Introduction:-
This is just a part of a long ride taken by my friends from
Ride2Light community. Few cyclists gathered together to ride for different
causes, creating awareness about their cause to people and most importantly
raising funds for their community programs. I got involved in this through my
childhood friend Santosh Baradwaj, who was riding to raise funds for a school
in his ancestral village.
The ride was planned to start from Bangalore Freedom Park
and it is supposed to end at India Gate Delhi. The riders will ride through
Goa, Mumbai and Udaipur. As a part of my support I rode along with my friend
and I am sharing my experiences with you all………..
Relax; you need more
time to read this!!!!!!
It is
0500hrs in the morning on October 2nd, and I am still look at myself
in the mirror. I had been asking the same questions to myself for the past one
month.
“Am I
ready yet?”
“Will I
be able to do it?”
“What
if, something goes wrong?”
Again I
remember about the reason for which I am going to ride 250 kilometers for the
next two days. More than anything the
causes were important, and not only that Santosh had already started yelling at
me to get ready soon.
I took
a quick shower, got dressed and now I wasn’t worried about the ride, I was
fully excited. I and Santosh were on the road with our bikes and his neighbor
one of the first persons to ask what we were doing so early in the morning.
When Santosh told them that he was going to ride till Delhi on his cycle, they
were stunned. Quickly he gave them the details of why he was doing it, however
their jaws were still wide open.
On the
way we met Siddarth the trip co-ordinator discussed few things and proceeded to
our start of points. That’s when I also met Ranjeet and Paritosh and seeing
their luggage I thought if I was them, I can’t even make it to the start off
point. Ranjeet was still okay with his 5kg laptop bag, however I can’t even
imagine sitting on a Emirates business class cabin with Pari’s bag .
After a
quick intro session, we rode together to the start off point. After a couple of
wrong turns near cubbon park, we reached Freedom park our trip starting point.
Already there were few family members along with few other riders waiting for
us.
While
we were waiting for other riders to join, we had a quick introduction session
of all the riders.
1)
Jayaram Kasi è
He had planned to ride 130kms for one along with us till Hiriyur
2)
Myself è
I had planned for a 2 day ride till Davanegere
3)
Ranjeet è
Planned for a 3 day ride till Hubli
4)
Anish Shetty è
Planned for a four day ride till Goa
5)
Paritosh and his bag è The long riders till Delhi
6)
Santosh è
The long rider till Delhi
7)
Chandan è
Another long rider till Delhi.
We also had couple of supporters,
who had seen our article in newspaper and reached there to
Cheer us up. It was around 0700hrs we pushed our first few
pedals through the cloudy morning. As usual the weather in Bangalore was cool
early in the morning and traffic was just piling up. However by the time, we
crossed the city it was one hour, not to forget the 2 different routes taken by
different teams.
We
quickly had awesome dosas at a dosa corner and pedaled towards the Tumkur. I
started first because I knew I would be the slowest of all. Within no time I
saw the team catching up and overtaking me, Santosh, Ranjeet, Paritosh,
Chandan, Anish and Jayaram and he even thought I had a problem with my cycle as
I was not able to keep up the pace.
In fact
Jayaram was riding with a broken pedal, luckily Siddarth and Kamal bought a new
one for him on the first break. Sid and Kamal then signed off and proceeded
towards Bangalore, While we started
towards Tumkur. With almost 4 of them
gone ahead, I was left with Chandan and Jayaram. The roads were wider and smoother for the
motorists and this was my first experience in a non-motored vehicle.
Initially
I was cursing the engineers who had designed these roads for not making it
straight. They were like waves to me, with a uphill and downhill. It was tough
initially and later I knew that this is inevitable. I want to ride a lot and
contribute more money for this noble cause, and I was not going to go back
empty handed. For every uphill, there is a downhill and with that as a mantra I
started riding slowly.
I
noticed a cyclist who was not from our group cycling well with his gadgets
around him. However as usual he also over took me and I was the last again. By
the time I reached Nelamangala which was hardly 30 kilometers from the source,
I thought its already evening. The fast runners had reached a bus shed and were
taking rest. We were just opposite to United Breweries (kingfisher) factory and
my tongue was already wasting to taste a chilled beer. That dream was
immediately broken by Santosh saying it’s a dry day. L
As an alternate, I ran to a
cucumber vendor. It was hot by that time and cucumber refilled me with a new
life. We relaxed there for sometime and started again. It was becoming a habit
for me to start early and finish at last. However I was trying to keep up pace
this time. On the way I again saw the lonely stranger pedaling all alone. While
Santosh was overtaking me, I asked him to check with the stranger where he was
going and whether he would be able to join us.
