“Possibility is limited only by the extent of imagination.
Feasibility is limited only by the intent of implementation.”
The above phrase by coined by me as a dedication to this tour and stand as an inspiration to many more adventures to come.
Preface
The idea of a long tour on bicycle (hereafter called bike) sprang up a long time back. The expectation from a tour was that it should cover considerable distance, go through beautiful locales, should be limited in risk and leave lasting memories. I didn’t have too many choices. One of them was a dream ride for all bikers and the other was good by its own merits and most importantly easy to manage and convenient to plan. As for the dream ride, Manali-Leh was an obvious choice but it needed lots of training and a good bike which could take on the unrelenting terrain. Since I wasn’t quite ready for both, it wasn’t feasible within a short timeframe. The other option was
A month back life was getting pretty ordinary after two months had gone past my Roopkund trek. I didn’t have anything to brag about and the trek was fading fast in memory. For some reason, an unprecedented desire sprang up to do something different. Coincidentally, a friend of mine happened to ask me what I am doing these days. Having got nothing to speak out, I said, “Just breathing” and the conversation moved on to other matters. But the “just breathing” thought persisted in my thoughts for some time until I decided; its time to do some “heavy breathing”, literally. So the long lost surreal idea of biking down from
The bike
To me the bike wasn’t a factor of concern as any decent well maintained bike can take the terrain I would be going through. So my bike for the ride was an obvious choice – Hero Thunder MTB. It was an Aluminum bike without suspension and weighing about 13kgs from the Hero cycles stable. It was obvious because I have been using it for a long time now, wasn’t one of those absurdly costly ones people usually take on tours and had some sense of patriotism while using it. Having said this, I knew that the bike isn’t quite suitable for long distance rides in its native form. The brakes have been terrible and the scare of a puncture during the ride was high on cards. So I changed the brake sets to that of a
Riding gear
Safety was high on priority and hence use of helmet and riding gloves were certain. For the butts, a riding short with padding was used. Full sleeve shirts were also use to avoid skin tan and burns. Riding glasses were also used if situation demanded. Puncture kits, all types of spanners, screw drivers, chain repair kit were also taken as a precaution.
Riding Partner
Well, well…this is the most important part and even if some of the above things are given a miss, a good riding partner can compensate for it adequately. In my case, I was lucky to have got Niraj Sharma, a friend of mine from our acquaintance in my company two years back. After he made a move to another company, there was a very remote possibility we would do something together. We were thinking of Manali-Leh and all but nothing was working out. When the plan for this was being formulated, the only person I had in mind as a partner was him. In case he wasn’t available, I would keep the ride exclusive to me.
Niraj was riding his Trek 4300 gifted to him by Hema. It was perhaps the perfect machine for a tour. No maintenance or repairs. He wasn't sure he wanted to do this in the first place but then he felt bad for missing out on this opportunity. She was also the main motivation for him for this ride. Thanks and Hats off, Hema!
The planning
Though the skeleton of the ride was prepared by me to start with, the final route on paper and the arrangements for the accommodation was done by Niraj and his wife, Hema. Niraj convinced me to skip the Bangalore Mysore leg for an extended day’s stay at Masinagudi. Though I was reluctant initially because it would deny me some bragging rights and in Niraj’s words, I would miss out on “the trophy”, later I felt it was a wise decision. The idea was to avoid the National Highways as much as possible and try and stay in homestays away from the city crowd and pamper oneself with good food after the ride. The route was finally put down as follows.
| fri | 25-Sep | DAY0-Bangalore> | bus | |
| sat | 26-Sep | DAY1-mysore>masinagudi | (100km) | |
| sun | 27-Sep | DAY2-masinagudi>sultan battery | (85km) | |
| mon | 28-Sep | DAY3-sultan battery> | (100km) | |
| tue | 29-Sep | DAY4-calicut thrissur | (100km) | |
| wed | 30-Sep | DAY5-thrissur>vaikkom | (100km) | |
| thu | 10-Jan | DAY6-vaikkom> | (180km) | |
We did not stick to this route to the entirety but this remains true for a major part.
