Cycling trivialities – Part III: The climb begins!

There is a certain simplicity about cycling that I enjoy: a physical push applied to the pedals or a pull if one is wearing cleats causes the crank to move. Through the chain rings attached to the crank, this energy is transferred by a chain to the rear cassette and then on to the backwheel hub. This hub is attached to the wheel through ball bearings causing the wheel to move, leading to motion. There is also the issue of how much force one needs to apply to move ahead, of how more revolutions with less pressure can take you as ahead as more pressure with fewer revolutions: the gears on the cassette take on this job. Then, there is the reverse action; the simplicity of braking: the brake pads attached to the calipers on both sides of the wheels rub against the rim as you pull the brake lever, or the disc attached to the wheel rubs against rubber to slow down or stop the cycle. All so simple and so many tiny parts coming together smoothly like a Mozart’s symphony! All this was happening as I was riding my bike on the first long day of the ride from Tadas Cross to Kulgi Nature camp in Dandeli.

The roadside eatery that came highly recommended!

The morning had begun early; we were well-rested and ready for a big ride ahead. Since I had booked the Forest Department accommodation at Dandeli, we had to be prepared to ride about 90 km to reach the camp by the evening. 90 km is considered very doable by bikers, but here there was the small issue of the Western Ghats and how undulating the terrain can be! As we reached our first stop of the ride, 20 odd km away, for breakfast at Kalghatgi, we asked around a random person for directions to Kulgi. Patil loved to ask people for directions, and well it leads to better accuracy than Google maps at least! While he gave us directions he also nudged us to visit a roadside hotel for breakfast and praised the food enough for us to try it out. Turns out, it was his brother’s hotel and he was just building its reputation and business! Anyway we had a quick breakfast there to oblige him and moved on to another small hotel with tables and chairs for us to sit and chart out the plan ahead.

The 'unbroken' seat of the Surly!

The issue we had to discuss was this: from Kalghatgi to Kulgi there were two routes: one a scenic one that was 70 odd km but up-and-down and another 55 km on a relatively plain State highway. Matty who brought his supermodel Surly had an issue with its seat. The seat was a brand new leather one and had not ‘broken in’, read ‘ridden on enough to make it comfortable for long rides’. Here, they mention longer definitions of ‘breaking in’, but in general, leather saddles take hundreds of miles to soften up and confirm to your anatomy. We decided that the seat had not yet confirmed to Matty’s anatomy and its best if he takes the straight 55 km highwayish road and the rest of us will take the undulating route. 

The stream where we got pedicure & Patil a power nap

The initial part of the ride was a contrasting one: it was the national highway 52 with good forest on both sides. While we did enjoy it, the sound of a truck, a bus a taxi would bring us zooming back to the mundane sounds of a city. Till we reached the deviation to state highway 93, where things took a steep turn, literally, into even more beautiful forests with hardly any traffic. This was when the trip actually began; verdant forests, an occasional bird call, intermittent rural landscapes, tiny shacks to eat; one in a dozen km, streams criss-crossing once in a while and big trees waving with the wind with bigger shadows on the road, we were finally home! At the 70^th km, we decided to take a nap by a stream and took our bikes down and rested our feet in the water. A few, perhaps Barilius, fish came to nip on our feet and it calmed and relaxed us more. We were back on the road in less than 30 minutes because we had to get to the Kulgi Nature camp where Matty may have reached earlier than us. 

The trail Matty was on led to a pond!

About that: we reached Bhagavati where his route will overlap ours, so I gave him a call there just to check if Matty reached Kulgi, he was still here and had a bit of a mishap. Someone on the way suggested a shorter route and he had walked several km with his bike on a route that led him to a pond! He was completely exhausted when we met him, but at least we were glad to be reunited again and continued the last 20 km together.

These were the first of the ups-and-downs of the Western Ghats and we were famished by the time we reached the Nature Camp and we had covered over a 100 km in the day. Having lived in a range of Forest Department Guest houses as a wildlife biologist, I was expecting basically a camping tent to stay. But the Kulgi Nature camp was incredible; it was a permanently setup tent, almost like the ones they would call ‘glamping’ now, there was a clean bathroom, running water and electricity and beds with mattresses! 

 

First, we got our bike cleaning kits out and degreased, cleaned and lubricated our bike’s drive-train systems. Then we cleaned ourselves and clothes and then of course, it was time for a beer. The logistics here were a bit more complicated. It had already got dark, so setting out for another 20 km ride on the bike to Dandeli town was not practical, we paid the local staff to pay someone else to get it for us. It took way longer than the bike ride and by the time the beer was here, we gulped it down and had a sumptuous meal made by two Gujarati women who had settled in this part of Karnataka decades ago and had a language that was a mix of Kannada, Marathi and Gujarati; a creole in itself, since I usually tend to understand these separately and could not figure anything they were chatting about! 

After that we slept like we 'sold our horses'! Next day was a ride to Castlerock, a place I was very excited to go since I had only seen the station from the train on the Goa-Bangalore route close to Doodhsagar and the forests around, full-of-cane, are a treat for the eyes; also, something very curious about the name of the place too! It was going to be a ride of only 60 odd km but very undulating; the cleats on my shoe-soles are going to help me pull up the pedals on the upslopes!