While my trick of slowing down Santosh
was a success I rode ahead of them for quite a distance. In spite, I was taken
over by the group in very short time. This time the group also included Vinay
the lonely rider. As I was almost left alone, and dried out and almost
dehydrated I saw some hands waving to me from the Café Coffee Day nearby. Most
of the riders were waiting there and were relaxing.
I was half dead and it was almost
lunch time. I was told that there is a slight de-tour of 1 kilometer to an
Ashram. Vinay was in fact riding till there and he invited us there to have
free lunch. That’s when I realized it was lunch time and we hadn’t even covered
half the distance. We agreed to proceed to the Ashram and that’s when a
horrible incident happened in front of us.
Two, Two-wheeler guys had a head on
collision, and were bleeding like hell. We immediately ran towards them to help
them. I called up 108; however I wasn’t able to give them the exact location.
An old man took over the phone and helped them in identifying the direction. We
gave the injured some water, and also the crowd and the Coffee Day guys helped
them in shifting to a shaded location. It took a while for things to settle
down, and after getting a confirmation that they had injuries and no immediate
life threat we started proceeding ahead.
I and Santosh added the next cause to our next R2L ride, and that will
be Road safety.
Just a few minutes after we
started, Chandan and Anish who were behind me luckily noticed my cycle was
dancing while I was riding it. Anish confirmed it to be a flat tyre, while
Chandan helped me in getting the air refilled. After filling the air, it was in
a better condition; however we decided to get it checked at out next stop.
We stopped almost 6kms from
SiddaGanga Mutt, and found bicycle garage. It was a small village next to an
abandoned railway station. As soon as the school kids saw us, there was a
gathering around us to check what we were doing. While the old man from the
garage was done with the previous customer I was interacting with the local kids
about our mission and the cause for which we were riding. While I was talking
about importance of education, a few students decided to vacate the place. All
the while I was talking with these guys; I saw Chandan was interacting with a
lady next shop. It seemed initially he was bargaining for rope. However the
lady got scared when he said he was buying the rope to hang himself on. It was
a pretty cool interaction with the kids and the shopkeeper and in no time my
bike was fixed.
Santosh and others had already
reached the Mutt, and we were 30 minutes behind them. It was very sunny and
Chandan tailed me all way till the Mutt.
Siddaganga mutt was a very
well-known mutt, and they were serving
the society with a lot of good community works. Vinay introduced us to the 107
years old Sree Sree Sivakumara Swamiji. After getting the blessings, we were
guided to the dining hall for lunch. It was a 70km ride till now and I had
already crossed my one day record. I was as hungry as a Rakshash and ate a
tummy full of yummy Anna-Sambhar and chutney.
We came to send the next group of
riders and took some time to relax. The kids of the school again gathered here
to check on us. Also a couple of families who had visited the ashram were
enquiring about the cause of the ride. I was very proud the share them the
details of the cause for which we are riding and with their best wishes and
appreciations, our pains vanished.
Vinay was heading to his home,
where his family was waiting and we proceeded towards Tumkur. Hiriyur, our destination
for the day was still 100kms ahead. We had split into two groups by now.
Santosh, Anish, Ranjeet were ahead in one group. I, Jayaram, Chandan and Pari
were in the slower group. We thought of taking the service lanes, instead of
all the flyovers. It proved very effective initially with downhill in lot of
them. As the time passed by, the Main high way was smoother and had a lot of
straight and regular stretches that our service lanes.
We had
a quick tea around 25kms ahead of Sira, and we were told that Sira would be the
destination of the day. It was getting dark and we had to reach the town before
night. None of them had lights on the cycle other than Chandan, and that’s when
I realized that my glasses were also with Santosh and now I won’t be able to
read boards. Chandan gave his spectacles to me for me to read the boards and
signs.
