there too. I guess the reception party was not ready by the time we rode past it.

Near Lingampally I finally got to see Maddy who was not sure which way to go. We decided to go via Gachibowli stadium to reach Novotel. At Gachibowli stadium where I there was an encouraging downhill after a steady climb, I accelerated and kept going to reach Novotel. I was thinking that I took a wrong turn somewhere as I did not see any of the riders ahead of me. But as I approached the Novotel gate where Deena and others were waiting to receive the riders, the unbelievable news hit my ears. I was the first to complete the ride!! It took a while for me to realize that they were not kidding! :)

Maddy came a minute later and Diwakar followed him. Krishna came in later followed by Shay, Sunil, Karthik and Sandy. The riders kept coming as we waited and received them with warm applause. The way many guys completed the ride on roadsters and single speed bikes you wouldn’t believe if I say most of them were first time riders riding after years of not being anywhere near a cycle. Kudos to one and all who participated and completed the ride to celebrate the spirit of Freedom.

There were fun events organized at Novotel for friends and family of the riders as well followed by a sumptuous lunch. The Bike Affair, a store being opened by Krish (a fellow cyclist) &Co, had a stall displaying Merida bikes offered test rides of the bikes. One gets to ride before one could make a buy decision. Wonderful!! Some models were very good and looked value for money.

Special thanks to Deena and his organizing team, scores of volunteers from Invesco, Atlanta Foundation, GE, Avaya, Alien Group. The way the event was organized with volunteers providing directions, equally spaced refreshment stalls, SAG wagons etc., is appreciated by each and every rider. They have put in great efforts and left no stone unturned to make this ride unforgettable for all involved. Thanks to you Deena and your team for organizing this ride.

Organizers: http://www.atlantafoundation.net/
Stats: 68km
Riding time: 2:47:39
Avg Speed: 24.3kmph
Total Time: 3:01:12
Here is the link to the photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/hivenkat.d/FreedomRideACyclingOdeToTheSpiritOfFreedom20090815#
From Sunils Camera: http://picasaweb.google.com/HBCSunil/FreedomRide2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCJT_3tuizILsaQ&feat=email#

Duathlon Preparation Race: Eight Winners and A Loser

2009-08-11T17:51:00.005+05:30

Yup, you guessed it right. I was the lone loser on the race. Now, let me tell you how we ended up with eight winners and one loser on a lovely Sunday morning.

The trial race as it were was scheduled to begin at 8am behind Novotel hotel near Shamshabad Airport. I’ve decided to ride there and try to participate in the race. I was not sure if I could complete the whole event after riding 40km to reach there. But I guess I was cocky more than anything in believing that I could, not only be able to do it, but also ride back from there. That would mean that I would have completed a century on bike plus a 7km run. I think it was a gross over estimation of my capabilities.

Krishna who wanted to join me on the ride to the place called me and we agreed to meet at Gachibowli express highway junction at 6:15am. By the time I reached there, I was pleasantly surprised to see Sandy there. He thought he was alone riding there and was happy to find company. We began to ride on the express highway, on that pleasant morning. Much to my disappointment, I found that the camera on my cell was not working when I tried capturing a few beautiful moments. Miffed, I decided to investigate it at a later point and moved on with the ride. The road was good but with most of it still being a work in progress, it is not a straight forward route. The vehicles however less in number they were this morning, were going at crazy pace and we needed to be careful.

We made steady progress and I tried keeping abreast with Sandy and Krishna. Krishna is an amazingly fit guy for someone at 45 pedaling away on his Mach single speed. Sandy as usual is this lean and mean fitness machine. There was a steep climb where a flyover was in progress. Here Krishna had to walk as his lean frame was not generating enough power to overpower climb on his single speed bike. Right after crossing that climb, I had a flat and we waved Krishna to move ahead while Sandy and I began changing the tube. Good that I carried a spare tube. But it would have been a lot easier with quick release wheels.

As we were in the process of fixing it, Deena and Sunil stopped by on their cars at various times offering me a ride but I was bent on fixing it and riding to the starting point, in the process causing delay for Sandy too. Sorry about that Sandy. Sandy was a big savior for me on the day as he patiently helped me removing the wheel, changing the tube and putting it back on. We did not find anything that might have caused the puncture when we tried to look for something that might have pierced the tire. With the flat fixed, Sandy and I began to ride again and reached the airport Novotel exactly at 8am.

The rest of the guys were already there waiting for us. Shay, has already marked the route for the 2km running, 20km cycling and 5km running which was part of the race. Satish, Ajay Mohan Reddy and Bhanu were the volunteers for the event and very enthusiastically offered their services to help Shay and make the event a grand success. They gave us the directions to the running and cycling trails along with the rules of the race.

The participants were Shay, Sunil, Ed, Alecky, Sandy, Karthik, Krishna, Kanchuki and I. Nine in total. We went to the starting line and started out at 8:25am with the 2k run. I slowly began running along with the others and with in no time the others appeared to be flying away from me. Apparently, the 40 km ride to the starting point served more than just warm up. :)

I was consciously trying not to over exert myself and wanted to just complete the race even if I end up at the bottom of the table. This is in many ways first race of my life and was determined to complete it although I was ill prepared for this preparatory race. The 2k run actually was not that hard but I began to sweat profusely even when I did not make any attempt to speed up. This meant that I was dehydrating quickly and losing the only fuel that kept me going till then, Water. Another mistake was not eating anything. I thought I’d later find out what sort of diet should be followed before a race like this.

I could see Shay and Sunil way ahead while Ed, Karthik, Sandy, Krishna were keeping up with them. Kanchuki the only lady on the race and Alecky were behind me as I managed to keep running slowly. As I approached the .75km mark Shay and others were returning to the starting point having touched the 1km mark. I touched the 1km mark where Ajay was taking the timings and turned back to move to the starting point.

Huffing and puffing I manage to reach the starting point where Satish was taking the timings of the participants. I slowly put on the helmet and gloves and got on the bike for the 20k cycling part. This I was confident of finishing this with out any problem and wanted to somehow manage the 5k run after that too. From the back of the Novotel where we started I reached the main road and took a U-turn to get on the 20k route for the race. Right opposite the hotel, I heard the dreaded hiss of a blown tire. I immediately examined the tire to see if something was in it. A centimeter long gash in the tire was wryly smiling back at me and I knew it meant the end of the race for me. I decided to walk back to the starting point which was hardly 200m away. Kanchuki and Alecky were getting on the road with their bikes as I began walking back with mine. I told them the problem and gestured them to move on. Wearily, I reached the starting point where volunteers Ajay and Satish along with Deena were surprised to me back so quickly.

I assured them that I did not set the world record speed by completing the 20k race in 2 minutes but only blew the tire. I think the gash in the tire was from the first flat Sandy and I fixed earlier. Some glass must have cut through the tire to cause the flat in the first place. Then we changed the tube and went along. When I reached the starting point Shay helped me raise the tire pressure with a foot pump. This might have resulted in the tube jutting out of that cut in the tire and might have caused the blow out. Later that day when I examined I found out that both the tubes had punctures at exactly the same spot where the hole in the tire was there. This meant that I had a great excuse to chicken out from the race. What a performance in the first race of my life.

My initial thought was to wait and participate in the 5k run but that meant sitting there for around an hour and I wasn’t in a particularly good mood after my bike let me down like that. Or is it that I let it down? Anyway, I thought, if I could not be happy by completing the race, I could at least make my wife happy by returning home much earlier than originally planned. Deena, who came by his car to encourage the participants, was planning to return home as he received a call from home needing him to be there. I wanted to see if I could hitch a ride with him although I doubted if my huge hawk would fit in his sedan. But Deena thought we could give it a try and folded the rear seats, spread some news papers and promptly helped me put the bike in with out even removing the tires. Fantastic!!

Deena who stays in Kondapur area has literally gone those extra miles to drop me off in Miyapur near my home. Thanks a ton Deena. We started at 9am from the airport Novotel and reached Miyapur by 9:40am. It took exactly 40mins for the 40k distance. The route looked so much different on a car. All the slopes we encountered earlier on the bike ride on the same route made a disappearing act when it came to the 1k+ horse power of the Skoda.

Although I could not be there to complete the event, I called up a few to know how it went. This is what they had to say.

Sunil’s account: "Shay was as usual leading the gang and did a splendid finish at the end. Ed (the old man) defied his age and beat most of the participants who were half his age. He is a true inspiration for everyone. The good thing about this practice was that everyone completed the event. This gave a lot of confidence that this competition is suitable for all. Many thanks to Bhanu, new daddy Satish and his friend(Ajay) for volunteering for the event and Shay for marking the route.
In the end Sandy, Ed, Kanchuki and Dina got together at Ed’s place for some beer after the race. It was a wonderful day."

Sandy’s account when I asked if he rode back home: "I couldn't ride back home as the running took its toll on me :), had it been only biking, I might have pulled it off. But it was all great fun; we went to Ed's house for some chilled beer and banters."

Krishna who along with Sandy finished the race after riding the 30+k to reach there thought "May be it was not such a great idea to ride to the starting point. We could have taken the race as it is and looked to complete it better than what we finally managed. But it was an excellent event and lessons well learnt." He is all of 45 years young. Kudos to both Krishna and Sandy for having completed the event, even after riding around 30+k to begin with.

