Sunday, March 30, 2008

BIAL

I went on a long motorcycle ride last Saturday morning to visit the new Bengaluru International airport to check out the progress of the project and also the connectivity and travel time.

I had last been on this side of the city almost a year ago. At that time, to call it chaotic would be an understatement, it took us almost 1 hour and 45 minutes to get to the Hebbal flyover and the airport was a further 25 kilometers beyond. This time, I started off at 5:55, so I expected it to be a lot faster. I also had a chance to look at the first two "magic box" projects. The Cauvery underpass is a joke, which could only have been conceived in Bangalore, the city of "signal on a flyover". To have a busy arterial road wind through a U-turn is sheer madness and I bet that the net traffic flow will be slower than before. Plus the underpass is so narrow, that unless you were specifically told, you'd think it was a pedestrian pathway. Heaven help Bangalore, as they are planning to have 46 more of these all over the city. Anyway, back to BIAL, the ride through the city was fantastic, the overnight rain had cleaned up the roads and the traffic was non-existent, so I reached the Hebbal flyover in 25 minutes.

Bellary Road was being widened into a 6 lane highway and the project is almost complete. Luckily for motorists, they have not built too many signals or speed bumps, so I was able to maintain a constant 70-80 kmph speed right till the turnoff to the airport.I could have gone much faster in my car.

The trumpet flyover taking you from the highway to the airport was a source of much amusement a few months ago, when they realised that it would not be ready in time. This would mean that the entire airport traffic would need to take a U-turn to get off the highway. Imagine the chaos at peak time. Luckily for Bangalore, L&T took over the contract and completed it in double quick time. The interchange was completed this week, though some final asphalting was going on and I was forced to go through the mud road on the side to get to the airport road.

The airport is around 5 km from the highway and BIAL has got a nice 4 lane road leading to it. I couldn't help think, though that it would have been better if they had made it a 6 lane road to avoid any congestion. They do have space to expand, if required. I couldn't get too close to the main terminal building as it is still not open to the public and I didn't want any panga with the security guards. It's definitely larger than the HAL airport, but still looks much small that I expected. I was also quite disappointed to see the car park, they claim a capacity of 1500 cars, but it doesn't seem much bigger than the old airport car park.

Overall, everything had a not-yet-completely-finished look to it. I'm sure the airport guys will claim that they were ready on time, but secretly must have been quite happy to have been given the extra month to get things 100% complete.

The biggest talking point so far has been the travel time to the airport. I started at 5:55 and reached an hour later. On the return journey, I took the longer route via the Outer Ring Road and still reached in an hour and 15 minutes. My feeling is that the journey from Hebbal onwards is unlikely to be more than 30-45 minutes even in peak hour, so the bulk of the time is going to be getting to Hebbal. I feel that the IT crowd and others that protest are extremely hypocritical and their statements and are only looking at their own selfish interests and not the overall best interests of Bangalore. So, when people in Electronics City complain about the 2 hour journey, I don't think they even consider that when the airport was in HAL, it would take people in Hebbal and Rajajinagar atleast 2 hours to get there. The fact is that any new airport could only have been constructed far away from the city and in a sprawling city like Bangalore, that will always mean that the distance and travel times vary significantly.

Monday, March 17, 2008

GPS is so cool

In India, GPS receivers are still very rare and proper maps are rarer still. Even when available, the receivers are too expensive, so unless you really have a compelling need, you're unlikely to invest in one. So, though I've been reading about GPS for over 10 years now, I've never ever seen it in action. Until now.

Last week, during the Savandurga ride, I saw Rohan checking out his GPS receiver periodically. At the end of the trip, he had produced a map layered over a Google Earth image of exactly where we had been during the ride. I was suitably impressed and wanted to try it out for myself.