We just had one head lamp and one
pair of spectacles to lead us further from now. It was getting darker and there
were no signs of any lights nearby. While I was instructing about the humps,
and directions, Chandan was instructing about any vehicle coming from behind or
ahead of us. Jayaram and Pari had no idea on what kind of track they were
riding and they blindly believed what we instructed them to do,
“ Not too left there’s a cow tied
to the road”
“ Slow down humps ahead”
“Bad roads, keep a watch”
These were the kind of instructions
given to them and they also followed it religiously. Jayaram decided to wind up
on the highway so it would be better for his friends to pick him up. At a tea
shop, we quickly finished our selfie sessions and said good bye to him.
The toughest of the journey
started, while we were entering the Sira town, with no signs of light anywhere
and motorists speeding left and right, we had to ride very carefully on the roadless
track. First time I tried to keep ahead of the buses behind me, so that I could
get some light. With a tough ride, we reached the nearest auto stand. We were
then guided to the hotel where our guys had put up. We had the cut through the
city bus station and since it was a celebration week in India, the whole town
had gathered near the central bus station. Chandan took some photos, while Pari
and I reached the hotel. We all locked our bikes together and took a deep
breath. I was told, our rooms were in the 3rd floor. I came back to life only after I saw an
elevator at the reception.
Dragging myself, I reached the so
called AC room, where Santosh and the rest of the team were waiting for us. I
and Santosh had a different non-AC room while the rest 4 were allotted an AC 4
bedded room. However there wasn’t much difference in both the rooms. I got
fresh as fast I could and rushed out for dinner. I was sure of not taking our
bikes again, and luckily everyone else decided to walk.
It was almost midnight for this
small town; however we were able to see a few people on the road because of the
festival season. We were directed towards almost all the directions and
everytime the distance suggested to us remained ½ a km. We almost walked 3 times
the suggested distance, and still couldn’t find any symptoms of getting
food.
An old age man was closing down his
tiny hotel. We enquired him if they had food. He said he had food initially;
however he hesitated because we were 6 of us. He himself wasn’t sure if the food
would be sufficient for all of us. We didn’t want to miss this chance and we
agreed to have whatever he served, rice, sambhar, sagu, ragi mudhe…..whatever.
It wasn’t delicious of all the
dishes, but we were able to fill in as much as we could. We walked back towards
our lodge and got into our rooms. I crashed dead on bed and started snoring.
Day 2:-
It
wasn’t the first time for me to share a room with Santosh. However this was the
first morning that I woke up without him having to scold me for my snoring. We
wanted to hit the highway as soon as we could, and wanted to utilize early
morning weather as much as possible. Our target was to hit Hiriyur for
breakfast and it was just 40 kms from there. Thanks to Chandan for helping us
with loads of bananas which energized us early in the morning.
Paritosh
wasn’t happy with the bananas, and he badly needed to Tea to keep his eyes
open. With another ½ km to hit the highway, we found out a nandini parlour.
Santosh and Ranjeeth had half liter of raw milk and the rest of us with our
usual orders.
Santosh
then taught me how to focus and keep up the speed with him, which just went
vain within few minutes. Out of all the people over there I think I was the
only un-fit person for this entire ride. I tried my best to keep up their speed
and all I was able to see is Santosh, Ranjeeth and Anish vanishing slowly
ahead. Chandan, Paritosh ofcourse with his darling bag were riding with me and
we decided to keep up on the highway to avoid speed breakers.
Within
an hour, I was running out of water and badly needed some energy. A couple of
God sent tender coconut vendors had just opened up for the day. When I stopped
near them, I saw Pari and Chandan stopping just behind me with a sign of
relief. We had 2 tender coconuts each and were 20 kms behind our breakfast
target town. I got a call from Anish saying they were waiting at a restaurant
almost 3 kms ahead of us for breakfast.
As soon
as I heard the word breakfast, I rode as fast as I could to reach Aroma
restaurant on the way to Hiriyur. Santosh was right on target and he was
already ahead of all of us. Anish and Ranjeeth somehow missed him while they
were taking a turn towards the restaurant. Santosh agreed to wait for us near
Hiriyur or slow down a bit while riding ahead.