Kanchuki a first timer to join the group completed the race and so did Alecky another first timer in the group.

The Results: Shay 1st, Sunil 2nd, Ed 3rd, Sandy 4th, Karthik 5th, Krishna 6th, Alecky 7th, Kanchuki 8th and Venky DNF (Did Not Finish). For me all those who completed the race were true winners for their spirit of participation. I was the lone loser on the day as I could not finish it. With lessons learnt, I will be better prepared for the next time though :)

Here is the link to the photos from Sunil's camera. I have uploaded to my picasa to be able to add tags:http://picasaweb.google.com/hivenkat.d/DuathlonPracticeRaceOn20090809#

--
Venky

Team HBC

New Faces & New Bikes Augurs New Beginnings :)

2009-08-11T16:54:00.004+05:30

The usual Sunday ride to Hussain Sagar, for our usual laps around it, got company this week in the form of a Saturday ride due to popular demand. So, on Saturday I started around 5am to reach there and Krish joined me at Nizampet road. We both reached Necklace road around 6 am where quite a few were already waiting. The waiting group invariably had the punctual Ramany with his child like warm smile along with quite a few new faces.

The new riders that I was meeting for the first time on this ride were, Ramana Reddy, Diwakar Goswami, Parth, Kapil, Arvind, Vinay, Dhiraj, Amit, Gokul. Ramana is a dentist who has just returned from US and brought along a Dohan folding bike while coming. Diwakar works with a software firm and stays near Kondapur. Parth resides in Sec’bad and owns a factory that manufactures machinery for cement plants. Dhiraj returned along with his Specialized road bike recently from California where he got hooked big time to cycling. Amit is Krish’s colleague while Gokul is his boss. Krish, Amit and Gokul are opening a bike shop on Aug’15th where they will stock Merida bikes to begin with. The passion Krish has for cycling and plans he has for providing quality products along with excellent after sales service augers well for the ever growing cycling enthusiasts in Hyderabad. It’s starting with a stall at our Aug’15th Freedom ride. So people flock and check them out.

The ride was a serene one with slightly overcast skies. The ride around Hussain sagar has always been an ideal starter’s ride of sorts. We tend to ride at an easy pace and let even the slowest of rider catch up. If he could not, we stop at various points anyway to regroup. It serves as a good builder ride that helps people get ready for bigger ones. Yaser is the comeback kid joining us on the rides after almost a month. He was determined to make it to the ride and did that after his late night shift that ended at 3am catching just a couple of hours of sleep. That’s the kind of passion these guys have for all things cycling.

End of first lap, we chatted for a while and checked out new bikes on the ride. Ravi Kiran’s Rock Rider 5.3, Dr. Ramana’s Dohan folder and Dhiraj’s Specialized road bike were eye candy. Just when I was starting on the second lap, I noticed I had a flat. I quickly flagged down Krish and Dhiraj who were carrying puncture repair kits. This was my first flat on any of the rides (if I discount the one I had a couple of weeks earlier at the start of the ride near Krish’s home). On both the occasions I convinced myself that I would not have a flat and left the puncture repair kit at home. Krish has been a savior for me on both the occasions. Krish and Dhiraj along with Yaser helped fix the flat and off we went to meet the rest of the group on the second lap.

In the second lap, Yaser again raced along with me and as usual managed to beat me to the post. Most of the riders decided to call it a day at the end of the second lap while Yaser, Dhiraj and Rock Rider Ravi Kiran decided to go on a third lap. Krish, Amit, Hawk Ravi Kiran and I decided we’d have a small breakfast before moving to our respective homes. We got on our bikes when Ravi Kiran flagged us down to declare a flat. I wondered if it was a bad day for Hawks. My hawk had a flat at the end of the first lap and Ravi Kiran’s at the end of the second lap. Luckily we had a cycle shop very near the place where Khairatabad Ganesh idol is set up. We gave the bike to be fixed there and went to the small hotel opposite that to fix our appetites. We just about finished our breakfast when Yaser and Dhiraj joined us after their third lap. These guys were quick. We dispersed from there and rode to our respective homes.

Thus it was a day of a couple of flat tires and lot of new riders joining on the rides.
The Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/hivenkat.d/FlatTiresAndNewBeginnings20090809#

--
Venky
Team HBC

Eenadu News Paper Story From Saturday’s Narsapur Trip

2009-08-03T07:45:00.001+05:30

This is from Medak district edition of Eenadu (The Largest selling Telugu daily). Narsapur to where we cycled on Saturday is in Medak district. There was a journalist we encountered on the route when we were fixing a flat on Shay’s bike. He mentions Shay’s name as Sher (meaning Lion, may be its accurate when it comes to cycling) and Ed’s name to be Eden. I should have spelled their names for him. Anyway he got their photos right at least :)

Last month there was a story in DC. Here is the link to it. http://www.deccanchronicle.com/tabloids/healthy-toast-freedom-220

A Century Ride on the Monkey Trail..(Narsapur Loop)

2009-08-02T23:26:00.002+05:30

It is Saturday and time for another ride with our HBC guys. It was initially planned as a ride to Medak that would be about 97km and comeback by loading the bicycles on some vehicle. However, that would mean that I would not be able to join them for the whole distance as I had an appointment at 11am. Thankfully though the plan was changed to a ride to Narsapur and back as most people that were to join the ride had some other commitments during the early afternoon. A ride to Narsapur and back would mean that the trip distance would more or less remain the same around higher nineties.

It has been more than six months since I’ve done my first century ride towards Vikarabad with Krish and I longed for a second one. So, to ensure that this would be that second century for me, I started at 5:07am and rode to Gachibowli although, the group planned to pass through Miyapur at 6am. This would mean that I’ve added another 9km to the distance that the group would do to ensure that I complete a century.

I reached Gachibowli sharp at 5:30 where Karthik and Matt were already waiting. We waited for another couple of minutes for Shay to join and started towards Miyapur where Samrat, Sunil and Sudanshu would join us.

We headed out on the road towards Gandi Maisamma where we have to take left to be on the Medak road. Sudanshu had a problem with his front wheel wobbling and touching the brakes which was slowing him down considerably and tiring him out. As the rest of the guys moved on ahead and nowhere to be seen, I stopped to help him remove his wheel and align it properly.

As we approached Gandi Maisamma we saw Shay, Matt and Sunil coming back to meet us. That’s one of the many things I like about riding with this group. The ride leader always tries to keep track of even the slowest of the riders and brings them up to speed even if it means riding back and forth for kilometers together instead of just waiting. It just makes you feel more secure because more often than not we tend to ride in exploration mode exploring unknown areas and discovering new trails.

We stopped briefly at Gandi Maisamma and took left to get on the Medak road. Our next stop was at Dindigal Air Force Academy where some of us had a banana each from those I brought along in my panniers and gulped some water. It was 7:10am and we are on schedule to reach Narsapur around 8am and take the route to Patancheru from there.

The route mostly passes through a huge forest reserve. Apparently many movie shootings take place in those Narsapur forests. What it is more famous for though is the huge number of monkeys that vie for your attention on the route. You get to see monkeys of all forms, sizes and shapes. From tiny to the huge; from red faced to red based; From suave looking to extremely mischievous. They were visible all along the route; sparse at places and in hoards at some.

We stopped by at a small Hanuman (The Monkey God) temple on the way and posed for photos. We tried desperately to use the hand pump that was there to draw water to wash away the grime on our faces. For all our efforts, it was just giving water in trickles but we managed with that and moved towards Narsapur which was now about 2km away.

At Narsapur we stopped by a small Udipi hotel and bought some water to fill our bottles. We inquired there on the routes that would take us back to Hyderabad. When the route suggested by the local guys agreed with those on Matt’s and Shay’s maps, we took left at a junction to be on the route towards Sangareddy.

A couple of kilometers into the route towards Sangareddy, Shay had a flat tire. We all stopped as Matt and Shay replaced the tube. Out of nowhere, Ed appeared. We thought he dropped off the trip as he had to take a con-call but here he was joining us after 60km of non-stop riding as the call concluded earlier than he expected. Amazing bunch of guys with amazing passion for cycling.

In the meanwhile, a person stopped by on his motor cycle and was quizzing us about our whereabouts. Apparently he is a journalist from Eenaadu, the largest selling Telugu daily. After fixing the tire we posed for him and off we went.

For most of the time, I was trailing the group and I had a chance to move ahead when the Sunil, Shay and Ed were riding back to make sure everyone of the group is on track. I was mentally chiding myself for not riding better and determined not to slow others down anymore, I began moving at decent pace and steady cadence. Only Karthik was ahead of me and I expected Shay and others to go past me any moment.

I was so engrossed in the thought of maintaining a steady pace that I saw the sign post that read ‘Patancheru 22km’ but failed to note the arrow mark pointing to left. Even when the mind was saying that the others were taking too long a time to come in to view I was trying to silence it by telling it that I was getting better with my pace. Karthik got a call and stopped to take it and I foolishly took it as an opportunity to go further ahead. After about 5-10mins I got a call and it was Sunil who called me to say that I missed the left turn and went ahead. It was he who called Karthik too asking him to turn back. Now my mind began to ridiculing me for not listening to its warnings. I tried to ignore it and turned back to ride for about 10-15 minutes to reach Sunil and others who were waiting at a stall having their refreshments.