By sheer coincidence, my friend Shashi had bought a GPS receiver from China. It was a simple Bluetooth receiver that hooked up to any external device like a mobile phone or PDA. He's also just invested in an unlocked iPhone, but because its so badly locked down, he just couldn't get it to work with the receiver. So, he had resigned himself to just watching his stationary position on his laptop and was getting very frustrated about not being able to use it to the fullest potential.

In the past, I'd considered getting a GPS receiver for my Nokia N800. In many ways, it is an ideal navigation tool, with a large screen and adequate storage capacity. Maps were always going to be a problem, as the few solutions for India obviously didn't support the N800. At that time, I had thought that if someone could write a program that would use publicly available maps like Google maps or Yahoo maps, it would be very useful. I had not researched further, as I didn't have a GPS device to play with. However, now that Shashi had one available, I asked him lend his GPS receiver, and started googling for N800 GPS solutions. Very quickly, I came up with a program called Maemo-mapper.

Maemo-mapper is a mapper application that can interact with a GPS and plot the current position on a map. A lot of other applications can do this, however, the beauty is that it can access many publicly available maps like Google Maps, Google Satellite view, Yahoo maps etc. Amazingly, this was just what I had wished for a few months ago!!!

It is fairly simple in that it can only display your current position and route on a map. It cannot create driving directions automatically, this needs to happen in an external program and can be imported into this. It does, however, have the ability to export your location data as gpx files, which can be imported by any mapping program or a number of Google maps mashups and shared with others. This is a much more likely usage in the Indian context as driving directions are unlikely to ever
be reliable given the ever changing urban landscape.

I borrowed the GPS receiver for the weekend and took it with me everywhere. It was a lot of fun sitting in a car and watching it move on the map.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Report - Ride to Savandurga

A group of riders in the Bangalore riders e-group had made plans to ride to Savandurga and back on Sunday. The plan was to leave from Kanakpura Road-ORR junction at 6:00 am, ride down beyond NICE road and take some backroads till Mysore Road, cut across to the Big Banyan tree and ride on beyond to Savandurga. They promised a “not easy” ride. I signed up right away.

The practice in these rides is to meet at the starting point and leave at the pre-announced time. If you’re late, too bad, you miss the ride. I did not want that to happen, so I set the alarm for 4:30 am on Sunday morning and was out of the house at 5:00 am. I had estimated that it would take me 45 minutes to ride to the starting point, but the traffic was non existent and I was able to make it in 30 minutes. I was the first one to reach had a fairly long wait (time really goes slowly early in the morning) till the others got there. This being the first time I was going on such a long ride, I was a bit apprehensive about whether I would be able to keep up with the others. As I saw the others come in, my fear grew. These guys looked like real pros with proper cycling shorts, gloves, high tech drinking bottles etc. However, they were all really nice and I began to feel at ease. Then one of them hit me with a bombshell. I hadn’t had anything to eat other than a cup of coffee, which was a big mistake, as I’d start feeling really tired a couple of hours into the ride. There wasn’t much I could do at that point, though. I had a small piece of cake which I had and hoped for the best.

We set off a little behind schedule at 6:15 am, 10 of us in all, Rohan, Nikhil, Balu, Shamim, Pramod, Tilak, Shiv, Rushi, his wife Celine and me. The first part of the ride was really good. Kanakpura Road is one of the least trafficked highways in Bangalore and is mostly downhill on the way out, so we made very quick time right till the NICE road interchange. Rushi and Shiv had road bikes, so they decided to take the NICE road to Mysore Road. The rest of us took a smaller village road parallel to the NICE road. The road was freshly laid, so the first couple of kilometers were really good. Then we hit the stretch that was still being laid. It was full of small stones, on many occasions, we had to ride right on the edge of the road to stay in control. By the time we reached Mysore Road, my hands were totally numb from the pounding and vibrations. We stopped at Mysore Road for one of the group to catch up. He was on a Hero Octane and despite his best efforts could not keep up with the various Treks and Firefoxes in the group. As for me, I was encouraged by the fact that I was able to keep up with the group without too many problems.

