And I Went West on a Cycle

Tatte idly for breakfast is a swell option on any given day. When you are one among the 9 cyclists who have cycled a minimum of 30km on a chilly December morning from Bengaluru to Harohalli, a breakfast like this is an absolute delight. With our muscles just about warmed up and our minds well made up for a ride that would take us to Mysore that evening, 16 tatte idlys topped with a wad of butter, and 22 uddin vade and maddur vade were devoured in no time among the nine cyclists.

Manish, one of the riders from Bangalore Bikers Club riding with us, had found the first breakfast place for us. I say first because it was the first day of a 6-day ride along a route charted to take the riders from Bengaluru to Mysore to Madikeri to Kalpetta to Ooty to Mysore and back to Bengaluru. Riding over 100km on each day, the ride would total more than 700km. Attempting this whole ride, along with the aforementioned three, were Santosh and Sriram (who hadn’t joined us yet, and unfortunately couldn’t ride beyond Mysore due to unavoidable circumstances). An exam restricted Vasanth until Madikeri and a wedding restricted Vasisht and Varun until Mysore. Along with Jineshwar, I was the only other rider in the group who hadn’t done long distances yet.

My cycle was a mere week old and had seen only 18km of riding; the trip I made to decathlon and back for all the cycle accessories was the only ride on it. Despite lacking prior long distance cycling experience, I had backed myself to ride until Madikeri, a distance of 260km over two days, with the second day poised to take us through some tough inclines on the Western ghats.

As we were finishing our breakfast, another customer to our breakfast place asked us where we were headed. When Vasisht told him our final destination, the incredulous response of “Ooty na?!” had all of us in laughter! I wonder how he’d have reacted had he known that we were going via Madikeri (which is a detour from Mysore). Townsfolk everywhere seemed to be fascinated by this group of riders, who were riding what must have been to them fancy cycles, and wearing fancy attires of reflective jacket, helmet, and sunglasses. Later that day, while riding on towards Mysore after lunch in Malavalli, someone having his curiosity raised by seeing a few of our riders already, stopped me to ask where we were headed. The next day, a goods auto decided to ride slowly next to me to ask about us. Again on the second day, when I’d stopped for a tender coconut break, one of the people sitting under the shade of the thatched roof of the small shelter observed - what he decidedly thought was irony in life - that people like him desired motor bikes, while we desired such cycles.

Group of nine riders on fancy cycles and wearing fancy attires.

Among these reactions, the best always were from the kids. I had a conversation with a couple of kids, one of whom owned a cycle, near the same place where I had the tender coconut break. I asked the kid sitting on the cycle, “ಸೈಕಲ್ ನಿಂದಾ? (Is the cycle yours?)”

He replied, “ಹೌದು. (Yes.)”

“ನನ್ ಜೊತೆ ಬರ್ತಿಯಾ? (Will you come along with me?)”

“ಮಡಿಕೇರಿ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ದೂರ ನಂಗೆ. (Madikeri is a little too far for me.)”

As I rode on after this conversation, he sped by with his friend seated behind him. The moment they were ahead of me, the kid on the carrier lifted his hands as he rejoiced overtaking me!

When I was riding alone on the inclines of the ghat section, a bunch of kids asked me where I was going. When I said Madikeri, I heard the entire bunch go, “Come on anna, super!”

We also happened to ride next to a school that apparently had just ended for the day. There were a lot of kids with cycles, just pushing them along, walking with friends. They obviously needed the cycle to reach school on time, early in the morning. Now they were in no hurry to go back home. Why would they want to part with friends so soon?

Kids everywhere mostly greeted us with cheers and shouts of “ಅಣ್ಣ (brother)!” Raise your hand, and they will cheer more loudly for you. These kids got me thinking if I was having enough fun riding, because they seemed to have a lot more fun just cheering for us. Whether we were riding under the hot sun or were being careful to avoid the traffic, seeing kids cheer for us always made me smile and I always raised my hand for them.

Even though such incidents could infuse one with enthusiasm, riding long distances can prove to be an energy draining affair too. An injury forced Jinesh back from Mysore. Vishwa’s cycle had a flat tyre on the first day and broken spokes on the next. The blistering afternoon sun forced me to take more water breaks than I’d intended. I had to ride with a stomach ache for over half the distance on the second day. As we got closer to the ghat sections on day two, the roads became narrow, which meant more vigil on our part was needed. Although the ghat sections themselves were beautiful to ride on, we had to watch our pedal to stay away from the traffic coming from both directions and the fact that it was dark made it more difficult. And despite being mentally geared up – literally geared down – for the inclines of the last 14km to Madikeri, I found myself huffing heavily to make steady and slow progress. When I was on the edge, what perhaps irritated me the most were the badly timed speed breakers! A speed breaker on a downhill meant that I couldn’t build great momentum and one on an uphill meant it slowed down an already slow rider. When the riding got tough, I sometimes motivated myself by reminding myself that every next pedal took me to a personal best distance.