Day 0 - Bangalore to Mysore (by bus)
This was expected to be and turned out to be the most anxious day of the tour. We had no prior experience of transporting our bikes in bus and it being a long weekend, we expected huge rush at the bus stand. Still we took our chances and went to Mysore Road Satellite Bus stand to try out luck. We hired a pickup auto to get us there as we were concerned traveling in the mad Friday evening city traffic. After 45mins of bumpy ride we reached the Bus stand only to find that all Volvo buses are running full and the other buses were also getting full soon. As our hopes started to fade away, a Kerala State RTC bus came and a little bit of cajoling the driver and conductor helped us get a ride till
Day 1 –
A 10km stretch beyond Gundlupet was a killer stretch as some construction work was going on and we wished someone could transport us to the end of this stretch. It was back to easy riding after this stretch and we pushed on till we can indulge on a well-deserved lunch at the Pugmark restaurant just before the forest section of the Bandipur forest. We had covered a good 72km till then by around 11:30am. We were happy and sad at the same time to learn that the lunch is going to be ready only at around 12:30pm. Happy because we had more time to rest and indulge in bread & jam for the time being and sad because it’s going to delay us. Anyway since there wasn’t much of a choice, we chose to wait for lunch. A sumptuous buffet for lunch was served in time and we filled ourselves for the rest of the day. By 1:15pm our bums were back on the respective saddles.
Riding through Bandipur forest stretch was amazing. Though I rode here last week in my motorbike, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I did this time. The absolute forest silence broken only by the sound of crickets and frogs and your heavily pounding heart was a great experience. The terrain was mixed but looked like having more climbs than descents. It is true that we all like doing descends but the satisfaction you get after completing a long stretch of climb cannot be compared with anything else. We didn’t have much to cover that day and so we did it at a comfortable pace. We didn’t have any issues at the check posts and on day 1 itself we crossed the boundary over to Tamil Nadu. The forest section was now being called Mudhumalai Tiger reserve. As for the wild encounters, we saw a herd of elephants and deer alongside our route but neither of them was close enough for being a discomfort to either of us. Other travelers in their vehicles stopped close to the animals and made all sorts of noise and tantrums to get the attention of the animals for getting a prized photograph. I have even heard that people throw stones at the animals to get their attention. It was quite sad to see people have unscrupulous etiquette in the forests. For their seconds worth of fun and joy, they are causing enormous imbalance to the delicate eco-system.
By 3:30pm we were at Mudhumalai camp where we planned to go for a safari if time was by our side. We then took the Ooty route and Masinagudi was 7km away on this route. This route was again breathtaking with huge climbs and descents. Vehicles were there once in a minute or two on an average and weren’t too much of a trouble except for the occasional honking. Most of them gave us the feel of celebrity by cheering our effort.
Almost halfway through to Masinagudi from Mudhumalai we got to see the scariest scenario one could expect for a cyclist - A mother elephant with her calf on roadside. Luckily for me there were some cars standing right in front of her trying to get a “close view” and I took them as shield and moved ahead to safety.
The other advantages with such a travel are you may get to meet like-minded people who like traveling and holidaying. One such family we met was that of a motor rallyist who had traveled all across
Day 2 – Masinagudi to Sulthan Bathery (85km + 15km local riding)
It was probably the defining day of the whole trip. If we could survive this day without many hassles we knew we could complete the trip. We had bread toast and tea as the breakfast and were on our way. We had to cover approximately 12km back to get to Mudhumalai from where we would continue on NH209 to Gudlur. We had a great time till Gudlur which was about 40km ahead. We realized that we had climbed quite a bit yesterday and this made our morning ride comfortable. We were told that the early morning time was not a good time to ride since elephants would be moving around and crossing the roads quite often. But we didn’t have any such instances and comfortably crossed the danger sections. Like yesterday, the ride through the forest roads were amazing; today it was much more pleasant owing to the fact that it was still very early in the morning. Even though I didn’t expect any major sightings, I was taken by surprise when I got to hear a roar from a big cat. My ears are not trained enough to identify from which of them it came but was very clearly that of a tiger or a leapord which were most likely to inhabit the forests. I was very sad that
The stretch went on for a little longer than what we had expected.
