Ride to Panchapalli dam

[S Chidambaran]

Have been thinking about going for a long ride this weekend and invite a
wider audience. I was thinking of Anchetti but am now keeping that as a
fallback option incase another ride does not materialize.
Have been thinking about going to Panchapalli dam , and had chanced on
this blog a loooong time back. Is the Saravanan in this mail you, Saru?
And if yes, is there a place where we can take a dip in the dam?

http://fitnessthroughtravel.com/blog/?p=570

[ashutosh]

I'd like to join you, for panchapalli dam
Can i have you number please

[Chidambaran Subramanian]

Okay guys, so far the following guys are coming

1) Chiddu (myself)

2) Manjula

3) Vijay A

4) Rajanikanth

5) Ashutosh Tripathi.

The round trip looks to be around 152 km, and could be lesser if we head down to just before the Hosur flyover and then take right to Denkanikottai (instead of my proposed route via TVS Road). I suggest we start really early say 5:00 at Silk Board. 

The climb from the dam on the way back is steep, and it does look that way in the map. I've no idea of the road condition after Denkanikottai. Till there the road is pretty good. I plan to be on my MTB.

This is an exploratory route for me, as I've never been on this before, but this has been on my wishlist for at least a year now. 

http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/61396418

Regards

Chiddu

[jagadeesh R]

ride timing and date?

--
biking conversations on the world famous "Bangalore Bikers Club" :)
 
are you a part of the bicycle racing scene?
Visit www.bangalorebicyclechampionships.com for more details

[Vishnu Raned]

I'd love to, but considering the shape I'm currently in, I doubt if I can even do a Harohalli without cramping.

[Rajanikanth Puttabuddi]

Thanks to chidu we had a nice ride ( almost 190km for some folks ) today on a new route. Returning back when sun was out was quite a challenge.
It was nice riding with chidu, manjula, ashutosh, sohan and others. I will leave the route details and ride report to chidu.

rk

[S o h a n]

Thanks Chiddu for the nice route...Enjoyed the ride and riding back the uphill/steep was tiring and awesome....Over all good ride.

For me it was a relax ride

Nice meeting new folks and enjoyed riding...Hoping to do more such rides in the nearer future...

Chiddu ride report!!! Over to you ;)

Will post the pics shortly

--
biking conversations on the world famous "Bangalore Bikers Club" :)
 
are you a part of the bicycle racing scene?
Visit www.bangalorebicyclechampionships.com for more details

--
Cheers
§ • h ª n

 

R ì Ð é   † h ê   ß ï k €

[ashutosh]

hey thanks chiddu, for taking us to such a lovely place.
It was a difficult ride back home, but looking at u guys inspired me
to push myself more harder.
now chiddu, we all are waiting for ur blog report, come up with a
peppy one soon.

see u guys soon, bye tkcre.

On Dec 24, 11:41 pm, S o h a n <sohan.sin...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks Chiddu for the nice route...Enjoyed the ride and riding back the
> uphill/steep was tiring and awesome....Over all good ride.
>
> For me it was a relax ride
>
> Nice meeting new folks and enjoyed riding...Hoping to do more such rides in
> the nearer future...
>
> Chiddu ride report!!! Over to you ;)
>
> Will post the pics shortly
>
> On Sat, Dec 24, 2011 at 4:06 PM, Rajanikanth Puttabuddi <
>

> rajanikant...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Thanks to chidu we had a nice ride ( almost 190km for some folks ) today
> > on a new route. Returning back when sun was out was quite a challenge.
> > It was nice riding with chidu, manjula, ashutosh, sohan and others. I will
> > leave the route details and ride report to chidu.
>
> > rk
>
> >  --
> > biking conversations on the world famous "Bangalore Bikers Club" :)
>
> > are you a part of the bicycle racing scene?

> > Visitwww.bangalorebicyclechampionships.comfor more details

>
> --
> Cheers
> § • h ª n
>

> *R ì Ð é   † h ê   ß ï k €*

[vijay _ A]

Same here chiddu,,  This was my 2nd long ride, but the 1st one to complete successfully..:)    Thanks to you all..

Visit www.bangalorebicyclechampionships.com for more details

--

with regards
Vijay

"Stress is better than Frustration..!!"

[S Chidambaran]

A delayed version of a quick and dirty report. I wanted this to be out yesterday, but couldn't ,I will be uploading a blog with pictures , taken and/or borrowed in a few hours.