Just before the inclines to Madikeri got steeper.

On both evenings, we reached our destination with tired legs, but with triumphant minds. I personally felt more elated in Madikeri, as I’d completed a grueling climb that had me panting loudly with every pedal. And given how much tougher the Kalahatty climb on day 4 was expected to be than this, I also felt satisfied in not carrying on. And reflecting on the ride over the two days, I kept going back to the sunset I witnessed on the way to Mysore.

And we'd made it to Madikeri!

The sun, a little to the left of my view, had started sinking behind a small hill. Emitting the last red hues of the evening, the sun was setting quickly, with heat also sinking along with it. There were a few trees by the road and the traffic was moderate. Soon, the sky was bereft of the sun. I was sailing peacefully on the roads, chasing the already set sun.

PS: for a day to day account of the full 6 day trip, read Santosh's post here.

A glimpse of the green grandeur of the Western Ghats: Kumaraparvatha

An undulating and never-ending mass of green all around was the view that I was offered by the Western Ghats as I sat on the rock, facing the towering Kumaraparvatha. The clouds drifting all around added to the charm of the view. Kumaraparvatha stood taller than the other peaks around, like it was standing guard over them and the wildlife that inhabited them.

It had taken us 3.5 hours on a steadily ascending path from Kukke - trekking through tall trees, some leeches and the occasional snake – to reach the midway point (Bhattara mane) of this Kumaraparvatha trek. Despite it being the season for rains, it didn’t rain until we reached Bhattara mane. And it was an hour past noon already. But once we reached that point, rain was unpredictably on and off. The forest department was quite strict about not allowing us to trek past that point and quite understandably so; in a recent incident, lightning strikes had claimed lives. We had the entire evening to ourselves. An evening of nothingness to look forward to, with a large expanse of mountains to immerse ourselves in. Brilliant, no?

The cloud cover was a near constant and rains were very unpredictable. Heavy bouts of rains were separated by mere minutes, which made sure that we all were constantly draped in our ponchos or raincoats. However, as the evening wore on, there was a point when the rains did subside. The clouds were still among us and it seemed like the clouds were rising up from the valleys below, to join the bigger ones hovering above us.

The cloud cover was a near constant...clouds rising up from the valley

We found a smaller peak which we wanted to trek to and we occupied that for the rest of the evening to come. From this point, towards west, we could see the civilization below where the mountains ended. We could also make out the trail of the Kumaradhara river below, as it coursed through the woods. The river in itself wasn’t seen, but the clouds rising up from the path of the river plotted its slender path. To the east of the point lay the Kumaraparvatha. And on the other two sides, the clouds, mountains, trees and greenery completed the view.

About time for the sunset, I sat myself on one of the rocks around, admiring the huge mound of green in front of me. Calling it a mound of green doesn’t do enough justice for many reasons. One of them being that there were many varied shades of green. The grass and trees, feasting on the frequent rains, had produced innumerable and rich shades of the same hue. Also, setting sun playing behind ever moving clouds created such varied effects on the greens and the towering peak. All the clouds around us seemed to be attracted to the peak, offering different amount of cover to the peak, as though they were guarding the peak from the prying, hungry eyes of the people at its base.

Clouds seemed to be guarding the flat peak

There weren’t any signs of animal wildlife in these spots of the mountains; none if you exclude the leeches! The animals stay away from humans, I was told. The next day though, I would wake up to the song of a whistling thrush! How delightful was his song, whistling away to himself, safe from our eyes. The Himalayan whistling thrush supposedly stops whistling midway through, like he’s forgotten a note. This fellow in Western Ghats seemed like he knew his notes all too well. Or maybe he composed them all too well.

Back to my place on the rock, the cloud and sun combination allowed us the privilege of just a glimpse of Kumaraparvatha’s rather flat peak, a glimpse which lasted for just a few seconds. The moment was met with a collective aaahhh! I wondered if that was the Ghats' way of telling us that we humans should be limited to mere glimpses, and that if we're given more, we'd probably not leave them the way we saw them. At that moment though, the rock I sat on was the perfect place to savour this glimpse. Had I stood up and walked a few paces westwards, I’d have seen sights of civilization down below. But on this rock, there was no civilization to ruin my experience. I could as well have been in heaven. Really, at moments as special as this, seated as perfectly as I was, I start wishing for heaven to be real and for it to be an experience akin to this. But perhaps I’m looking at it in the wrong light. The heaven that I was wishing for would be a heaven worth dying for. The heaven that we have here is a heaven that’s worth living for.