We turned off Mysore Road at the Big Banyan intersection, we rode past many small villages and some facility of ISRO with a few huge satellite dishes. To start with, the road was fairly smooth, but went downhill rapidly and most of the time was little better than a dirt road. Towards the end it got a lot better. The highlight for me was the approach to Manchinbele dam. There was a fairly long uphill section and as I approached it, I was in one of the higher gears. Rather than shift to a lower gear, I decided to continue in the same gear and increase the pace of my pedaling. I just made it to the top right as I was totally out of breath. If it was any longer, I just could not have continued. Suddenly, the road leveled out and turned slightly to the right and I was rewarded with an awesome sight. I had no idea that we had such a beautiful sight so close to Bangalore.

The long downhill right after that was thrilling, but my joy was tempered by the fact that we would have to climb that long slope on the way back. We stopped around 5 km before Savandurga for some elaniru and finally made it to Savandurga at around 10:00 am. We stopped there only for 10-15 minutes, just enough time to get some fuel for the long ride back. On the return, a group of 4 riders took off first. I was planning to ride along with the remaining people, but then I learnt that the folks staying back were on the road bikes and wanted to try an alternate route with better roads. So, I set off on my own hoping to catch up with the group that had left.

I caught up with Pramod just before the Manchinbele dam. He had pulled a muscle and was trying to stop a tractor to take him up the hill. Instead of helping him, the driver started abusing him for blocking the road!!! Finally, he decided that there was no other way but to pedal up and we started going up. I had to use the granny gear (F1R1) and even with that, it was tough going. I finally gave up just 50m before the top, got down and walked/pushed the rest of the way.

At the top, Pramod held on to the back of a Tatamobile that was heading in the same direction and went far ahead. I continued cycling and caught up with Balu after a while. He was really pacing himself well, riding at a constant pace. We continued together and caught up with Rohan just before the ISRO facility. The leading rider, Shamim was waiting for us at the next village and we all stopped for chai. I later found out that Shamim was a professional cyclist and this ride was like a warmup for him, as he was planning a Bangalore-Mysore-Bangalore trip the next day and a 1200 km ride from the 16th of March!!!

At this point, I thought we had covered most of the distance and the rest would be easy. Balu had some bad news for me. He said that we had another 25 km to go just to reach Mysore Road and the NICE road was going to be even tougher as it was mainly uphill. My spirits fell a bit, but then I realized it was no use getting disheartened at that point, so I just got up and started pedaling away.

It must have been the boost provided by the Limca or the fact that the road condition improved tremendously after the Big Banyan tree, I found the remaining distance to Mysore Road to be fairly easy. We had a short ride on Mysore Road and then crossed over to the NICE road. Just as we were getting onto the road, I finished all the water that I had carried. As I was to learn later, that was a very big mistake.

The NICE road is beautiful, straight, wide and smooth, an ideal road to speed in an automobile. It’s a good road for cycling, as it has wide shoulders and you can stay out of the way of the bigger vehicles. If there’s a downside, it’s the elevation change. Kanakpura Road is at a much higher level than Mysore Road and there are 3 or 4 long uphill climbs, definitely not what we were looking forward to. To make things worse, it was extremely hot with no shade and a nasty headwind. We made slow progress, but Rohan soon fell far behind. Midway through the strech, I felt very thirsty, but there was no water to drink and I had to keep going. Luckily for me, Shamim had stopped for us a little further ahead and I took a few sips from his bottle. By now, it was clear to me that I was quite dehydrated and hitting the wall. Even on the downhill sections, I wasn’t able to go on the top gears and was just letting gravity do its work. When I finally saw the big green board for the Kanakpura Road turnoff, my spirits lifted again and I started pedaling with renewed vigour. Balu who was just a little in front of me was waiting at the turnoff.