Basically , after last week's brevet ride, wanted to try out a new ride on the following weekend. Didn't want to lose the habit of doing weekend rides,just because of a 300k ride.  Panchapalli dam has been on my to-do list. I had chanced on a blog sometime back, and have been thinking of this place.Located this place on the map, and given that it was a little off our regular Anchetti route, decided to give it a try.  My 1st instinct was to just ride off over there  all alone , but of late, folks from BBC have been requesting me to post my rides. So figured , why not? Generally , this means taking along a bunch of guys with varying speeds, and while being used to deal with newbies, the prospect of additional time spent on the road and less with family, had conspired to stop us from announcing regular long rides on BBC. This, incidentally is the 4th Saturday of the month,and the last full weekend of the year. I pronto announced the ride on BBC 3 days back, and waited for the response. I was surprised to get a response of 8 potential riders.Eventually a  total of 6 riders other than me started on Saturday morning.  Rajanikanth wanted to go to Anchetti, but I told him that it couild be a backup option, and I was quite convinced that this route would be nice too. Talked to Manjula on a thread in Facebook, as she was not following up my mail thread on BBC. Initially had planned on a 5am start, but Rajani's concerns about the distance from his house pushed it to 5:30. The push added to my laziness quotient and we started at 6:48 from Silk Board. 
The following guys started

Chiddu -myself, probably an inveterate cyclist now.
Rajanikanth P - Strong and compassionate,as his famous namesake.
Ashutosh Tripathi - Young and energetic, planning to not buy a motorcycle, and keep cycling.Bless you ,the world needs more people like you.
Manjula Sridhar
    -a) the sole roadie,who  humoured us by riding at our pace,
    -b) Prevented this ride from being an all-male ride, should be able to convince more women of the route
    -c) Only current ironman on the ride today?
Vijay Appaji - Couldn't finish the 200k brevet,but completed the ride in good time today.
Sohan Sintre - One of the brave just in time finishers of the brevet last week,and completed the ride despite cramps today.
Deepak Malempati - Self confessed newbie ,who as well,did an amazing job of completing a serious ride with a non-trivial climb today.
                   

Yvr Vijay dropped out,I didn't see Arvind at the starting point, and he had said *maybe* so I didn't bother calling him.So the chosen seven started towards Hosur,in the *bloody cold*. The temperature was cold, and I felt a sudden big drop after crossing the Nice road.  The initial plan was to  go via Hosur, we decided to go via TVS road seeing the traffic on the main road. My hands were freezing throughout the ride on the highway and continued to freeze as we went off it.  After passing Attibele, we headed towards TVS road, where we had a few trucks for company. Not a whole lot, just a few. At the 'Ramakrishna Lunch home', 5 of the guys had breakfast, while myself and Vijay made do with tea. After a 20min break, we headed towards Denkanikottai.
Rajani mostly rode ahead, followed by me, tailed  by Ashutosh and the rest of the riders following. The 1st timers told us that they were blown away by the route. Though a little surprised, I just guessed they have not gone to any of the more scenic routes around town, so getting off the main road for the 1st time ,they found it exciting. Also the Hosur - Denkanikottai is full of very subtle valleys where your horizon is vast, and then some gentle rolling hills.  We took the Denkanikottai - Panchapalli dam route.For regulars around Denkanikottai, this is at the arch just opposite where Sankar's cafe used to exist a few moons ago. 

Insert random thought here - With the closing of Shankar's cafe and Jayaram's cafe, it feels like a mini-era of cycling in Bangalore has come to an end.

Anyway, nostalgia aside, we took the turn and awaited the loooong downhill. Turns out, map data can be misleading because they compress the experience of 15km into 1 cm of width. So yes, there are long downhills,but they are quite gentle, and actually interspersed by a few uphills. The steepest downhills were near the dam, and they were about as steep as the lower levels of Nandi hills, or more like the inclines near the Art of Living Ashram in Kanakapura road.
After the final long downhill, the dam comes into view , and man ,it is beautiful. As we stood there clicking photographs, Vijay and Ashutosh joined, followed by the restof the gang. We went down to the banks via a mud trail with our cycles, while Rajani stayed up on sentry duty to direct all down.
 Once we went down, I and Vijay went to the water for a swim.The rest of the folks relaxed on the banks. Later on Manjula and Sohan wet their feet as well. Just before leaving the place, I went for a second dip and wet my T-shirt to reduce the heat on my back.

