I intended the title to be misleading... :) Wanted to sound very philosophical about something very earthy. This is about the cycle trip I had on Sunday, 10th of April. Me, Shreekumar (yes, the same guy who drove from Chennai to Calcutta!) and Harsha decided that we were not having enough adventures in life. So armed with headlights, tail lights, GPS, digital cams, sunscreens, soaps, our helmets and of course, a lot of enthusiasm, we set out from near Silk Board at about 4:30 AM in the morning.
I found it unpleasant driving in the dark, that too early in the morning when I should have been sleeping. After about 20 km or so, the mood caught up. We drove into hosur just after sun rise and had a few cups of tea at a tea stall by the side of the highway. We set the motto for the drive - "sunrise at hosur, sunset at salem". Hosur is a town in Tamilnadu, at about the same altitude as bangalore. I could see long distance buses aiming towards Bangalore, coming from all over tamilnadu and kerala. There were early cars, most of them with tamilnadu and kerala number plates shooting out of bangalore, to escape the day time heat. Looking at them I realised they will reach cochin earlier than I would reach salem... :) But then, I was a stud who was cycling and thereby helping to the cause of a green earth, not wasting precious fossil fuels.
After the morning tea, the journey from hosur to krishnagiri looked promising, for we had tailwind and the route was a major descend of about 1500 feet in about 50 km, to Krishnagiri. I had earlier suffered this route, trying to catch it on the wrong direction. :) This time the stars were in my favour. I started storming on the pedals at 6:45, and was there at Krishnagiri at 8:28. In between, my speedo actually showed 58km per hour... It should have been slightly over 60, since my speedo reads a bit less. The GPS was with Sree and Harsha, hence I had no way of checking since I was pedalling ahead of them.
After Krishnagiri and locating Harsha, we went ahead and took a break at Kaveripatnam, about 10 km away. From there, the drive to Dharmapuri was bad.. heat was catching up. At Dharmapuri I found I had a lead of 13 km over my folks - something uncomfortable because I had to wait there in the blistering heat. Thats when Harsha decided he is going back. Shreekumar caught up with me in about an hour, after taking the GPS from harsha. The tamilnadu heat was indeed intense. We cycled less than a km and took a good lunch break.
The thought of going ahead in that kind of heat was a bit formidable. But Shreekumar's spirit was awesome. He said if he reaches Salem, it will be on his bike, irrrespective of what time it is. It was very clear to us that at that pace, we wont reach Salem by sunset. Those of you who have not been to Tamilnadu in that kind of weather will have no idea what that heat can be... The fact that Shreekumar was riding a mountain bike added to his woes bigtime. He could not speed up the way I could. I was driving the sleek road bike - the Hero Hawk, commonly available in India.
From Dharmapuri we started again, applying oddles of sunscreen on our hands, face and neck. After a few km Shree took an "exhausted" break.. at a small roadside shop. We had some water from there and waited for 10-15 minutes. Slowly but surely, the heat was showing signs of subsiding. That looked good. It was only 3:10 PM though.
From there, we ambled along to Thoppur ghat. A scenic and pleasant stretch, wonderful to drive, with four lane roads. It was all the more wonderful because it was downhill drive for us. We again took a break there, had coffeee at a roadside tea stall. Tea never cost anything more than 2 rs per cup. In Bangalore, it would be nothing short of 3-5 rs per cup.
When you cycle, you tend to understand the land and terrain pretty well. You will know for sure which direction the wind blows, the slightest increase or decrease in altitude et al... after all you are the engine!
After thoppur ghat, with the milestone showing 42 km to salem, life looked good. Temperature must have come to about 28 C and it was really pleasant with some decent tailwind. After a slight uphill I kept pedalling on... Shreekumar, exhausted that he was, fell back by a few good kms. I halted at the small town of Omalur, waiting for Shreekumar. After about 40 minutes of wait, he arrived and we had some cool drinks.
Now the last stretch was ahead of us... tired, but not defeated, we continued. The sun had already gone down. Obviously our slogan, framed 12 hours ago did not hold good. After about 45 minutes of pedalling and a halt to ask for the way to the salem bus stand, at 7:15 we inched into the Salem bus stand. The 200 km journey was over, the GPS proudly displaying the total distance as exactly 200 km.
We tried to travel back in volvo buses, but the time was over... hence had to rely on local private buses plying on bangalore salem route. I was sure another nightmare was in the making... we had dinner, preparing us mentally for the tougher ride back home in the bus. Shreekumar happily took the responsibility of taking the cycles onto the top of the bus. :) At 9 the bus left Salem.
The rest is history. I had broken my distance record...
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