We (the IISc Bikers Network) set out that day, ostensibly on a 38-km (one way) trip to the T G Halli Reservoir. Our route was simple, take NH-4, cross over onto the Outer Ring Road, then get onto Magadi Road till we reach our destination. By 7AM, we had got onto Magadi Road to face a killer climb, a theme that would repeat itself throughout the day. Except for a few bad patches that caused the road bikes in our group some grief, Magadi road was decent enough to let us reach T G Halli by around 8.30AM, except that we overshot the reservoir!
Unfortunately, overshooting the reservoir meant we climbed up a road we would otherwise never have rid on, ending up riding an extra half-dozen kilometers before we stopped for breakfast. Thankfully, the return journey on climbs is much easier and faster, and we were back at the reservoir in about 10 minutes.
Now we had to decide -- should we take an (unknown) road on the map to Manchanbele, or go an extra 8km or so to a well-known road? We decided to ask the locals. We were dissuaded from using this unknown road -- they told us it was not a tar road, and bicycles would not make it on this road. Despite some misgivings, the allure of the unknown made us disregard their advice and we decided we would take this unknown road to Manchanbele. We also thought -- if it's on a map, it must be good!
The road started out innocently enough -- old, narrow with trees and bushes lining it. A road with "character", I remember remarking to my fellow bike mates. What little there was of the tar, however, ran out very quickly! We were soon no longer on a road, but on a full-fledged trail and the time had come for my cycle to finally live up to its MTB lineage. Up I went on mounds of dirt track, coming down fast and only somewhat in control on the other side! Thankfully my brakes held, as did my balancing skills.
And then suddenly the trail ran out! A small waterfall cut through our trail, and there was no more dirt, just some big boulders. In classic cyclocross fashion, we moved on:
The trail from then on became a dusty, thrilling experience. We descended fast, our tires lost traction on the dusty ups and we frequently walked our bikes. Manchanbele was still quite far away when we decided to stop at a farm for some coconut water. After some hard bargaining, we were sipping cool, sweet coconut water from freshly picked coconuts! There was other good news as well -- the last 4 kilometers or so were tar road!
We continued on, crossing an abandoned bridge, and pausing (and climbing!) a hillock to resolve a fork. We were in Manchanbele by noon. For the first time ever, I swum in a water body which wasn't a swimming pool!
Our return journey would be a tough one -- we were ascending from about 750m to 950m in the afternoon. Thankfully, clouds obscured the Sun on our return journey. We encountered only one bad road on the way back, and our next pit stop was at Byalalu, heart of India's Deep Space Network, and Chandrayaan Control Centre:
From then on, we headed to Big Banyan Tree for lunch, aiming to take Mysore Road back to the Institute. The repeated climbs were taking their toll, and I was clearly losing energy. We also had a small incident, with one of our bikes chains breaking. Thankfully we soon found the requisite spare parts, and we were able to ride it back to the Institute. I made it to my hostel, exhausted but in one piece. I had spent over 12 hours in the saddle!
All photos in this post by Abhijit Kshirsagar, used under the terms of the CC-BY-NC-SA-3.0 license.
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