I checked on my Nokia sports tracker and it was reading 78km at that point. There was a board reading Patancheru 22km which means I would complete a century by reaching Patancheru and Miyapur would be about 12km from there. Not bad I thought. A little bit of breather and we started again. This time though I made sure I had at least one rider in my vicinity. Samrat was riding with me all the way till we reached a school 4km from Patancheru where Matt and Sunil were waiting for us swarmed by a group of curious school kids. We bought some water there took some pictures with the kids and started out again.

As I rode past a toll gate at Patancheru I was pleased to note that two wheelers and more importantly bicycles were spared. I was pleased that I managed a century by reaching Patancheru but it was already 11:05am by that time. I was late for my appointment already. I decided against any breaks and began to ride steadily when Samrat joined me as he needs to go by Miyapur too. I bid him adieu at Hafizet junction and reached home by 11:45am around 45minutes late to my appointment. I was tired by immensely satisfied for managing a 113km ride in a reasonably good time.

For me riding with the group has been much fun. I get to meet lots of people and get to learn much from them while having fun cycling around in scenic locations not worrying about getting lost.

The new people I met on this ride were Karthik and Samrat. Karthik was on comeback trail after being away from cycling for 6months due to a fracture from a freak staircase accident. He comes from Jubilee hills area which means he must have completed well over 130 km by the time he reached home. What a come back ride! Samrat is another guy I met for first time on this ride. This guy apparently went to Enduro last year along with Sunil and others; by the way he rode on this ride it appears he is ready for this years edition too. Sudanshu rides at a steady pace. It seems he doesn’t mind any distance and rides on his own terms.

Sunil is a cool guy with a maniacal passion for cycling. Ed comes across as someone with a great sense of humor and more often than not his jokes are on himself. He is also one of the fittest. Matt is a kind hearted gentleman although he competes in Iron man contests and looks every bit of an Iron man. Shay, Shay baba as most of the guys at HBC call him is an amazing person; seems silent but is very witty. Looking at my hawk, he told me that he started out with a similar cycle and that it took him 5000 km and 1year to realize that he was serious about cycling. That was 21 years ago and he is 35 now. Its not even 21 months since I started; in fact not even an year. Amazing bunch of people I get to ride with. I am loving it!!

Here is the link to the photos:

http://picasaweb.google.com/hivenkat.d/CenturyRideToNarsapur20090801#

Photos From Sunil’s cam: http://picasaweb.google.com/HBCSunil/LoopAroundNarsapur?authkey=Gv1sRgCPH2lLmZiOKYIw&feat=email#

Tour de Hampi

2009-07-18T11:49:00.001+05:30

It is becoming quite a trend that the blogs are coming in almost after a week. I can’t blame it to laziness, but mostly to the overly burdened week’s work. Sneaking some time out for cycling is the only respite. And this is what us six vagabonds did last weekend, taking a hike to the ruins of Hampi, and cycling like crazy on those beautiful roads.

We all took Friday off from the office to make this happen. The idea to take a train and pack our bikes into it was too tedious and time-bounding, so instead we hiked in two Innova’s, that of Shay and Ed. The journey began in the wee hours of Friday as the jaded souls grunted the early morning wake-up call. But in a matter of few minutes, the cars were rolling on the roads with these wanderers and everyone shared a smile.

First pit-stop was at Raichur, taking the well needed breakfast and loo break. Having dosas at a road-side joint, we were served brown water! And we were amazed that people were actually drinking it! But the food worked wonders and the journey continued towards its destination. The road was good and early morning traffic was minimal. Only some delay happened because of some political hubbub that blocked the traffic for more than an hour. We finally reached Hampi around 2PM and were hungry like hell! Nothing could satiate us more than sitting atop a roof-top restaurant, sipping the unique lemon-ana (that is lemon-soda with a huge dip of mint) and some good looking food.

With filled bellies and replenished souls, the day’s first hike began to nearby ruins built atop a huge rock. It was more of a temple with its beams scattered across the massive rock formations. It was just beautiful, looking at those centuries old ruins in the backdrop of an overcast sky. We went berserk running on those rocks and climbing on them, well, not with our bikes, yet :). Shay baba was able to climb the highest of them all. Perched on the top of the rock and unfazed by the whirling winds, am sure he had a wonderful time catching a glimpse of the vast expanse from that wonderful rock. We clicked photos and absorbed all the beauty around till the guard came running in and also it started to rain. Time to get back to the rooms. Then just a lazy dinner and a cozy walk underneath the night lamps to wind up the day.

It was only the next day we were able to get our hands upon the local bikes. They were not in very good condition, but well, they were bikes, and that is all that mattered. For one reason, it was a great thing to rent the bikes there: everyone will have the same kind of bike, no fancy gears and no extra frills. Just plain simple bikes. Yes. It was a different experience altogether, taming those single-gear bikes. Even getting up a simple looking slope was a herculean task, alas, not for the pros, who climbed at ease. One just wondered – how the hell, man!

Then we headed towards the hidden waterfall. Am sure that not many would be aware about it, for it was far and the path to it was cobbled enough to attract a board-sign – not for the faint-hearted. But those rocks were just beautiful, like resting there for centuries, gathering occasional dust and waiting for the rain to submerge them with waters again. The place was pockmarked with astounding water caves. It was unbelievable as to how those kinds of shapes came into existence. My favorite was the love-struck water cave :)

Feeding the eyes with the beauty of those serene rocks, it was was now time for some lunch, and for that the team rode to the hugely famous Mango Tree restaurant. The moment we had landed there, that was the only name we heard. And tell you what, it stood for its hype. The food was great, the ambience was wonderful and the view was mesmerizing. Sitting there, pointing towards the huge rocky mountains in the backdrop, Matt said smilingly – I could easily hike for 3-4 days in those rocks. It would just be amazing! So true!

Now was time for more cycling and exploring the area. We biked around, stopping casually at the ruins and looking around. Biking was bliss, I must confess. The winds were cozy, the roads were smooth and the uphills were inviting. With our helmets, we were a sight for the locals, who waved and shouted at this small peloton. A wonderful part was the Turtle-boat ride in the river. For most of us, it was a unique experience, especially when the boat was made to spin at its axis at high speed as everything around fuzzed into one frame. Here’s a video shot of what am talking about:

Then we headed to a temple, the entry fees for which was Rs250/-, which we all unanimously agreed was too high. So we decided to crash in by climbing the back wall. That was wonderful and as we reached the top, the guards came running at us, but before they could do anything, we got what we climbed there for. Then jumped back on the bikes and cruised our way out as if nothing transpired :P

This was only till afternoon, so there was still loads of fun left in those ruins. The group then split into two, with Ed, Suni l and Shay going for fishing (yes, Ed was all prepared for everything!) and the remaining still finding solace on their bike saddles, in search for more ruins. They landed up in the main ruined remains of a huge fort that went on for like kilometers. Best part was climbing a leviathan stage that could have been the King’s sitting place in the courtroom. This was indeed mesmerizing as one could see the huge expanse of the broken down fort’s ruins spread in acres of area. And standing on that top, just felt good.

We then watched the beautiful sunset from a huge rock. Lounging around, we just let the whole things sink in into us .Then the day ended with a drive to the Hospet bazar, were we were able to find some good food, and ofcourse, some much need beer for the parched throats. Getting a little drunk, we guffawed and joked till the night ended and the morning knocked to pack our bags and head for home. It was a lo ng drive back home as Ed declared that we’ll be taking a different route back home. Only thing, it turned out to be a little more lengthy then the incoming trip, but still good.

Looking back, it was a wonderful trip, the best part being cycling around in the ruins, stopping at will and exploring the area, with no time bounds and no clock ticking. Silhouetted and and engraved in time, this picture speaks it all. Till next time, just ride!

All the pictures are shared at the link here.
And some videos from Sunil’s camera:

Just Ride!
Sandeep Pathak
Team HBC

The Time Trail Race.. and ‘The Morning After’ Ride.. :)

2009-07-10T08:11:00.001+05:30

I returned from the Saturday’s fantastic fun filled ride around 10pm, took a hot shower and watched the Tour de France Time trail race till 11pm before going to bed. What are those guys made of? How can they ride like that? Riding 15.5km in 19.xx minutes? Get them out of my sight. They are insulting the budding cyclist in me big-time and giving him a huge complex!

There was a message from the HussainSagar area chapter of HBC reminding me of the ride in the area. I thought, I would not be able to make it but deferred sending out a message to Habib till morning to see how the body and mind feels after a night’s rest.

The excitement of the ride I just came back from was so much that I found myself trying hard to get some sleep to give the tired body some rest. I found myself awake many instances throughout the night but refused to get out of bed. Finally, when I got out of bed, the time was 5am. I went through the routine of getting freshened up with the morning ablutions without making a decision about the ride. The body was feeling alright after a couple of stretches and around 5:30am I filled up a bottle of water and decided to go for it.

By the time I got down and started, it was 5:40am round about the same time I started for the last week’s ride. This time though, I did not want to message the group to wait for me as I was not sure how much I could push myself after an 80km ride less than 8 hour ago. If I got delayed, I would join them by riding in the opposite direction on the lap, I thought.