Day 3 – Sulthan Bathery to
The ride till Vythiri which was about 30-35km from there was quite comfortable and our late start at 7:30am didn’t seem to affect us much. We didn’t seem to gain or lose much as far as altitude was concerned and the roads were nice too. By around 10:30am we were about to take plunge, literally. The sight from that place also known as Lakkidi viewpoint was breathtaking. The distant landscapes hiding behind the thick fog showing up its majestic existence once in a while was a unique experience.
The 12km long stretch after Vythiri was probably the most sought after stretch for the day. We would be losing about 700m in just about 12km and there are about 10-12 hairpin curves. On bike, losing altitude like this was always welcome.
We took some snaps and videos on the way but didn’t stop too many as we didn’t want to break the flow of the ride. There wasn’t too much traffic and we could overtake the trucks and other huge trailors quite comfortably. In no time we were at the Downhill. We were so happy to have come till there safely but sad that we had lost almost all the altitude advantage we had till now. We were now very close to sea level and from now on the terrains were pretty much flat.
One thing that was increasingly seen as we entered Kerala was that people were more frequently mistaking us for foreigners. With all riding gears on we looked different and were the centre of attraction. We had to take in all sorts of comments – some great and some not so great ones. The thing I enjoyed the most was to study the change in facial expressions of people when I revealed to them that I was a native of Kerala. Some showed expressions of shock from disbelief, some showed overflowing joy, some showed expressions of sorrow to learn that they just lost bragging rights of that of speaking to a “foreigner”. I enjoyed every bit of these little conversations. At a place where we had lunch, we got seated in a table waiting to be attended to. When I looked around I saw the attendants were all huddled together as if scared to approached us. I just turned around and ordered “Two meals” in Malayalam. I could see how they all reacted to that and all burst out laughing as if it was the last thing they expected out of a “foreigner” to blurt out in local language.
We reached the resort by around 4pm. The beach looked pretty much deserted and though we wanted it to be like that, there was an air of insecurity mainly because of our attire which made us look like rich spoiled foreign brats. But soon I settled down to reality. In the evening we went to the beach and had a dip.
We then talked on for a long time at the shores. By late evening, we went inside looking for our dinner. We had underestimated our appetite a little bit and the provision made for us fell short of our need by a huge margin. We requested the caretaker to arrange for some more food, however simple it may be. He managed to get some rice and as always we pounced on it. The night passed off peacefully.
We had done 300+ kms till now and were close to halfway mark. At this point neither did the distance we already covered, nor did the distance lying ahead of us look formidable. We again decided to take it day by day and what mattered most was day 4’s ride. Our route planning was little off the mark and we found that we were 20km’s north of the
Day 4 –
The tour takes an interesting turn on this day. From high altitude climbs and descends, riding through forests, breathtaking landscapes, we were moving to a much tamer terrain, coastal route, inland waterways. It was a welcome change as we had much longer distances to cover compared to what we had done the last three days. There was a discussion on whether we should stick onto the NH17 or take the coastal route as planned. The advantage with NH17 was that it would be faster owing to better roads but there would be absolutely no fun in it. So we decided to take the coastal route.
The first ferry crossing was at Beypore. It was a first for both of us. The “junkar”, as it is called, is used to transport not only humans but also light vehicles like motorcycles, cars, jeeps etc. There was one running every 10-15mins. The transportation costs were very cheap compared to the land transport. The ride was excellent and we enjoyed it thoroughly. The pilot of the junkar also encouraged us to stick to the coastal route. We have to go over a newly constructed bridge adjacent to the Kadalundi Bird Sanctuary and then one more ferry crossing at Ponnani. We would then join the NH17 and back to the civilization.
There was an amazing location for resting near a pond on the way where
My initial plan was to stay at the Vaikkom resort where Niraj and Hema planned to stay and continue to
Upon reaching Guruvayoor, Niraj went on to have a quick darshan at the temple from the outside and we had light snacks and then carried on. The ride to Thrissur was about 30km and we started the ride only at around 6pm. We were worried as we didn’t have lights and the roads were pretty narrow and the private buses plying on that road were very rash. That ride wasn’t very enjoyable as there was too much traffic as we neared the Thrissur city. There was an unpleasant conversation with a person by the name George with whom we had an arrangement for accommodation at Thrissur. As we were about to ask for directions to that place, he put forward a condition that he allowed only couples in his place. Well, it wasn’t as if he was the only option left for us, and we carried on. We reached the town at around 8pm, asked around a bit and ended up checking into the first place we got into at Royal Residency. It wasn’t a great choice but we were happy they let our bikes in.