We waited a few minutes for Shamim and Rohan but there was no sign of them. Later I found that Rohan had stopped and Shamim had gone back to help him. We then decided to start off as there was another 10 km to go on Kanakpura Road. The stretch which had been so enjoyable on the way out was now a nightmare, lot of traffic, mostly uphill and hot. We made slow progress and when we came upon a ganna juice stand, we decided to stop and refresh ourselves.

While the guy was crushing the juice, I suddenly felt very weak and could not stand on my own. I went and sat down hoping it would get better. It didn’t and I felt like throwing up, but when I tried, there was nothing to throw up. Balu realized that there was no way I could continue and asked me to take an auto. I got the auto driver to bring me a bottle of water and once I had it, I felt much better. I finally reached home at 2:00 pm.

It was not the best end to what was a very memorable ride. Just before we stopped, Balu told me that we had covered 105 km from our starting point. We rode for almost 6 hours, at an average of 17.5 km/h. The bad roads and the steep climbs really brought down the average significantly.

I was thrilled about being able to keep up with such a group of experienced riders, who’d done many 100+ km rides. I’m not planning to do another 100km ride for a while, though, will do a few shorter 50-60km rides before attempting something like this again.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

TOTAL Supermarket

TOTAL is a big supermarket that has opened its doors in Bangalore a while ago. I've gone past their store in Madivala but being in such an inconvenient location, I never thought it worthwhile to stop and take a look inside. They have recently opened their third store in Sarjapur Road and have bombarding the radio waves advertising the same. I had also heard a lot of good things about the selection in their meat section from friends, not that I was ever going to buy anything from there. So, we decided to check it out on Saturday.

The first impression was very positive. As they had been advertising, they had parking space for 500 cars. We didn't have a problem finding a spot. I wonder if it will be the same after the rest of Bangalore discovers the place.

The shopping area is fairly spacious, by Indian standards. The ground floor of the mall was full of fancy shops offering a variety of items ranging from clothing to kids furniture. All with very appealing
displays, and I am sure, price-tags to match. Value-conscious person that I am, we never bothered to enter any of them.

The hypermarket was on the second and third floors. The second floor was mainly clothing with some additional sections for toys and electronic items. We were mainly looking to buy a few shirts and some gifts, so that's where we spent most of the time. Their range of men's clothing
was decent. They weren't very well known brands, but in quality and texture, they felt as good as a Vivaldi or Excalibur atleast, if not the higher end brands. Their range started at 299, but those were not that appealing. The ones at 499 were much better, decent quality cotton and really nice designs. I am not so sure of their longevity, but at that price, it seemed like a good deal and I picked up a few.

The toys section was disappointing, mainly Chinese made junk with a limited selection. I think in their desire to cram in as many categories of goods as possible, they compromised on the space allocated to each section and this greatly limits their variety.

The third floor had furnishing and the food section. The groceries section was fairly well stocked with a huge number of rice varieties occupying centre stage. The vegetable section was good, but what really upset me was the indiscriminate usage of plastic. The process is that you pick up the vegetable, place it in a plastic bag, weigh it and print out a barcode which is scanned at the checkout counter. Novel for India, the advantage is that checkout is really fast, but this means that you have a separate plastic bag for each type of vegetable. I think its high time, we have
rules that discourage such wanton use of plastics.

The thing that impressed me the most was the number of checkout counters. They had around 20 of them, with a lot of space to push the trolley through. Most of the counters had less than 2-3 people waiting in line. They also put a stamp on the parking ticket to waive the parking fees.

Regarding whether these types of supermarkets and hypermarkets are good for India, I am in the middle. I definitely support them when it comes to categories like clothes, furniture etc. For too long, we have been taken for a ride by greedy showrooms and these can definitely bring down
the price of goods. I am not so sure about grocery and vegetables. I don't care what the experts say, they are going to affect the kirana stores and the vegetable vendors with their money power and economies of scale. While that is good for me as a consumer, I don't think it is good
for the people overall. That is the reason I avoid outlets like Reliance Fresh, Food Bazaar, Fabmall etc even if it increases our monthly grocery bill.