Since
we didn’t have proper dinner the previous night, we had a heavy breakfast which
turned out to be bad for me. After having a heavy breakfast I wasn’t able to
carry myself on the cycle. It was a tough stretch besides having lot of
downhills. By this time Santosh was already much ahead of me. I planned to
windup my ride with Hiriyur itself which ideally meant I completed 170kms of
the ride.
I
called up Santosh to check where he was and found he was almost 15kms ahead of
me, and that would be 1 hour ahead of me. He may have to wait for another hour
for me to reach him. Oh yeah! I forgot to mention my wallet, home key and other
stuff were with him without which I can’t say bye. I didn’t want to keep him
waiting for me and I told him I will take a truck since my trip was officially
over.
I
wasted almost 15-20 minutes waiting for a truck or van to carry my cycle along
with me and there was no sign of me getting one. I decided to ride ahead since
I had taken enough rest by then. I had tough times seeing things the previous
night without my spectacles, and keeping that in mind I had kept my sun glasses
in Santosh’s bike and was using my normal spectacles, which made my eyes burn throughout
the ride. I kept moving ahead slowly and steadily and that’s when my shoulder
pain also became unbearable. I was almost 35kms ahead of chitradurga and I was
already told it was completely uphill from there.
I
stopped and noticed that I was also running out of water. Since I had paid for
the morning breakfast and some more expenses I just had 20 more Rs with me. I
thought that it would be best to wait as much time as possible and board a
truck or bus which would take me near Santosh and I thought of paying them
after taking my wallet.
I
waited for some more time by which a van with banjangabali’s photo in it
appeared. The guy stopped and asked me till where I was going. I said
Chitradurga without thinking for a second. He told me that he had to load his
vehicle few kilometers ahead of the town and he would possibly drop me 7 kms
ahead of it. I agreed to it instantly and was wondering how he thought I had
another option. When I came to the rear end of the van, there was another
trouble waiting for me. The complete rear cabin was almost tied up with ropes
making it in the form of a mesh.
The driver, got down and helped me
getting into the van first, later he also helped with the cycle as well. I
stood on the van for almost next 40 minutes while I over took, Chandan and
Ranjeeth. Pari was no were to be seen and I knew Anish might be ahead of me.
Ranjeeth called up and said even he might take a lift because his knee was
paining badly. But he mentioned he could ride till Chitradurga. The Sun’s
performance was at its best and I was sweating even at the rear side of a
truck. I slowly sipped every drop of water not know when I would be getting my
next can. I was also worried on how much I would have to pay the truck driver
for the lift and if he happens to drop me somewhere before meeting Santosh then
I had only 20 more bucks left.
After sometime I saw the truck
taking a de-tour from the main road and it was getting inside a crowded dhaba.
As soon as I saw the cots in front of the dhaba, I just wanted to rush and take
a short nap. There was no much time left and I had to catch hold of Santosh as
soon as I can, and he was 4 kms to Chitradurga by now. It meant I was 3 kms
behind and gives me and him enough to catch up with each other. Santosh agreed
to find out ideal location to take some rest while I can reach him and get my
stuff.
In no time I gave my remaining 20
bucks to the driver, refilled my sipper, and started for the highway. That’s
when I get my first shock, the front break lever got dislocated due to the jerk
from the van. I adjusted in such a way so that it wouldn’t touch the wheel
again and again slowing me down. Somehow I hit the highway and started riding
the uphills and realized that this was the stretch which I badly wanted to
skip.
I called up Santosh and he asked me
to take up another vehicle till Chitradurga because the stretch which I was
about to take up was not very steep, but it was slowly increasing in altitude.
I waited for 5 more minutes to take up another van and this time without even a
penny on my hand. I decided to ride this atleast as the final touch. I made up
my mind not to look at the road, which might even make me tired and started
pedaling. After few minutes I lifted my head and turned around to check how
long I had covered. I had hardly covered 100 meters by then and this stretch
was about 5kms long. Without panicing more, I concentrated on pedaling, slowly,
steadily and I was at the lowest gear possible on my bike and my hands still
trying to recheck the gear position every now and then. I managed to ride for
almost 3kms in the next 20 minutes, and my knees were almost touching my jaws.
I got down from the bike before fighting further with myself.