Meanwhile, my father got in touch with one of his students who was working with a reginal newspaper – Mathrubhoomi and he put the news of our tour to a correspondent. They got interested in it and had a chat with my parents and got some basic information about us. They called me that evening and took an interview collecting more information about us and the ride. We were so thrilled by this chat and were almost sure this will be making its way into the paper. I was told that their photographer will get in touch with us tomorrow for a photo shoot. Cant believe it was happening to us. We had dinner from a contemporary feel restaurant – Chilis, nearby. We were back to our rooms by around 10:30pm and then we crashed onto the beds.
Day 5 – Thrissur to Vaikkom (for Niraj) and Alleppy (for Aswin) – 160km
We began the day early and the day’s ride was mostly confined to NH. The route was we had to head south of the town and join the NH47 coming from Palakkad and leading all the way upto Kanyakumari. As we hit the National highway, Niraj was slowing down at a faster rate. He had a recurring pain in his right knee and we discovered from his symptoms that he may be having an ITB in his right knee. It started showing up on day 4 itself but got worse now. Though he could ride, he was virtually using only his left leg for pedaling. It was a hard moment and he was determined he would fight till he could. We took frequent breaks but managed to keep moving. Had our breakfast at Chalakkudy and by around 11am we were very close to Ernakulam. By then I had got in touch with the Mathrubhoomi correspondent and we decided to meet at Ernakulam bypass for the photo shoot. This was an inspiration which kept us both in high spirits. At around 11:30pm we met the correspondents and the photo shoot and a quick interview lasted some 15 mins.
Niraj was sure he couldn’t pedal at a decent pace and insisted we part ways and I carry on the NH47 to Alleppy rather than follow him to Vaikkom. Vaikkom was only 26km from this point and I knew we were not doing bad as far a time is concerned and I could make it to Alleppy before dark even if I followed him to Vaikkom. In spite of his strong insistence, I wasn’t convinced to leave Niraj alone to pedal that distance. I knew he would make it but still didn’t want to part ways at that juncture. And we decided to go together till Vaikkom at whatever pace he could. We had to take a deviation at Vyttilla and join the SH15. The road wasn’t too wide and there was considerable traffic as well. Regardless of these we managed to reach about 10km away from by 1pm. Guilt was piling up in Niraj’s mind of somehow slowing me down and he worried of my last leg to Alleppy which was around 30-40km from there. He managed to convince me to carry on from there. We parted ways after making sure I carried all essentials which we were carrying on a shared basis. He would do a mix of walking and biking while I would carry on till Vaikkom, have lunch and then catch a ferry to the other side of the
The ferry was much more established that the previous two ferries I had used. However from the outset they didn’t seem to allow vehicles to be taken on board. The cycle seemed to be an exception. The vembanad lake which was perhaps the most picturesque part of Kerala was separating the east and west side of the south Kerala region. There was just one bridge connecting them and another connection point was this ferry. The ferry took me to Cherthala town which was about 35km north of Alleppy.
A quick calculation suggested that I would need a max 2 hours to cover this distance. Kumarakom, the paradise for resorts and ayurvedic spas was just 15km form here. I couldn’t resist paying a visit especially since I had some time to spare. The route wasn’t very cycle friendly atleast till the first 5km. After that I reached the bridge which connected the east and west coast of the lake, I knew I was in for a treat. From over the bridge there was an amazing view of the lake and I decided to go till Kumarakom which was about 10km from there. All along the route the country side view was breath-taking. I stopped at a few occasions for a snap and for the rest of them I gave a skip since it was getting dark and I had a huge distance to cover now since I was going away from Alleppy.
I somehow managed to reach Kumarakom. From the outset, the lakeside was a little far from the town. One way to reach the coast was to pay a visit to Kumarakom bird sanctuary and walk inside it to the coast and come back. I didn’t have so much time to spare and though I got into the bird sanctuary I desisted from going till the coast. The bird sanctuary was very close to Taj Kumarakom and it was one of the pioneers in bringing tourism to this part of the country.