Started the Nokia sports tracker on my phone and started off without waiting for the GPS signal to catch-up. As, I began to pedal slowly in lower gears, I felt the legs responding nicely warmed up. With in no time, I began to increase the cadence and began to race. The traffic, I felt, was more than usual this Sunday morning compared last week’s. I think for some reason most of the people today were excited like me and could not sleep much. They were on the roads much before than usual.

10 minutes into the ride, I was passing Kukatpally. While I was riding in a hurry, I was watchful for any signs of fatigue from my body. In the rush to reach there on time, I do not want to ignore any signals it may be sending to slow down and relax. It felt alright and I continued cranking up decent pace. Now, I wanted to see if I can better my previous week’s 31kmph average speed. After all I watched a bit of time trail race the night before. :)

Carefully navigating through the morning traffic that is steadily building up, I reached Prasad’s Imax where the group was waiting. I checked the time and it was 33mins and 26secs. It’s exactly 39 seconds more than that of last week. That meant that I still managed an average of above 30kmph. Not bad considering all the apprehensions I had of stressing my body out with rides on consecutive days when I began.

After a couple of handshakes we are good to go. There were a couple of new riders this time as well. They were new at least to me. One was Ranga on his Trek3700 and another was Mr. Subba rao on his BSA Photon single speed. I called Ravi Kiran who has still not reached there and dragged him out of bed. Poor guy later told me that a support call kept him awake till 2am last night. But, he obliged my over enthusiastic call for him to be there and told me he would join the group by riding in the opposite direction. Another Ravi Kiran who was supposed to come could not make it as he had a flat tire which he noticed just before starting. At that hour of the day, there is little chance of finding a shop open to fix the flat. So he called in disappointed, that he could not join the ride.

So, we (Ramany, Jwala, Habib, Nimesh, Subbu, Ranga and I) started our gentle ride around the Lake. Habib wanted to try my Hawk and I rode his single speed MTB. The skies were overcast and pleasant as we completed a lap and stopped to chat for a while. We decided to ride another lap around the lake and this time I traded my hawk for Ranga’s Trek3700. We rode at gentle pace and stopped for a few photographs from the ramp nearing the end of the lap. Nimesh who rode on without noticing that the group stopped noticing that his Cannondale F8 had a flat back tire and was waiting for us at the starting point.

Ramany and Jwala left homebound towards Sec’bad while Habib, Ravi, Nimesh and Subbu went out to find a shop to get the flat tire fixed. Luckily there was a shop that Habib knew which was close to Imax and we walked there. While, the guy was mending the flat, I could not stop myself from indulging in a sumptuous breakfast. Ravi, Subbu and I had a nice breakfast on at a roadside eatery and Nimesh joined us later. We sat there eating as had a couple of ‘Say Bajji’ moments captured on my camera. As we sat there eating, Habib noticed my bald head for the first time and found it amusing enough to take a few close-up snaps of it. :)

After refueling with the breakfast, we set out homewards. Habib parted ways at lakadi-ka-phool area. Subbu and Nimesh gave, Ravi and I, company till halfway as we headed towards Banjara hills road#1 area so that we can take the exhilarating downhill beside Taj Krishna. That meant we had to handle a steady climb to reach there first. The excitement of the downhill was worth the effort. For a few seconds of heady rush, toiling for many minutes climbing might sound mad for a few but if you try it, you will understand that only a smooth downhill can give us such a high!!

Once we had that shot of adrenaline, I bid adieu to Ravi and headed homewards towards Miyapur and reached there by 9:45am. This 60km ride following the exciting 80km ride the evening before meant that I have covered about 140km from 3pm on Saturday till 10am on Sunday with a bit of excited half sleep thrown in between. Not that great. But not that bad either. I can think of multiday rides (no I am not thinking of Tour de France.. he he..) if I keep going at this rate. Joining HBC has opened up new avenues for me and many..

Here is the link to the photos:
http://picasaweb.google.com/hivenkat.d/HussainSagarRide20090705#

We Just Need An Excuse To Ride (July 4th Independence ride)

2009-07-10T07:48:00.001+05:30

We just need an excuse to ride. And when fabulous hosts like Ed and Matt send out an invitation to have fun to celebrate the independence of their home land, what more of an excuse do we need? None. So, we rode and had fun. Loads and loads of it!! FUN! FUN!! FUN!!! It was simply one the best rides I ever had in my short cycling life so far.

The plan was to do a 50km ride that ends on top of a hill with a view where we would have barbeque dinner party and some fireworks to end the day in style. The ride was broken up into two parts. One ride of 50km and another shorter version of about 17km. We would start at 3pm at Gachibowli stadium and do about 33km to return to the same place by 5pm where the rest of the folks who signed up for the shorter ride would join us. Then all of us can ride for about another 17km to end on top of the hill to party. Then ride back home when we decided to call it a day.

We met up at Gachibowli stadium at 3pm. Ten of us (Sunil, Satish, Sandy, Ankit, Maddy, Sudanshu, Kiran, Krishna, Shay and myself) started out on the ride which was lead by Shay. When we were denied entrance into HCU through which the initial trail was to pass, Shay led us towards Lingampally on another trail. He always seems to have more than one alternative route up his sleeve and seem to know more places around Hyderabad than any of us including locals.

There was a nice cloud cover as we rode into an off-road trail. The trail was not easy for a road bike but my trustworthy companion, Hero Hawk, was managing alright. The trail was beautiful with a railway track on one side and a vast expanse of land on the other. As we rode on we reached a portion of outer ring road where we were supposed to find a railway crossing. We stopped there while Shay called up Ed for directions. There were steps and bit of ramp like structure there where Shay and others did some stunts with their MTBs. I was content with taking pictures as they had fun going up and down the steps. No way was I going to put my hawk through such pain. :)

With the guys satisfied with the stunts, we moved ahead to find the rail crossing and reach the other side of the ring road. At this point, Ed and Matt joined us. I am not sure how old they are but they must be on the wrong side of the forties or the right side of the fifties. It is hard to believe that when you look at the childlike enthusiasm they exude and the passion they have for cycling. They are about the fittest guys around too. I learnt that Matt competes in Iron man contests which involves 90km of cycling, 40km of running and 5km of swimming all at one go. Phew!! Iron Man!! No wonder he looked like one.

We rode up to a completed portion of road where Shay taught us some technical stuff on how to do a circular motion drafting(?). The rest of the guys formed a couple of lines and tried the drafting thing while I stayed at the end of a line acting like trying and was taking pictures. I didn’t get a thing including the name :)

The completed portion of the road ended abruptly and we rode a bit of downhill to reach a small country road that goes through a village. At this point, one of the riders, Kiran gave up as he was tiring having taken up cycling again after a long time. I guess he returned home from there.

The ride through the country side was beautiful with the water filled fields being ploughed to get them ready for the next crop. The winding roads surrounded by greenery had some pothole portions that were strictly for MTBs. I had to put my photography aside for a while and ride carefully if I were to go through it unscathed. I did just that and we reached better roads which awakened the racing instincts of the guys as they rode past each other like men possessed.

We reached the Gachibowli stadium around 5:15pm where Deena and his nine year old Daughter Avani were waiting along with Atanu and Sakhi. These were the entrants for the shorter version of the ride. Avani the nine year old daughter of Deena is getting back to cycling after almost a gap of one year. I gathered that she used to cycle on a 10 mile (25km approx) organized circuit in Atlanta, Georgia where they were earlier put up. This angel looking little girl is one gritty kid as I came know by the way she handled the ride. Sakhi is a first time rider who came to know about Hyderabad Cycling Club from one of her college mates and fellow HBC member Satish. She decided to give it a try and joined us on the ride today. Atanu was also returning to cycling after a long time as well and is joined by his kid Rudy and wife who reached the destination on their car.

This time we started off around 5:35pm and rode through HCU (we went through a smaller gate where unlike at the main entrance, they let us through with a smile). Once into HCU, some of us stopped by the HCU canteen to refill our water bottles. Replenished, we rode ahead through the serene roads of the university. Ankit decided to have a bit of fun challenging Shay for a race to the back gate of the university. With in no time they zoomed past us as Sandy, Sunil and myself watched amused. For the first 400m or so Shay trailed Ankit and pushed past him with ease to beat him hands down. We found them cooling their heels at the out gate of the university by the time we reached there.

We forged ahead past Deena and others and reached Khanapur where we decided to wait for them. The curious kids at the junction began to interview Ed while Atanu provided the translation services free of cost. We waited for around 5mins for Deena and Avani to arrive along with Matt who gave them company.

From there, we took the road towards Osmansagar and took a diversion to climb the hill where Hyderabad Metro Water Works was setup. The climb up the hill was not easy. The gritty kid that Avani is, she was attacking the climb under her father’s direction quite admirably pedaling in lower gears. We were nearly half way through when we saw Shay coming down hill for a second round of uphill ride. He was followed by Sunil, Maddy and Ankit. “These are a bunch of seriously crazy people” I told myself.