It looked as if I am against almost
all the forces of the earth, facing all alone the might steep stretch. The dhal
fry smell from the dhaba next to me was pulling me towards them, and the empty
pockets brought me back to consciousness. I took slow sips of water, making
sure not to empty the bottle and decided to walk for some time. By this time
walking had become very unusual for me because I had been cycling for the 2nd
consecutive day. It was un-comfortable for me to walk with the padded leggings,
however managed to reach almost the top of the cliff like a swan. I wanted to
lie down for some time, but the breeze suggested me that it was going to be fun
ride for the next couple of kilometers.
It was downhill all the way to
chitradurga, and the I had a new life and I had enough reasons for me to get
back on the bike. Mercury was rising; however the slope didn’t make me feel
that. A little push took me almost 2 kms and in that excitement I missed the
place where Santosh was waiting. Had to take a U turn and came back to the spot
where Anish and Santosh were readily waiting to hold the cycle. I jumped off
the cycle and somehow managed to reach the cement slab built adjacent to a
closed shop. Literally it was a great relief for my a$$ and I couldn’t stop
myself from lying down.
Santosh asked me if I had taken the
uphill stretch and I just was able give a nod approving that. He too got
excited and cheered me up, saying “you did your best buddy!” those words
encouraged me so much and for a second I thought I will ride for another 40
kilometers. Back to reality, I told myself that it was just the time to take
the break. The dry fruits, mango drink and water filled in gave me some energy
and I was able to sit straight after that.
In a few minutes, some people
gathered around us enquiring on where we came from, where we headed to and what
made us ride on cycle etc. I and Santosh gave our views in broken Kanada and
Anish translated them to pure local version. In the meantime, we also had the
village panchayat president along with a school headmaster in the gathering.
The school head master Mr. Ravindranath Yerra was so impressed with our cause
and he invited us to have lunch at his home. Initially we didn’t want to
trouble his family, however later we couldn’t say no to him. We waited for
Ranjeet and Chandan. I had told Ranjeet about the uphill ride and since he was
in an auto he couldn’t identify the location, however he managed to reach us on
time.
Chandan
also reached the spot and we all were worried about Paritosh, who had a flat
tyre and had to take go back 10 kms to get it fixed and return. It took a
couple of hours to come back to the track, which meant he may be minimum 3
hours behind the schedule. Rest of us decided to have lunch at Mr.
Ravindranath’s house.
We were
really surprised by the hospitality from him and his family members. That’s the
specialty of people who live in towns and villages. They almost do all their
best for any good cause. We were server with Pakodas, Vegetable Pulao and
Uppittu and after a tough ride; it was not less than a complete meal for us. We
also had bananas and coffee to finish the meal.
Pari
was yet to come, we had Santosh, Anish and Chandan with us and we wanted them
to proceed ahead. We all were worried with Pari’s bag, cycle and his knee. We
decided to take him back to Bangalore or put him on a bus towards Davanegere.
After bidding good bye to others, I and Ranjeet waited for Paritosh.
We had
all the time in the world, because we were heading back home. We sat there,
spoke all nonsense, drank as much as water and still there were no signs of
Paritosh. After a couple hours Paritosh reached and in no time I and Ranjeet
got hold of his bike to relieve him. He relaxed a bit, had some refreshments,
and the next thing he asked was “Shall we proceed??” My jaw dropped again and
told him what our plans were.
Pari
wouldn’t agree to go back to Bangalore. He was very determined to ride further.
Ranjeet agreed to it on 2 conditions, one was to hand over half the luggage to
him and other was to take a bus to Davanegere. Paritosh agreed to that without
a choice and we quickly had lunch at a local restaurant and decided to put him
on a truck.
We
tried to find a proper pickup for Paritosh at different locations of the
highway, using different strategies and stunts. When everything went on vain,
we decided to change the location. We almost rode for another 4 kms and without
much option decided to get the local bus station. After a couple of bargains,
we helped Pari to get his bike on a local bus to Davanagere and came back to
KSRTC bus station for our bus to Bangalore. We still had few more enquirers
about our ride, the cause, the distance covered etc.
We felt as if we were in paradise
when we entered the air-conditioned AC Volvo. After 2 continuous days of
cycling, I now had the most amazing feeling at my back when I sat on the Cushioned
seats. We quickly bought tickets and I decided to take a nap, that’s when Ajay
Devgan was yelling at someone “aata majhi satakli!!!!!!”