The journey back to Alleppy started at 5:30pm and I had about 30-odd kms to cover. I called up my aunt, at whose place I was staying that night at Alleppy and told her I would be there by 7:30pm. The ride was quite pleasant as the climate was good and the traffic wasn’t heavy. I could keep the time very well as I could reach her house at exactly 7:30pm. This day, thanks to the detour to Kumarakom, I could cover a good 160km. It was my longest for a day and my first 100mile ride. Even I couldn’t quite believe I did this without much trouble.
Day 6 – Alleppy to
The back to home ride was expected to be pleasant. There were not many options but to take the NH47 from there on. Towards
Because of the loose left pedal, the effort out on it didn’t yield as much result as it would have been otherwise. But I still managed to keep a decent average speed of about 19kmph. By around 11am I reached Kollam. It was kind of a midway for my journey for the day. The crank was giving a lot more trouble and I had to take more frequent breaks to make sure it doesn’t get irreparable or to prevent something falling off. The average speed reduced a little bit more but was above 18kmph which was very encouraging. The only motivation now was to forget the fact that I had 70km more to do but rather think of it as 7 chunks of 10km each and then taken them one at a time. It helped a lot as I pushed these segments one by one until I was very close to Trivandrum. I decided to skip the Varkala beach section as my motivation was to reach home without causing more damage to the bike.
About 25km away from
In Perspective
This was what we finally ended up doing. It was not too wayward from what we had planned but turned out to be a little longer.
| fri |
|
|
| 25-Sep | DAY0-Bangalore> | bus | |
| sat |
|
|
| 26-Sep | DAY1-mysore>masinagudi | (100km) | |
| sun |
|
|
| 27-Sep | DAY2-masinagudi>sultan battery | (85+15km) | |
| mon |
|
|
| 28-Sep | DAY3-sultan battery> | (100km) | |
| tue |
|
|
| 29-Sep | DAY4-calicut thrissur | (140km) | |
| wed |
|
|
| 30-Sep | DAY5-thrissur>alleppy via kumarakom | (160km) | |
| thu |
|
|
| 10-Jan | DAY6-alleppy> | (155km) | |
Having met all the planned objectives and a good collection of snaps and a newspaper recognizing our effort, this ride can be considered a grand success. To a certain class of people this tour may appeal to be a great achievement, but for a certain class of even more crazier people doing outrageously wonderful things out there, this may be a “just another ride”. But we certainly did justice to ourselves by doing this. Though I have stressed on our strengths and weaknesses here, a huge part of our success lies in the prayers and well-wishes of our parents, relatives and friends. Eventually I hope more people get inspired by our effort and do great things in their lives in whatever ways it is possible. For our sake, we have certainly laid a high enough bar and now sky is the limit.
Impressions
Well, well, well. This is probably the very reason I have thought about this tour. Leave a long lasting impression in my mind about a unique, custom-made experience. Whenever, I feel lost in life, I need to do something to “reclaim my life”. My first Mumbai marathon was just as unique as this one. Looking just 3 years back, I can’t imagine me doing such things. It’s the ever increasing urge to stand out in the crowd and encourage the crowd think different that has prompted me to get into these unchartered territories. Even now while talking to my friends about this tour, I am seeing their awe struck faces as my own face 3 years ago. Then it was a fascination, now it’s a dream come true, tomorrow it’s a “no big deal”. I can put it as an idiomatic expression as - Possibility is limited only by the extent of imagination. Feasibility is limited only by the intent of implementation. If I couldn’t have imagined me doing the last 30km of this 770km ride or running the last couple of kilometers of the Mumbai marathon, all these things wouldn’t even have been a dream. The only certain thing about this tour was unbounded imagination, an unabated desire of implementation and an absolute fearlessness of failure. If anyone can get inspired by these three factors, then as I said possibility is just a matter of imagination.
People are now asking me, what next? There is no sure-shot answer to this. I prefer to do things unique, exclusive and custom-made for me. I believe that there are only 2 types of people in the world – The Best and the Rest. Life is just a question of which bucket you want to belong to. If life feels like getting ordinary, break the shackles that bound you and do something extra-ordinary. You graduate much faster to the “Best” category. I have started my journey.