But once I reached the top, I found myself asking Sandy if he is game for another round of uphill. He was game for it and we went downhill. The distance must be around 1500 meters or so. The downhill ride was exhilarating to say the least. It was a heady adrenaline rush as we zoomed down hill rocketing down the curving road. That feeling alone was worth taking the pain of the climb a couple more times. And Sunil, Maddy and Ankit actually did that too. They climbed it three times while Sandy and myself settled for a couple of times. By that time Avani has reached the top having conquered the hill. What more inspiration do we need than a nine year old riding like that.

Barbeque grill was getting readied for the hotdogs and chips along with drinks were set out for all of us to indulge in. A Bose portable was entertaining us with quality music while DJ Ed played some numbers we never heard quizzing us who the singer was with every changing number. To his great disappointment, he never found a soul who could answer him right. I poured myself some coke and some of the guys poured it to the Old Monk and downed him. :) Cold Bacardi breezers of various flavors were on the offer and the guys enjoyed them along with the cold evening breeze on the hill. We enjoyed the hotdogs and baked beans that were fixed by Matt as the budding chef Ankit helped him like a diligent apprentice. After all the fun we had with a song and dance, we posed for a group photograph and Ed lit up the fireworks. It was one hell of a party with each and every soul there having a time of his life. Wow!! What an excuse for a ride it turned out to be. Thanks to the fabulous hosts and organizers Ed and Matt.

That was not the end of the fun yet!! Only half of it!! Now for the return journey. Some including Avani took the ride back home in Atanu’s and Matt’s car while the rest of us rode our bicycles back. It was around 8:45pm and dark. A few of us thankfully carried head lamps and tail lamps. We decided to take a shorter route from the other side of the hill which meant that we will go down hill on an unpaved rocky terrain.

When we got there, I was scared as if hell was right before my eyes although I can not see it properly in dark. :) It was the first time I ever went down a rocky hill like that and that too with my road bike. The angle felt like its almost 45 degrees downwards and with all the bumps, I was mentally preparing to fall and slide downhill with the bike resting on me. Thankfully I could avoid that scenario more than a couple of times by planting my feet down just in time. That was not the end of the plight though! There was more to come in terms of sandy path to be tackled with the thin tires with the visibility close to zero. I made sure that I was in the middle of the group and blinked like a million times to clear my eyes to see properly in whatever light the bikes in front of me are giving out.

After a couple of short false turns that ended in dead ends, Shay tuned his mental compass to work in the dark and lead us on the right path. We ended up at the start(or dead end if you look from a city perspective) of a four lane road that lead us towards the IT buildings of Gachibowli. Was my Hawk pleased to find solid ground under its feet again or what!! Poor thing went through so much pain today.

As we counted heads to make sure everyone made it safely out of the wilderness and began riding on the well paved road, it began to drizzle lightly, as if to cool us down. It felt like heaven with the cool breeze and the lightest of the drizzles kissing our faces as we moved easily on the smooth road.

At this point, Shay and Ed bid adieu and moved towards their home while rest of us forged ahead. The drizzle now became a steady rain and I packed up my cell in the plastic cover that I carried as a precaution to handle rain. This meant that we could enjoy cycling in rain for the last leg of the ride. For me its the last 15 km of the ride. At the main road of Gachibowli, Deena and I bid adieu to Sandy, Maddy, Ankit, Sunil, Krishna and rode toward the Stadium. We took the Chirec road to his place from where I can took the Miyapur road. I felt a bit of salty taste with the water from the face flowing down by the lips. I enjoyed riding in the rain thoroughly. It felt like a heavenly shower opened to cool us after a fun filled but hard ride.

I wonder who wrote the script for this ride!! Its a blockbuster in Bollywood style in every sense. It had everything including songs and dances (in the barbeque party)!! Awesome is the word.. We had everything in the ride.. Racing down the winding roads.. Beautiful Countryside ride.. Off-road trail.. Some technical drafting stuff.. Climbing hills.. Nice Barbeque party on a hill.. Off-road downhill.. Night riding in the dark.. and to top it up.. excellent ride in the rain.. What the hell more can you ask for??

A ride that I would cherish for a long time. What a group of people!!What an excuse for a ride!! And what a RIDE!!! Awesome FUN!!

Stats for me: 81km

Fun: A million TONNES!!

Here is the link to the photos!!

http://picasaweb.google.co.in/hivenkat.d/WeJustNeedAnExcuseToRide20090705#

4th July: Spirited Salutation to American Independence.

2009-07-07T14:44:00.002+05:30

It was a casual discussion with Satish, he had mentioned all about his weekend escapades to faraway places with the Hyderabad Bicycling Club. Immediately, I had enquired all about the early morning trips, the overnight trip to Anantgiri, and the mind boggling fitness levels of the members to the boundless levels of fun these guys have. Curious to test myself and also be a part of such a thrilling experience I had expressed my eagerness to be a part of such a ride. I didn’t know the day of my first ride with HBC would come so soon..

It was 4^th of July and HBC was celebrating the American Independence. It started with a power ride by the stalwarts of the group, smoothly sailing through the 50km scheduled ride at 3pm from the Gacchibowli stadium, I obviously was not a part of the ride, I had not even volunteered, who wants to wallow in self pity seeing such fit individuals soar past you in a jiffy and you are left alone pedaling in wilderness. A decision well taken, I was all set to ride with the entourage at 5pm for the casual 17.76km drive (America’s declaration of independence is dated 4^th July, 1776-so the symbolism). The guys were bang on time from their power ride, after a breather we were all set.

The weather was a blessing, the breeze so refreshing and the sun very understanding. We set out on the 15Km journey to Osman Sagar Lake via the life sciences institute crossing Gandipet. It was so beautiful, riding through the countryside, crossing agricultural fields, passing under the shadow of trees and being looked by the awe filled gaze of complete strangers. Just a couple of stoppages mid way for water and we were soon to hit the Osman Sagar Lake. I was hoping for us to stop but then it was the HBC I was riding with, we climbed uphill which to me looked like a no-man’s land, only to find that the hill culminated in a nice spot making us feel on top of the world, with a view worth a million bucks. The weather added to the picturesqueness, it was just lovely. There on the hill we already had Matt and his car loaded with loads of eateries, drinks and crackers. Parallelly, much to my consternation we had Shay, Sandy, Ankit, Sunil and others re-climbing the hill again, for that ‘rush’ as they put it.

We then, had the bicyclers at their best, with Matt taking charge of getting the sausages, baked beans and sandwiches ready for all of us. With drinks and chips already at our disposal, it was great to be sitting on the hill top after a hard workout. As it neared dark, the firecrackers were on full display followed by a couple of good Independence Day speeches by Matt and Ed. It was a perfect end to the picnic followed by some good music from Matt’s car.

Alas!! It was time to leave and tread back home. It was dark and I had no idea as to how we were going to get back with no clear cut route map and the scarcity of night lights. But we had Shay Baba as he is fondly called in the group, to lead the pack. The beginning of the journey was rather tough as we descended from the hill top taking a shorter route full of pebbles, sand and scrubs. The only time I heard concern was now when a few were worried about someone having a flat tire in the middle of nowhere. Scary thought!!. The route was slippery and needed utmost concentration to ride through that dark patch. Thanks to all the good guidance we were all out of it in no time, and what followed was our victory lap.

It started to drizzle and it seemed to make a perfect end to the perfect adventure. The drizzle soon turned into rain and the enjoyment trebled. Cycling back 10Km in the rain, was surely ‘the’ way to end my first trip with Team HBC. I thoroughly enjoyed my experience with the team, a special thank you to Shay for the Cycle which was a joy to ride, Satish for the motivation and for putting everything in place and not to forget Sunil, for his helmet with the flickering red light which gave me the confidence of not being lost:) :). Thank You, guys.

Team HBC Rocks..Cheers.

->Sakhee.

2 days and Anantagiri!

2009-07-06T07:19:00.028+05:30

"Everyone is ON for Anantagiri, where the hell am i gonna borrow a bike from?” Thanks to Abhiuday, who returned after a late night movie @2AM (u can guess with whom :P), i finally got the wheels for the trip.. Few adjustments on the bike, filling up the bottles with Gangajal (water, lemon, salt & honey), packing few clothes, i reached Gachibowli at 4:58AM (thought Shay would be proud to see me before time)

“But where is Shay… whers Sunil…Ed…Matt…& others?, did they leave already… did i again missed them by a whisker..” Checked up with Shay & Sunil they were still enroute to Gachibowli… I was the 1st Man in :) , so didn’t have to worry about giving any Paneer-Dosa treats :P

“Matt & Shilpa all smiles..”

“Satish & Maddy half asleep…”

OK…so everyone started to reach the venue, some alone.. some in groups.. some with artistic bikes..& some fully loaded with all the stuff for the trip. Then came our 2 wagon cars. We put all our bags in the cars and only carried some energy bars & water with us. Thanks to our friends in the cars, who stopped after every few kilometers to help us with water, etc., our riding was a lot comforting. It was also great to meet & ride along with some new faces on this trip. The group was full with excitement and raring to go.

Shay to photographer “we wait no more for the Sun”

Once Shay baba said “Chalo..”, there was no stopping..we began our journey with a photo shoot done by a press photographer and drifted into the HCU campus. Exiting from the back gate of the University we went on to take the familiar Shankarapally route. With few stops in b/w to regroup, we reached the railway crossing.. we could hear the sound of the coming train but we kept on going, nothing can stop these riders on bikes. We took a trail which passed under the railtrack and got to the other side on the highway. Another 5min & we reached the Dosa stall.