The dam is quite big, and amazingly, there is no habitation near the dam , save a temple and a function hall. The place is not commercialized, and I believe will be a big hit with cyclists. Amazing  , not many have gone there, yet it is pretty close.I chanced on a blog a year+ back, and have been thinking about this dam for a while. The road till the base of the dam is roadbike worthy,though the stretch from the dam to the village is quite miserable. After a show of hands, we decided that we would  head to the village to eat before starting the climb up. Some of the guys were apprehensive of eating and drinking from the hole-in-the-wall hotel in the village.I and 2 others had an onion Dosa from the morning's left over dosa batter ,  and by the time we started eating, food became ready, and Rajani and Manjula duly tucked in to the mid-day meal. Meanwhile, Manjula had to leave early and had asked her driver to get her. He was waiting at the dam. I was tempted by the idea of hitching a ride,butI wanted to complete the climb  to Denkanikottai. My urge to climb was more than my dislike of the mid-say sun, and my urge to return home (since I had indicated I should be home by 3!). We finished the bankside rendevous at 11:30 and the lunch/brunch at 1:00. As I started the climb, I reached Rajani, and overtook him. I was expecting to reach a couple of other riders, since I believed I was the last to get out. After about 3-4km I guessed I might be ahead of everyone,since Rajani looked like the strongest climber and I was ahead of him. Basically I had put my head down and just wanted to complete the climb.Once the climb at the base finished,the rest was a breeze, even though you could  guess that it would be an overall uphill. I reached D'kotai at about 2:08, and checked with Rajani.He apparently had a cleated fall and a bad bruise. He suggested waiting and relaxing at Denkanikottai.I waited for a few seconds, and got bored and anxious,not knowing how bad the fall was. In any case , the ambient temperature was pleasant but the sun harsh, so staying put was worse than pedalling.I just headed back and met Rajani and Vijay 3 km from the town. We exchanged pleasantries and Rajani showed his wounds. It wasn't a major bruise but an oblong section skin roughly measuring.5 inch *2 inch had completely come off. We headed back to the town,had a cup of tea, and were about to continue when  Ashu caught up with us. We could not reach the remaining two (Deepak and Sohan). We continued towards Hosur.I went ahead of the others. Rajani caught up with me, when Sohan got into coverage mode and made a phone call. So I and Rajani relayed instructions on
a) Reaching Denkanikottai
b) Route to take reach home.

Kudos to Sohan and Deepak for continuing despite struggling with cramps.
Given that I had not showed up at 3:00 pm, got a call from home. Angry with myself with a little bit of guilt, I decided to speed up towards home.
We continued further, I stopped at our breakfast intersection and fed myself at a bakery, feeling really famished.I wanted to stuff myself to have a go for one straight run.Flagged Rajani and Ashu as well who followed after a while.  After a 2 min rendezvous,bid bye to them and told them I'm going ahead.Home was about 45km and Silk Board 35km from this point. The guilt pangs worked such that I managed to complete the 30km distance in a little over an hour, and reached home by 6. Got a msg from Rajani that he had reached Silk Board at  5:52 , and another from Vijay Appaji at around 6:32, who could complete the ride this time,havingfailed to complete the 200k brevet.

Felt really good that had gone on a new route on a hunch after a long time,and that too, a route with a swim spot in the middle which generally rank up very high in my list of favourite routes. Awelcome break from the Anchetty stream,a wonderful dam, but less crowded than Manchinabele. Recommend this spot to the folks to head to. Given that this was a new route, was not sure how it would turn out,and whether the dam be worth it,whether the roads would be easy,etc.  But all of us liked the route and the destination. A stright line trip from Silk Board is about 150km. A detour via Rayakottai would add another 15km. I am sure adding the Rayakottai - Krishnagiri link would push up the ride to above 200 for a brevet! Last observation, courtesy nudging from Sreepathi

PS :The climb part of the ride is not as difficult as Nandi or even Harohalli-Jigani , I would rate it slightly more difficult than the Krishnagiri-Hosur climb.

[Sreepathi Pai]

Wonderful report!

On Sun, Dec 25, 2011 at 9:27 PM, S Chidambaran <chi...@gmail.com> wrote:

> My 1st instinct was to
> just ride off over there  all alone , but of late, folks from BBC have been
> requesting me to post my rides. So figured , why not? Generally , this means
> taking along a bunch of guys with varying speeds, and while being used to
> deal with newbies, the prospect of additional time spent on the road and
> less with family, had conspired to stop us from announcing regular long
> rides on BBC.

One way to accomodate multiple levels of riders is to have cuesheets.
I've found that we can scale rides very easily that way.

> road. My hands were freezing throughout the ride on the highway and
> continued to freeze as we went off it.

