The Sane Lunatic

As I stood atop that giant rock, taking in the magnificent view before me, I knew I wouldn't feel like this again in a long time. At an unearthly hour for a Sunday morning, us 9 riders, in 3 cars, headed out towards the ride destination, Ramanagara. It is also known as the 'Silk City' and is home to some of the oldest granite outcrops that were immortalized in the iconic Bollywood film, 'Sholay', and other great films too. I didn't know any of that until after the ride when I asked: "Where are we?". As we reached our rendezvous point, a farm owned by a relative of one of the riders, I got glimpses of the natural beauty that awaited me on this ride. By the time we started the ride, the sun was up and the day was just perfect for a splendid ride through the lovely roads through Ramanagara. Sunny enough to make the sky and the grass and everything else look amazing in their colors, and cool enough to not tire us out too much. This route was...

On my way to watch War Dogs last week, I saw a giant hoarding with a cycle on it, and the only bit of text I could read in that brief moment was the name of the event (I guess an inappropriately large logo size in a layout does work in this case), Pedal for the Planet. I looked it up and went to their website to find that there will be a cycle race on 28th August, and there were plenty of categories to choose from. I hadn't gone cycling for over a month, nor had I been going for long walks to keep my leg muscles in a fit condition. So, I went for the one I knew I could finish in a relatively decent time, ie, the Men's Amateur 25 K event. There was a registration fee, which added to the proceeds which are all together supposed to go to a charity called 'Colours of Life' (aimed at helping the impoverished children in government schools) and they probably do. There was another extremely lucrative factor, which was a pick and drop service for participants, which was fo...

Aaallllriighty then!! I have NOT been riding for quite some time now, for a variety of reasons ranging from illness to laziness. But this morning I finally went for a cool early morning off-road ride with the group again. There were a total of 11 riders and a few new faces which always adds to the experience.  We went to our favorite-nearby off-road trail, the one near the Gunjur plantations & farms. We loaded up all the bikes in the cars and headed off. Most of the guys had rented off-road cycles for the ride and boy did that come in handy for them. Oh, and for the record, the cycle used by one of the riders, a variant of the brand Mongoose, a total beast! Its been about 2 months since I last went on that trail, and the weather has been a bit...rainy, as it should be in this city at this time of year. What I didn't know was that this was also the time when those farmers till the land for the next batch of crops. So, that meant the trail we used to ride, instead of fla...

Soo, again, after a break of almost 2 weeks, I went for a ride(yesterday), this time with the fellas from the group. This was on the same old plantation trail, but without the expert guide, and our first ever evening ride.  I rode to the home of one of the main organizers of the group, in the afternoon when it was sunny and hot. We loaded up 4 cycles in his car and headed to the start point which was the Gunjur Club. There was an unusual amount of traffic for a Saturday afternoon, and half the riders were stuck in traffic too and were late like us. Only the guys who rode till the start point reached on time, which was 4 of the 8. We were almost an hour late from the schedule time for the ride, but during that time the weather took a turn for the better. We finally started our ride down the trail, most of it still familiar to me, slipping and sliding around on the loose sand, trudging through the muddy bits thanks to rain the day before. Half the group was on MTBs and was enjoy...

So, it's been a really long time since we had a riding tale. While I did say earlier that it was because I hadn't been on any interesting ones lately, I have also not been riding much since that post. And yes I do feel guilty that I was missing out on rides because of oversleeping, but this one is totally gonna make up for it. A fellow rider from the cycling group had shared a link to an event, a cycling race, being organized by the Decathlon Anubhava, and I had signed up for it. I registered for the Road Bike category since I was more familiar with that surface and my treads didn't give great grip on what I assumed would be the MTB track. The event was yesterday, 24th of April. There was a slight logistical issue, as in, this Decathlon was on the outskirts of the city so I'd need a lift to get there at 6 in the morning. Luckily the rider who shared the event was also participating so I took his help to solve that  problem. We were supposed to reach at 5:40 acc...

Hello! First of all, thank you for taking time to read about my experiences and adventures, and I hope you enjoy them and thank you for your support of my blog! I wanted to address the fact that I had not been writing much for the series of Sane Bike Loony Rider, not because I became too lazy to or that I stopped riding. I still ride every weekend and any other day that I can, I have simply not been on a ride interesting enough to write about, and no point in boring you readers with the mundane just to keep a routine. I assure you, any fun ride, long or short, worth writing about, will be written and shared with you and I hope you will enjoy it too.So stay tuned for more adventures of Sane Bike and Loony Rider and from the Sane Lunatic. As always, feel free to give your feedback in the comments.