Ed baba & Ek-da-swami enjoying their 2nd of the day!

It was perfect timing for breakfast for people like me who didn’t have anything before the ride. By d way Ed baba, Sunil & few others who already had a breakfast @home were happily enjoying another one :P. Who wouldn’t, after all, it was Hot Dosas & Idlys with even Hotter Chatneysss.. Some work on the bikes and filling some air in tires it was already 8am. But with an overcast sky there still was no sign of the Sun. It was going to be a perfect weather for a perfect ride.

Sunil & myself: “lets see who can eat more”

As we moved for the next leg of the trip, the weather got little warmer. Still it was pleasant to ride as there was that cool breeze all along. Soon we were up against some good climbs & strong winds. Just when it was turning difficult to keep balance & momentum against the wind coming from the right, Shay baba took out yet another masterpiece from his repertoire of riding techniques. He showed us how to draft against a sideways current – all riders in a line but with each rider a little to the left & a lot closer to the rider ahead.

….common Sanju, you can fill it :)

It was science at its artistic best - 8 riders staying close and covering one side of the road, with the leading rider breaking the wind for the riders behind. Soon the tired rider would go in the end and the next in line will lead the pack. Its just wonderful, every time we ride with any of the trio – Ed, Matt & Shay, we get to learn so much.

…….tired but smiling riders!

Pit Stop Number 2: fighting the climbs & the winds, we reached the town of Vikarabad. It was time to take rest in the shade and to quench our thirst. A local shop provided us all that – shade, bottled water, Cokes & 7ups, and ya I remember somebody eating Desi Ghee sweets & complaining of his weight :P

Ok….more smiling riders!

Soon we began the last leg of our onward ride… to Deccan Trails in Anantagiri. Everybody was fresh after the break & exiting from Vikarabad we all picked up pace. Going down the flyover Ed picked up pace & stormed ahead, soon came Matt (like a fighter jet out of nowhere) ... before you hear him coming he is already 10metres ahead of you. Just when you manage to console yourself, comes Shay … says Hi & before you answer him he is already catching up with the other 2 flyers. For some of us like me & Sunil it was only a catching up game now.

in the trails!

Finally, we reached the Deccan trails. A nice camping location away from all the noises of the highway. After being greeted with some cool Jaljeera type desi energiser we were offered a nice north Indian lunch, to which we readily complied, all in the company of that hyper-excited Turkey!

Matt … he never looks tired, does he?

With heavily loaded stomachs, sleep was inevitable for most of us. While some went to sleep, Ed challenged us with bow & arrow, with the losers having to drink beer every time they loose. After 3rounds of 3shots each, it was a 3way tie b/w Sunil, Ed & me. Finally, Ed said something in Spanish (enough to break our concentration), God knows what and he got another one right & took the championship from us. Yet another bottoms up for me & Sunil :(

practicing for the bull’s eye!

comfort on that hanging bed!

lets hide this one… from Spanish babes!

…..zzzzzzz……ssssss…….. wakeup guys time for the evening trek. Ya we had that too in the nearby forest. It was a relaxing walk through the wilderness & much needed one for Ed, after he got frightened by a Snake (or was that a Rat :P) in his tent. As per our expectations we did not see any tigers, deers or elephants, although some of us did hear a bear following us all the while. Ok… we did see some peahens, a peacock & 2 bats. While the dinner was getting ready we lied down on our backs to face the night sky above and take some good lessons about the constellations, meteors & satellites, from our very own Professor of Astronomy (Dr. Ed). Although the sky wasn’t all that clear, we managed to spot few constellations, shooting stars and a couple of Geosynchronous satellites. After a nice dinner, a bit of bonfire & then back to our tents.

We r going for the trek Ed, u can leave the bike!

Sometimes when you are about to say ‘wow what a day it was…’ you get to share the tent with Sunil (that’s life i guess). Jokes apart he is always a nice buddy to have & for a change he wasn’t discussing girls :P. Before the strong wind on top of the hill, could blow us with our tents, we fell fast asleep. Early next morning we packed our breakfast, loaded all luggage in Ed’s car and started on time.

Matt setting the right pace for everyone…

Broad road… Shay letting us go in 2 files!

It was mostly down slope this time and even the tail wind helped us. Shay & Matt again guided us beautifully. They set the pace initially and all of us drafted pretty close to each other, taking turns to lead the pack. On the way it was some great camera work done by Ed & Tushar.

Tushar, with another of his lens work.

& a gr8 shot by Ed from top of the car!

We covered the entire return journey in quick time and reached Hyderabad well before noon. On our way back we reached the Osman Sagar dam. Some of us jumped over the wall & went down to chill out in the cool waters of the picturesque lake. While others choose to relax by the wall. After a breather we started off again for the final time.

Crossing Osman Sagar

An amazing trip was coming to an end and as we were good bye-ing each other everyone was unanimous: ‘ye dil maange more..’

Just Ride!

Ankit (Team HBC)

We Never Get Lost, We Only Find New Trails.. :)

2009-06-20T16:35:00.008+05:30

“We never get lost.. We only find new trails..” This sums up the HBC philosophy as well as our ride today. We set out to explore the Medak road area and we did just that. Explore. Explored new paths we have never been before and thoroughly enjoyed the process of discovery.

We met up(Satish, Shobith, Sandeep, Shay and I) at Dr. Reddy’s labs gate 1km from the Miyapur x roads at 7am and set out towards Bachupally where Krish joined us. Shobith dropped off even before we reached Bachupally as he apparently received a call that needed him home immediately. By the time the rest of us reached Bachupally junction, Krish was working hard on his mini-foot up to get the tire pressure on his back wheel right. We moved on when he is done and took a left a couple kilometers further. This took us through a village with green fields alongside the road.

We stopped for our first pit stop after crossing the village and Krish worked his charm on his mini-foot pump to get the air pressure on Sateesh’s bike tires. The Sun was at his mighty brilliant best and looked adamant on giving us a proper tan. We thought, may be starting early would help a bit. We moved further to reach Medak road.

The Medak road was a god send with trees on both sides of the road offering us ample shade as we rode along. We had to take left somewhere, according to our ride leader Shay, that would take us back to the starting point and making the trip around 30kms. He tried looking up in the maps on his iPhone but apparently the GPS reception was not that great. So, we resorted to relying on human directions instead and asked an auto-driver for directions. He told us to take the left there and take another left in the first village we come across. That should take us to the tarting point in around 10km.

But as we rode along, we blissfully missed taking left in the first village and rode right alongside the village enjoying the scenic beauty around. Ten minutes down the line we realized that we might have missed the road we have to take and asked another gentleman (Lets call him Mr.Maps for his proficiency at the craft of giving directions) for directions. He told us to go back and take right to reach Miyapur which would be 7km. We did not feel like turning back and asked him where would we end up if we were to go along the same route. He said that we could reach Patancheru which is 15km from there. We preferred to take that route much to the bemusement of the guy. He must be wondering what kind of freaks would prefer a route that is more than double the shortest route available.

We rode for almost 5-6km to reach a point where our road met another. We stopped to ask a group of teenagers lazing around in the shade of the tree for directions. They told that Patancheru is 16km from there. We figured that it would be around 10km by what Mr.Maps told us. But as it turned out, 15(the distance that Mr.Maps told it would be) – 5km (the distance we travelled so far) =16km (the distance the kids and the milestone there told us). Good thing that Mr.Maps does not work for Google maps. ;)

We decided to move on and the route towards Patancheru was surreal with the black road and the greenery around shining bright in the morning sun. With a vigor only such a fantastic setting can provide, we surged forward and sprinted for a while to reach a couple of huge mango trees. We stopped there for the shade it offered and sat down to drink some water and eat some of resins, dates that Shay and Krish offered. There was a small pond below the trees as well and it was a beautiful setting.

We were in a mood to lay down right there under those trees and doze off till evening. Krish even tried that for a couple of minutes while Sandeep seriously contemplated calling his friends to come along with some chilled beer so that all can chill out there till evening. :)

After spending almost five minutes in the intoxicating shade of those trees, we moved on and resumed our ride. We came across a couple of patches of Sunflower fields alongside the trail and the scene was out of the world. I hurriedly clicked a couple of snaps but those hardly do justice to the real beauty there. How, I wish my eyes can capture all the beauty along the trail that I can directly upload to Picasa to share will all of you. :)

From there we passed through Bommankunta, and Beeramguda to reach Lingampally. At Lingampally Shay parted ways to reach his home while the rest of us rode towards Miyapur and parted ways there.

All in all it was a fantastic ride in the company of fantastic guys exploring a new trail. The trail itself was an intoxicating and surreal setting for the ride.

Thanks guys for the company you gave on the ride. It was a fabulous ride. Here is the link for the photos:

http://picasaweb.google.co.in/hivenkat.d/WeNeverGetLostWeOnlyFindNewTrails20090620#

--
Venky
Team HBC

Aliens Space station ride

2009-06-13T10:23:00.003+05:30

“Loose control…loose control…” went off the alarm on my cellphone at 5:00 in the morning. It took me a while to come to my senses. “Oh yeah…I have my maiden HBC ride today”. Less than an hour later, I was on the saddle of my Firefox Target, riding down towards Kothaguda. As I was enjoying the fresh morning breeze hitting my face, I heard a voice – “are you coming for the ride?”