Anybody have recommendations for good thin wool gloves (preferably
available in India)? Full-fingered gloves from Decathlon don't seem to
cut out the cold.

> Rajani mostly rode ahead, followed by me, tailed  by Ashutosh and the rest
> of the riders following. The 1st timers told us that they were blown away by
> the route. Though a little surprised, I just guessed they have not gone to
> any of the more scenic routes around town, so getting off the main road for
> the 1st time ,they found it exciting.

Once off the main road, hopefully forever off the main road -- there
are some wonderful off-highway routes.

> Insert random thought here - With the closing of Shankar's cafe and
> Jayaram's cafe, it feels like a mini-era of cycling in Bangalore has come to
> an end.

:(

--
Sreepathi Pai

[Murali Katta]

Tx for the post. Do write here on u future rides and do plan some rides on Sunday too.

Sent from my iPad

--
"GoGreen for a better tomorrow GoCycling..."
Spread the word of Going Green through cycling. As a GGI try and initiate/help more people to Cycle within in the City, avoiding pollution & intern fighting Global Warming.
GGI-Club is a part of www.GoGreenGoCycling.org
**********************************************************************************************
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "GGI-Club" Blr group which is a part of www.GoGreenGoCycling.org.
To post to this group, send email to ggi-...@googlegroups.com

[S Chidambaran]

On 12/25/2011 09:57 PM, Sreepathi Pai wrote:
> Wonderful report!
>
> On Sun, Dec 25, 2011 at 9:27 PM, S Chidambaran<chi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> My 1st instinct was to
>> just ride off over there all alone , but of late, folks from BBC have been
>> requesting me to post my rides. So figured , why not? Generally , this means
>> taking along a bunch of guys with varying speeds, and while being used to
>> deal with newbies, the prospect of additional time spent on the road and
>> less with family, had conspired to stop us from announcing regular long
>> rides on BBC.
> One way to accomodate multiple levels of riders is to have cuesheets.
> I've found that we can scale rides very easily that way.
>

Simple, yet brilliant idea. Will keep that in mind. We've published
directions, maps( e.g the famous Anchetti map by Georg) earlier,but
yes,a cue-sheet is a good idea. Should include land-marks, and of
course bailout options.

>> road. My hands were freezing throughout the ride on the highway and
>> continued to freeze as we went off it.

For the moment, I still haven't started putting on gloves during
cycling. Anything that covers my fingers would be good I guess. I think
regular woollen gloves would be good, just take them off when its warmer.

[vijay _ A]

Hi guys,

Find the link to some of the snaps taken during the ride...

https://plus.google.com/photos/114060384230700403729/albums/5690125550892864833

[Arvind Ganesh]

I wore full finger gloves on Saturday and still went numb. Mine had vents though, so maybe I need winter gloves!

Thanks for the great report Chiddu. I and my riding buddy Siva started at 5 am and planned to take the Sarjapur Attibele route to join you guys. Unfortunately, a moron motorcyclist ran into Siva head on and he needed medical help. Thankfully, he's fine after some stitches. Will do this route soon :)

Arvind

[anilk...@gmail.com]

Chiddu,

Superb write up.....I enjoyed reading it, congratulations to some of the guys who did improve their best!!!!

Keep these kind of reports coming, TFS.

Anil s kadsur

Sent on my BlackBerry® from Vodafone

---

From: S Chidambaran <chi...@gmail.com>

Sender: bangalor...@googlegroups.com

Date: Sun, 25 Dec 2011 21:27:20 +0530

To: vijay _ A<vijhe...@gmail.com>

Cc: ashutosh<ashutosh_t...@rediffmail.com>; Bangalore Bikers Club<bangalor...@googlegroups.com>; GGI-Club (Go Green Initiator's Club)<ggi-...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: [BBC] Re: Ride to Panchapalli dam

[Sreepathi Pai]

Very nice pics! That panorama is great!

--
Sreepathi Pai

[S Chidambaran]

Blog with links to pictures (taken by co-riders) up!

http://chiddu2k.wordpress.com/2011/12/26/christmas-eve-ride-to-panchapalli-dam/

[Sunil Raghavan]

Nice snaps Vijay - I liked the panorama...

Sunil

On Dec 25, 11:17 pm, vijay _ A <vijhere2...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi guys,
>
> Find the link to some of the snaps taken during the ride...
>

> https://plus.google.com/photos/114060384230700403729/albums/569012555...

> *Vijay*
> *"Stress is better than Frustration..!!"*