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.