“hi…yeah…the HBC ride”

“yeah we’re also going there. Hi, I’m Sunil”

That was my very first encounter with HBC. Soon I realized there’s one more guy following him – Satish. We all made it to the stadium well in time, with a few joining us enroute and the rest meeting us at the ‘meetup’ point. A couple of Gary Fishers, a few Treks, couple of Targets, a Hercules and 9 riders on the saddles started the ride towards HCU gate.

Riding through the university we took some muddy short-cuts to the rear gate of the university. Early monsoon glory could be seen everywhere. The soil was no more dry and barren. The leaves looked as if they just had their ablution before the early morning pooja. Scattered clouds in the sky were telling the story of last night downpour. It was a beautiful day to ride. Soon we found ourselves off-roading (I know that’s not even a word but what the heck…) on a trail behind the “Alien’s space station-I”. No, it is not the India call-center of NASA. It is just a residential community…yes, for humans. Off road riding was real fun. Few of us decided to get a little more adventurous started sprinting on the trail. High speed off-roading is fun!

The trail runs parallel to the railway track for quite sometime. I was immediately reminded of “mere sapno ki rani” from Aradhana. Remember Rajesh Khanna with his mouth organ on an open jeep? The difference is that today, it was a goods train running on those tracks and there was no Sharmila Tagore peeping stealthily from behind a book. But then again, I am no Rajesh Khanna.

A rain probably would have made this trip even better. Nothing like riding through the rain. But the clouds didn’t co-operate. Never mind, if the skies don’t pour, we know how to lift up water off the ground. Speeding your way through the waterlogged roads under the railway bridge would do for now. Every soul got drenched in the muddy water. Rains – may be some other time.

Riding through Lingampally, we reached the University where we stopped for a ‘bye-bye-see-you-again-nice-meeting-you’ chat.

The ride was fun and I being on my maiden ride with HBC, really enjoyed it. This route was new for me and anything undiscovered is always more than welcome. That’s the spirit of adventure I believe.

Some moments shared here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/trulyani/HBC#

Animesh
Team HBC

THE 6 LAKES MIYAPUR RIDE

2009-06-06T10:13:00.001+05:30

The sweltering summer is in it’s final stages with the sporadic bursts of rain rendering the sun god incapacitated.And this can mean only one thing for the adrenaline filled nomads that are the HBC riders…longer rides,exploring further than ever before and even more fun.It was all that and more this Saturday.

We left Gachibowli stadium at around 6:30 after Shay showed us a couple of warm up exercises to stretch our muscles.After following the main road till Lingampally we took a diversion to a narrow street with rows of houses on either sides.We were enjoying the slow lazy ride when the street came to an abrupt end and this beautiful panorama of the countryside lay before us.This was the first of the many pit-stops that we would be making that day.It gave us a chance to soak in the nature’s bounty that was all around.As we moved further and further away from civilization,the trail grew more and more wild.One particular segment especially was a huge hit with the group.It involved a pretty steep slope in the middle of nowhere.We also had the first fall of the trip here.You can be a part of the excitement in these videos.

After everyone had satisfied himself going up and down this slope like a zillion times,we continued on to the next leg of our exploration,which took us to a nice little cove beside a lake which looked as though no human had ever set foot before.Had to spend quite a lot of time here as yours truly and Prasad got flats.For a place which had hitherto been un trodden by human feet,we sure left a lot of cycle tread marks which am sure will remain there for a long long time.. made me feel like Neil Armstrong on the moon ;)

We bid adieu to this paradise after the flats were mended and proceeded towards a place called Ameenpur,navigating through some treacherous rocky terrain like the ones in the pic below.Well,mostly navigating..some segments required the riders to become the beasts of burden,carrying the burden of their rides.. :)..

Shay then led us towards Chanda Nagar where we rode along the railway track.It was great fun trying to race with the MMTS and watch the bemused faces of the passengers as they saw these nutcases racing along in a single file in the hot sun.Finally we parted ways near madinaguda.You can see the whole ride in pics here

Well,that’s that folks..The rides just keep getting better and better.The off road trail was by far the best that I’ve been in my short time with the group so far.As Shay had promised before the ride,we did lose our way many times,but it did open up even more avenues to explore..and the spirit in the group was amazing..as a very famous person has rightly said…”IT’S NOT ABOUT THE BIKE”…!!!

Cheers

P.S Sorry for the delay in the blog..some technical problems..

Satish Ravindran

Individual Time Trial Results

2009-05-17T13:07:00.001+05:30

We had our first official Individual Time Trial (ITT) today. We had two new members joining today, who took the first two places. Here are the results:

We definitely could have used more volunteers as marshals and time keepers. Unfortunately 4 out of the 15 riders lost their way, even though there were arrow signs at the side of the road and on the road, but it wasn’t easy to spot them. And the time keeper which was a friend of the Cluburb.com reporter.

And we should have coordinated this better with the university, as the guards did not let the time keeper go inside from the main gate, and also stopped some of the riders from entering through the back gate during the race.

We will definitely learn from that for the next races. For getting more marshals we will need your help –get your friends, family and colleague to come and watch the race and cheer you. They can help us by standing in different junctions and directing people, in keeping the time and providing information to the riders.

As we said, this is just an initial benchmark for each one. It is a good way to find how you got improved from race to race.

We will conduct the next race in Mid June, and will follow it by the Duathlon in July. We are still looking for the best date for the Duathlon in coordination with the Hyderabad Marathon that is scheduled in August. The race will probably be: run 2km – cycle 20km –run 5km. So keep on training!

Just Ride!

Individual Time Trial on coming Sunday

2009-05-13T23:43:00.001+05:30

On the coming Sunday, we will conduct our first Individual Time Trial race. This will be a fun event, no prizes this time, but a lot of excitement. This is a race of each one of you against himself and the clock, trying to get the best of yourself. Treat this as a first benchmark, which you will try to improve along time. So don't hesitate to participate, even if you think you are not in shape - it will just make it easier for you to break your personal record the next time!

It is not too hard, only 10KM on a flat road, unlike this L’Alpe d’Huez from the Tour de France:

It is recommend to read a little bit about time trials, wikipedia is a good starting point, and it will even give you tips about the tactics for the race.

We have marked the race course today, and you can see the map here. You can practice on the course and learn it during the weekend.
I have drafted the race rules, make sure you read them before the race. I have followed the UCI rules book, plus the points system that our fellow riders in the Bangalore Biking Club have recently created (following the Formula1 ranking system). This may still change in the future if we think we will find better ways to do it. The goal is to have a system that will allow us to rank the best riders of the year, according to the sum of races they participated in and their success in each race.

We are looking for volunteers, to help as marshals along the course, as time keepers at the start and finish line, and as photographers. If you want to volunteer, please RSVP yes with a comment: volunteer.

Please RSVP to the meeting: We really want to know how many people are coming, in advance. This will help us communicate to the media and get better exposure, as well as help us organize the race better. If we will have more than 20 participants, we will probably be able to get some nice surprise from a sponsor.

Looking forward to seeing you all on Sunday at 6:30 - as participants, volunteers or audience - feel free to invite your friends, family and work colleagues!

Just Ride!

Time-Trial Race

2009-05-13T16:46:00.001+05:30

I’ve always wondered how fast would I go on a bike, panting, sweating and ignoring that burning pain in the legs. I guess things will go in slow motion in those moments. Thoughts reverberating back and froth as the clock ticks away.

Riding with the club for more than half a year now, I’ve seen changes all around. From my faintly shaping leg muscles, to the steadying breath on those steep up-hills, scaling distances of more that 100Kms and challenging speeds while covering 50kms in less than two hours flat!

Coming Sunday, the Time-Trial Race is a unique opportunity to clock oneself. There are always numerous world records around, but creating a record, a standard for the self, by the self, is always motivating. And the best part is that it gives the opportunity to surprise oneself for a change.

Nothing fancy about the race, just a conclave of some like minded people eager to know their current limits on a bike. ‘How fast can I go? Should I speed up right from the beginning? A top gear all the way? What if another fellow rider who started one minute after me just passed me?’ These and many more of such inevitable questions pop up in such a trial. And strange and obvious they may sound, they tell a whole lot of story, a fun packed one.

For me, it was an eye-opening experience in one of the short-trials in our weekday runs. Am cent-percent sure that most of us will feel the same after this ultimate time-trial race to be held on this Sunday. And yes, make sure to stretch your legs before the race, you always want to oil and ease up the engine before giving it full throttle!

Race Venue: Hyderabad Central University, Main Gate
Date: 17th May 2009 (Sunday)
Start Time: 6:30AM
http://www.meetup.com/HyderabadBicyclingClub/calendar/10265124/

Just Ride!
Sandeep Pathak
Team HBC

Scaling the Sagar

2009-05-03T13:07:00.001+05:30

Heat has been drying up the fluids everywhere. The lakes that were, are now just a barren land with a rocky surface having a board displaying the message - “There are crocodiles in this water, swimming is strictly prohibited”. A smile is inevitable at the sight of this, but one rather gasps and pulls out a bottle of water and glugs to satiate that unquenchable thirst.

