I am sorry if its a bit long but here goes
The Ride to Savanadurga was an experience I'd never forget. Being the first long distance ride for me, it felt like it was a fight against attrition, and at the fag end of the ride I was exhausted and felt as if I had just completed a stage in a Tour De France competiton. Ironically, I realised the stage had already been won before it even started when I met Jagannath near the Big Banyaan tree all cladded well in the Yellow Jersey!
I reached Bangalore University, the meeting point of ours, at around 6.35 AM. To my witness, I found noone. I thought may be there was a little chance afterall for people to congregrate and leave in the space of 5 minutes, either that or everyone has legged the idea itself of actually going. But I made sure I waited for 10 more minutes. I had forgetten the previous night to note one number that was left on the forum which was of Jagannath's. I quickly browsed the internet and got his number and dialed immediately. I couldn't get hold of him at that instance. I waited for another 5 minutes to see if anyone showed up, to see if I could spot a clockwise motion of legs pedalling through but to no avail. I said **** it, I'll go alone if I had to. I started off on my own at 6.55 AM.
By the time I reached Rajarajeshwari Hospital, i got a call from Jagannath. He told me that he had already reached Dodda Alada Mara and confirmed that he was alone. He told me he would wait for me there and so he did.
We started acquainting with each other as we rode along. He told me that he had already done this route in 2008 and that he had also conqureed Nandi. He suggested we'd follow the route Yogesh had in mind before he had to drop out, the route to Savanadurga through Manchanabele.
The roads till Manchanabele were just fine and had been re-laid. Further up the route towards Savanadurga there were a number of potholes which are to be expected I guess being a hilly area and all that. I'd made a couple of mistakes. One was not wearing a helmet and the other was not to buy a pair of gloves. I still have numbness in my right palm after surviving through many potholes. I've now got it through my thick head that having cycling gear is as important as having a cycle itself.
We did face obstacles along the way particularly while coming back. We took the route towards Magadi. Jagannath put it succinctly when he said it was his accumulated karma that put him in this predicament. He suffered a pinch flat near Vardenahalli, if my memory serves me right. One more lesson I learnt or I am sure Jagannath won't mind when I say we learnt was that we ought to have a puncture kit on us at all times. We found that there were hardly any shops near by where he suffered the said flat. Somehow, after 2 hours of hitchhiking a bike, hanging off the footboard of a bus, we managed to get it repaired. Little did we know that it wouldn't be the end of our ordeal.
It was 2.30 PM in the afternoon and after a long ride through numerous undulated roads, we decided to take a break very close to Kengeri Satellite Town. We were sitting infront of a sign pole which said "40", the speed limit set for that road. A part of me was giggling inside and made a smart arse remark, "are you kidding me?, I would give anything to go at that speed, as long as it gets us to our home right now". It puts into perspective of how we take speed for granted. There are people who are crazy for speed and yet here we were on our tiring part of the journey trying to hit 20kms/hr let alone 40kms/hr to get through. After 5 minutes of rest, we decided to hop on our saddle and ride towards the final part of our journey, back to our respective homes. Glancing at the back tyre Jagannath felt the pressure. To our dismay we found it was deflated.... AGAIN. With the scorching mid afternoon sun over us we began to walk our bikes towards civilization. After walking for about 2-3 kms, we found a cycle shop atlast. We gulped down a bottle of nimbo fresh apiece from a nearby bakery which energized our drained batteries for one last push. We finally parted ways in Kengeri as I was heading towards Nagarbhavi, a very short distance compared to what Jagannath was attempting to, all the way to HSR layout a further grueling 20 kms or so.
All in all it was a pleasure to ride with Jagannath and the satisfication I gained from this ride was immense. The ride should put me in good stead if I were to try Nandi, although I realise it may require twice the effort. Next time if you see a bloke with a helmet, gloves on and with a puncture kit ofcourse, on a Schwinn Sporterra, that should be me!.
Some pictures I took along the way ->
http://picasaweb.google.com/ranjankulkarni/Savanadurga#