Cycling trivialities - Part II: A ride in the plains

Cycling often brings back childhood memories; growing up three decades or so ago, I used to take money from parents and rent bicycles for 5 bucks an hour or even less and ride all day; fell so many times but the wheels kept spinning. Then one day my parents succumbed to my demand and bought me a Hero Ranger bike, life changed after that. I often went to school on it and even remember a day when a traffic cop deflated my tyre because I skipped a light! He had a wicked sense of humour too, he asked me to return the next day to get the air back! The next bike my folks bought for me was a BSA SLR, what a wonderful bike it was, it felt way more mature than the Hero Ranger. I once took apart everything from the bike except the brakes and it used to fly! In the year 2010, I bought the first bike with my own money on my 30^th birthday: a white Btwin Rockrider 5.2; it was love at first ride – the bike I was planning to ride to Goa. And I had forgotten to carry the meticulously-packed two 15 litre panniers outside my home in Bangalore while packing the rest of the stuff into Matty’s car!

Panniers that I forgot!

I realise now that I haven't introduced Matty earlier. I knew Matty from the time when I worked in Greenpeace, way back in 2002. In the last two decades, we’ve had some wonderful times trekking, travelling and conversing about almost everything under the sun. Since then, Matty has worked in quite a few fields and presently works at Decathlon. In his own words, he is an ‘occasional cyclist but a full time cycling evangelist!’, in mine, a perfect partner in ride. Leaving from the Coffee day in Davengere, Elrika and Matty could not help laughing at me every couple minutes and I was laughing myself too, although I ought to have been more shocked at my stupidity! But my mind was buzzing with solutions for this problem and so was Elrika’s. Quickly, Elrika and I made a basic list of things to buy from Hubli-Decathlon, things that will come in handy after this trip too and are also affordable. And this turned out to be the real list that one needs for a long ride: 4 ₹100 T-shirts, 4 inner wear, 2 cycling shorts, 2 sleeping shorts, 3 socks, 1 towel ('never leave home without a towel', a great man said once!), 1 big bag or two small pannier bags or one dry bag, battery bank (to charge the phone since the app Strava that records the trip drains the phone battery) & Balaclava (the single most useful thing when its cold, dusty, sunny or smoky on the way). 

Our own Mohammad, the long-distance cyclist!

We reached Hubli only by lunch time – the plan was to cycle from Hubli to the Tibetan colony at Mundgod the first day and stay there; a distance of about 50 km which would take us 3 hours at least. Going to the Tibetan colony would be like a prayer of sorts before the long ride, we thought. As we drove into the Decathlon store, we met our own Mohammad; the fourth member, Narendra Patil (who we affectionately call Patil) accompanying us for this ride. He has cycled over 3000 km in the last three years and has already cycled 500 km this year. The first time I met Patil was in the beautiful Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve almost two decades back when I volunteered with the Centre for Wildlife Studies for a week.

Mathew getting his super-model Surly ready!

Next, I met him next in 2014 in Bomdo, my PhD field site in Arunachal Pradesh and we had some spirited good times exchanging stories by the fireplace in my field station and doing field work for a couple of weeks. Keeping up with the tradition of meeting only during good times, this time I was meeting him ahead of a five-day cycling trip to Goa. He had brought his bike from Bagalkot to Hubli in a train which wasn’t a great experience since he had to wait for most of the journey along with the bike near the entrance so people could enter and exit. But anyway, he was here now and it was time to quickly assemble the bikes together, get them checked by the trusty Decathlon bike experts and buy the items listed earlier.

Panniers that I carried!

Elrika and I picked up all the stuff I needed in just about thirty minutes and one of the Decathlon folks mentioned to us that there were panniers of the old model they were trying to sell off at a big discount and for just 800 bucks I got my other pair of panniers, which Elrika can use for the next ride. They are just the perfect size to go to work in a city too. All the bikes checked, all the luggage packed, we thanked the Decathlon folks who helped us a lot and we took off into the bustling city of Hubli, trying to get out of it as soon as possible. The ride was on a road on rolling hills which was perfect to prep us up for the big hills coming up the next day. By the time we reached Tadas Cross though, it turned dark and Mundgod was still 26 km away. We took a quick decision to stay put and booked a room there to get a good meal and a rest and do the extra 26 km in the morning to reach Kulgi Nature camp, 90 odd km away, where I had make the booking for the first night. As we settled in, we realised how good the decision was. They allowed us to keep our bikes beside our beds, there was hot water for a bath and Patil and I made a quick trip to a bar 4 km away in the dark to get a can of beer each. We felt quite relaxed after the beer, we made a short trip to the neighbouring dhaba and had some nice rotis and curry and were off to bed early. The real trip is yet to begin!

A big thanks to Suraj and others at Decathlon- Hubli!