But one thing that refuses to dry up is the indomitable spirit of the HBC riders as they wade their way even in such a heat, pedaling away to heart’s content.

Yesterday, 10 HBC riders took the mammoth task of scaling the distance to Nagarjuna Sagar Dam. With innumerable rides of 100+ Kms under their belt, this was no big task, but riding in this heat for more than 60-70Kms is also a monumental effort. So, the riders decided to hitch a hike till midway and then ride their way to the dam, a sane decision that was. Initial plan was to start off at 4:00AM but some delays are just inevitable. Packed in three cars, they started off early in the morning at 4:30AM at the Kothaguda junction, when most of the souls are happily sleeping in their cozy beds.

Working in an office, I’ve often heard the rant that most of the people haven’t seen a sunrise in ages, thanks to their sedentary lifestyles and packed workload. But here in HBC, life begins much before dawn breaks. As the riders rode in their cars, golden streaks of sunlight broke from the corner of the horizon, as if welcoming these cyclists and guiding them on their way. Picturesque that sight is and can never be caught on a camera. The gushing wind from the rolled down windows was soothing and some riders took this opportunity to get some much needed rest.

The cars stopped midway at the Sai Baba temple and the riders started unpacking their bikes. Some glitches, some fix-up’s and some quick tests later, they all were ready to set off on their journey of ~80Kms. Even though it was barely 8:00AM, the sun was already harsh enough, but thanks to the persistent winds, things were not that bad. All the riders lined up on the ground to do some stretching exercises to shake up their slumber.

The three cars then transformed into side-wagons, laden with all the food and water which these rider would need in the ride. Satish and myself took the lead in Matt’s car with the ration, chasing the cyclists as they constantly clocked 35-40Kmph. Even on sitting in the comfort of the car, we could feel the scorching heat, perspiring, as the AC soon became ineffective. It was a whole different experience sitting in the car and following these riders as one wondered as to what comes upon these cyclists as they constantly shrugged off all such discomfort and kept on pedaling.

Maddy’s bike showed some problems. "Always choose the best pony!”, guffawed Matt, switching his bike with Maddy’s, which was a big respite for him. People on the roads were perplexed at the site of this peloton and slowed down their vehicles to follow them, trying to understand who are these nutcases. These video captures the essence of cycling, the yawning roads and happy cyclists.

HBC Cyclists riding their way to Nagarjuna Sagar Dam

The mercury rose by the minute, scaling upto 47 degrees Celsius. The riders stopped often, to get some nourishments, and better, soak their bodies with water at places where they could find some bore-well or a dripping tap. Rations were also depleting as fast as the remaining kilometers. The last pit-stop was when the mile-stone read another 7kms to go. Maddy at this time got off his bike and took some refuge in the side-wagon as Satish took took this opportunity to try his hands on Matt’s bike and scale the final uphill.

Ed had refused to stop in the last leg and reached the dam first as the remaining riders slowly and gradually trickled in. After a small rest, they decided to ride off to the Ferry Station near the dam, which was another few kilometers away. But this last stretch was both a steep downhill and uphill ride. Crossing the dam, here is a beautiful video of the riders as Satish lead the charge on foot, running abreast with these zipping cyclists:

HBC cyclists crossing the bridge with Nagarjuna Sagar dam in the background

An hour later, in the shade of the trees in the car parking, the riders opened chilled beers and soaked their parched throats. A good, sumptuous protein-rich meal at this point just added to the contentment, as all smiled and shared their moments from the ride. Simple laws of cycling were followed - ‘Ride hard, Eat hard’.

Then the final car-ride to the beautiful Ethipothalla waterfalls in the lush green wilderness of a no-man’s land. The natural beauty of the falling water enticed these awestruck cyclists to bare it all and take a plunge in those soothing waters. And soothing it was, cooling down the bodies of these ‘kids’ as they splashed in the water.

It was at this point, our very own Shay Baba, in his heartfelt generosity, gave blessings to his disciples :)

Some of the captured moments in the camera are shared here: (link to the online album)

Looking back in retrospect, one just firmly believes in the core of this all, that most people fail to understand and miss out the whole beauty - “Its not about the bike”
Just Ride!
Sandeep Pathak
Team HBC

News galore

2009-04-28T11:14:00.001+05:30

These are the winds of change, as HBC has been making news lately, both in print and TV media. Since the word got out about the existence of the club, it has spread like a wildfire and hundreds of new cycling enthusiasts have joined the club. Almost every week we are seeing that the club and its members are in the news.

Cycling, both as a sport and alternate means of travel, is getting rightly acknowledged by these articles, and that is one of HBC’s prime aim.

Here are some of the recent mentions:

Of Distinct Expressions (ODE)
This magazine had a full page article covering the existence of the club, its goals and members. A good and neat read that summarizes the club activities in a terse one-pager.

Eenadu
The local Telugu daily had a cover story about the club, titled “Cycle Yathraku… Chalo Chalo!”, reading which, there was a deluge of new avid cyclists joining the club and the member count soaring by more than 100 members in just a couple of days! A rough translation of the text is already posted in the blog here.

Deccan Chronicle
The English daily’s primary supplement, Hyderabad Chronicle, had an article covering the members of the club on its front page on 28th April 2009

DNA – Mumbai Edition
An article covering the current bicycling trends in the country, featured our official blog amidst other club names. This shows that our presence is slowly and gradually being felt as we get counted in the major bicycling communities in the country!
www.cluburb.com
The site had a cover article about the club, titled “Ride with the wind”. A short and nice read inviting the cycling enthusiasts to join this wonderful cycling revolution.

Many more are in the offing, so stay tuned for more such news!

Just Ride!
Sandeep Pathak
Team HBC

HBC shines at TSD Rally!

2009-04-26T21:39:00.002+05:30

Zipping wheels
Scorching tarmac,
Riders four
A winning pack!

Occasional gasps
Momentary ‘Oh’s’,
Gallantry cheers
And Wishful smiles!

This was different, for there were no bicycles this time. But still we rode, as a team, as HBC, together. Somewhere, the chord kept on reverberating on the same tune, echoing the mantra to which we all now firmly believe: Just Ride!

HBC teams this time went off the saddle and took commands of a four wheel drive, racing against time, speed and distance, to add a new experience to their repertoire. They participated in the Time, Speed and Distance Rally, a four-wheel vehicle rally, being held at the Novotel Hotel, at the Hyderabad Airport, conducted by the Andhra Pradesh Motor Sports Corporation (APMSC). For the records, all the HBC participants were novices, but they found a blissful similarity in the form of empty roads and moving wheels. And that is all that matters for these vagabonds.

Three teams participated, namely Ed, Juli, Shay and Efrat forming the first team; Ankit, Sunil, Satish and Sandeep forming the second; and Manish with his family forming the final HBC team. A total of fourteen teams participated in this rally, one of its unique kind to be held in Hyderabad.

The rally started at around 10AM, with each team being flagged off at a gap of 2 minutes. What held the key in this race was to maintain the speed and time over a given distance to as much accuracy as possible. Initially there was a chaos as none knew the secret art of handling such timelines. But soon, common sense took over and the deft riders found themselves at ease with the timings.

Here is a short video of the kind of mood that prevailed amongst the riders in the beginning:

HBC riders at the beginning of the TSD rally

Satish and Sunil did a fantastic job calculating those times. They were more accurate than the scientists at NASA predicting the time for the landing of the Mars Rover! One was completely awestruck by their predictions, like predicting that a speed-breaker should be at a distance of 300mts, and then, whoa, bang on target! Accuracy could not be defined in a more better way.

A major challenge of the ride was to control the car, steering it at snail speeds of less than 10Kmph to as high as 60+Kmph, in winding roads, some of which were pot-holes ridden and checked the driver’s temperament to its fullest. But Ankit drove like a seasoned rider, taming the car to his commands. At one point, Sandeep jumped out of the snail-paced moving car, ran to a nearby shop to get some eatables and then jumped back in, and the car kept on rolling the entire time!

One of the unique features of the race was the undisclosed number of checkpoints in the entire course. Unlike Enduro, where checkpoints were check-marked on the map itself, this made the race a little challenging, for it was pertinent to keep track of those checkpoints on the roadsides, almost a non-descript entities, mixing up in the traffic seamlessly. This was evident in the form of the steep swerve pulled up by Ankit in the last moment to catch the second-last checkpoint.

All the riders arrived back at the Novotel Hotel at around 1:30PM, covering a distance of approx 120Kms. Relieved riders were greeted with icy-chilled beer and some good food. The organizers had done a commendable job from the beginning to the end. There were smiles aplenty as the riders filled up their tanks with beer, food and nostalgic moments of the rides with smiles.

Team HBC was declared third, a great achievement for these rookies, for whom such a car rally was the first of its kind experience, very different from the cycling rallies they are generally used to. Here is a short video of the jubilant HBC riders, en route back home with the trophy.

More Kodak moments shared here (link to online photo album)

HBCians proved it with winning smiles that be it a bicycle or a car, the simple, yet profoundly meaningful motto, of Just Ride! holds. Indeed, the great affair is just to keep moving :)

Just Ride!
Sandeep Pathak
Team HBC