Yes, I know. I know! Yes, this blog post is well late by a few days, but that's because I've been busy during the day and lazy in my free time. But better late than never is why I will still write about the rides last weekend. I went for a couple of short solo rides on Friday and Saturday mornings, uneventful but pleasant. The Sunday ride was something I really looked forward to because the group promised to do some off road, riding trails through plantations. And they delivered in style, with many many riders of the group showing their interest, because this was probably the largest number of participants till date, with 12 riders. We rode through Bangalore roads till we reached our destination, Gunjur, an area behind Whitefield. There we met our guide and host, Kumar, who took led the way as we maneuvered our way onto the narrow and bumpy trails with pockets of soft sand. Now, I've never ridden on such surfaces before then so I was quite surprised by how much my bike...

For the regular readers wondering if I have forgotten how the days of the week work, or that I don't have a job anymore, let me reassure you, that is not the case(mostly). I simply thought that if I can wake up early enough, I can go for a quick ride even on a weekday.  I managed two 5:30 AM rides this week, on Tuesday, and today, Friday. The previous one had me going on a very familiar route, down the HAL Airport Road and back up to Domlur via the dim back roads of Yemlur and the Wind Tunnel road. Now, the reason I picked such a familiar route, is because I had made an educated guess that these roads will not have adequate lighting to see where on earth am I going, and I was right. Surprisingly, even the main roads did not have the street lights on, and I took the help from the headlights of the few vehicles at this hour, mostly buses. The worst of it was a small narrow stretch of really rough terrain that was pitch black at that hour would most likely have strays napping aroun...

This post shall be brief. Just like the ride was. Right, the next weekend, and time for riding as fast as I can peddle. This Saturday's short ride had only one novice rider, the others being experienced enough. New faces for me, two buddies and an older mustached man who was clearly one who loved being active and fit. Not only did he leave me in the dust as he sped off on his kickass roadster cycle, conversations over breakfast revealed he is an enthusiastic runner and swimmer too. A triathlete almost. The two buddy guys were interesting people. And moreso because one of them was a guy who used to live in the same sector in Noida as me and he too had moved to Bengaluru for work not too long ago. Small world no? The ride was to Cubbon Park and back to Indiranagar, so short but with good roads. Now, I've been to Cubbon on a few weekends, around 9-10 AM times. We were there around 7, and what we saw up the long straight road through Cubbon, is a sight I'd describe as ...

In the story of the ride I'm about to share with you, there will be a lot of moments where you may think I'm too crazy for my own good and simultaneously impressed with my level of determination to do what I want to do. But above all, I hope you enjoy reading about this ride and can share my experience. So, after confirming my participation for the long ride on Sunday, I went out to get myself some cycling shorts. Now, I maintain that they do feel a bit odd to wear, but are absolute necessary for long rides. Now, I'm sure you've got some idea of how long this ride was from the headline, but to be exact, this was going to be 110km ride. Yep, I was going on a 100k+ ride a day after the max I'd ever done was a 30k ride. This would seem like a bad idea to anyone with a bit of common sense, but I decided to go ahead with it, especially since I'd been invited to it gave me confidence that I was ready for it. This was gonna be a loong ride, so earlier start aka 5 ...

So, weekend is here, time for new obsession, cycling. Same old, 5:45 AM start, so out of the house by 5:30, this time equipped with a water bottle and nifty little bag from Decathlon. I was carrying the Sony cam, with the wide angle lens, simply because its lighter than lugging the heavy Nikon D3200 while riding. The destination was a place called Sankey Tank, which is simply a small water rerservoir(man made), and the group was smaller than last week. Except for the core group, they were all new faces. More interesting people. We were joined by a couple who too were cycling enthusiasts. The ride was fun, going through streets I had rarely if ever gone on before, and not too tiring. The destination was buzzing with walkers and joggers, early enough to enjoy the sun. The place itself was quite nice and peaceful(except for the people), the clean waters, the ducks, the lone fountain and even the horde of pigeons at the feeding area was nice. The stop was a bit longer tha...

I like to ride. I've always enjoyed cycling, and its healthy exercise too, so double win. For my regular readers, you'll know I have now shifted to Bengaluru for work and stuff. For the rest, I moved from Delhi to Bengaluru a lil over 2 months ago, yes. So, I no longer have my car to drive around to take my mind off troubles and no car to drive here. But I have been able to pick up an old favorite of mine. Now, I've been using my uncle's cycle to ride a bit for a few weeks now but it was starting to get boring to ride the route by myself and I didn't know how best to plan routes around the city. So, I asked my aunt and she told me about this group which goes cycling every weekend. I got in touch with them last Friday, through Facebook. The group is called Pedal in Tandem, and they're a nice bunch of people. Cycling enthusiasts, some fitness trainers and one a professional artist too. I haven't really gotten around to remembering all the names and knowing ...