The Muru Kere Tour (The Three Lake Tour)

Alex is a fellow student from Germany. He has a huge dislike of Indian traffic and highways. He has recently bought a new Schwinn hybrid bike and he's raring to ride it. He's a powerful rider and on his previous bicycle, the single-speed Photon, he would always leave most of us behind. Add to the mix Google Maps and a GPS unit, and he has a knack of picking some beautiful country roads. Till he arrived on the scene with his hatred of highways, I had always stuck to the big roads, and after his arrival have discovered a completely different form of bicycling -- the off-highway tour.

The Muru Kere tour was the first big ride for his Schwinn. At 100kms in length it involved a ride to three lakes in North Bangalore, Hessarghatta, Madhurakere, and an unnamed lake. Like most of his routes, these are idiosyncratic and the destinations are not important!

We set out early to Hessarghatta accompanied by a fairly large group. Hessarghatta is one of my favourite rides and is one of the easiest rides for beginners. After breakfast at the Poultry Development canteen, the group split into two with the beginners riding back and the rest of us continuing on. There's a fork after Hessarghatta, and while I've always taken the left (to Nrityagram), we took the right this time.

Amazing. For a large distance, we rode through what was probably a bund abutting a swamp on a mostly empty road. This ended in a "big road" that we went off quickly into another smallish road that terminated in Madhura Kere.

A puddle.

Saddened by this, we continued on the third lake, and came across a spot that has been named (by us) "Four Fig Cross". Four roads meet at this point, with fig trees lining the intersection and stone benches underneath the trees. And nobody in sight and minimal traffic. I plan to go back in summer with a lot of books. Wonderful way to spend a day I think.

We then proceeded to the third lake, which was an even bigger disappointment -- what has happened to your lakes, Bangalore?

And then the return journey started. A short trip across a state highway, and it was back again on a country road. Country roads were mostly good (and I was riding the RR6.3), but some stretches were seriously bad. The road bikers amongst us were cursing these stretches of the route. One horrific stretch was actually on a state highway! Unbelievable.

Most of the road though was good, and the terrain and surroundings were fantastic. We even rode through the Rajanakunte road, always a pleasure for riding. Then we hit the other big road -- Doddaballapur Road, possibly Alex's most hated road. We went off quickly again onto a side road, which to our amusement ended in a big ditch! A quick ride through a wonderful single-track in a eucalyptus plantatation, we encountered a road that was surrounded by six-feet high grass on both sides for most of its seven kilometers of length! I couldn't believe that these roads exist a few tens of kilometers from Bangalore!

Finally, we were back at Gangamma circle and our journey to the Institute had begun.

Wonderful 110kms it turned out to be, though the FS was completely the wrong bike to ride on.