Ever since I began cycling, the dream of riding the green routes in God's own country always remained a far fetched desire. The leaves from last December were still pending and now seemed to be the perfect time to utilize them. Tempting as it may seem the decision was quickly made for a week's vacation. The accommodation was booked in Ernakulam 5 days initially. This had to be shortened due to conflict with the TCS 10K.
The surge of excitement kept me on my toes till the 27th. I managed to finish the TCS 10 run under 55 mins and was contempt with the achievement. Return Tickets booked in KSRTC Airavata Club Class Mercedes coach. The boarding point was Shantinagar BS at evening 7.30. After a quick check with Ajith Jagadish ( another cyclist that I met earlier on a ride to mysore) and he confirmed his readiness for the trip. Such was his attitude about this trip that he wasn't interested in knowing the routes or destination. Just wanted to get the bums on the saddle and ride till the legs beg for mercy. That's a great spirit and certainly is a mind over matter as one gets to face the challenges during the unplanned trip. Little did we realize that there was so much more in store for us than what we had on minds.
The excitement begins as soon as we meet at Apple istore at Raghavendra swamy mutt 5th block. A km into riding, I quickly lose sight of Ajith. Dang, he rode like a stung bee. After a couple of attempts to reach him on the phone caught up near cosmopolitan club and then we continued against traffic on the one way all the way to Ashoka pillar and then towards inner roads that leads to shantinagar bus stand. This was a quick huffy puffy ride and my T shirt was wet in no time.Only once we stopped I understood the scale of Ajith's luggage. He almost had a caravan on his back rather than a 'backpack'. As we waited for our bus we caught up on the daily lives and the BBCh races. As usual my X6 gets to show its carl zeiss magic hence out it comes from my pocket and I'm clicking away to glory. Then we see the Mercedes Benz coach that we're supposed to board and soon load our bikes and not without the fuss from the conductor who asks us to remove the pedals. We tell him that the wheels will be removed and then we'll mount them vertically. As the passengers had boarded the conductor reluctantly agreen to just push the bikes in and do we did and I secured the bikes against the side rails in the luggage compartment. Luggage cost = 330 as per ticket for two bikes. Thats all ?? Absolutely not. You've got to grease the hands of the conductor else he simply doesn't allow your bike. Add another 70 and he's satisified and I got my change for Rs.500 only at the destination. He was happy to pocket Rs.170 if not bothered.
Here's how the bikes were loaded ::
After confirming the PNR number we got seated and had a relaxed drive till the dinner stop at McDees on Hosur road just beyond hosur. The service at the hotel was delayed hence we were the last passengers to board the bus when one gentleman started yelling about the delay. I happily chose to ignore him as my tummy was happy and it was time to settle in to sleep like a baby as per the advertisement outside the bus :-). However Ajith had some nice rebuttals ready and after a few comments the angry businessman mallu finallys shut up and we got moving. Fast forward 9 hours @ Vytilla. We soon near vytilla junction and then head to the KSRTC Inter state bus stand. Reached the bus stand at 6 AM and we could smell the wet earth from early morning shower. Soon it was time to get the bikes out. I headed out to collect change while Ajith managed to reassemble the bikes to riding condition again. Just had to remove the disk brake spacer and put the front wheel back on my 4300D while Ajith's bike was a simpler task of fixing the front wheels back again. Soon we consulted the GPS on Ajith's mobile and we had to reach Panampily nagar and as per GPS it was a good 4 kms away. As it looked like it might rain again, he stopped to pull out a secret weapon to protect his luggage, a secret/hidden waterproofing for his "caravan".
After about 15 mins of riding we reached panampilly nagar and started looking for the BSNL stay. A few mins of confusing directions from the caretaker we managed to locate it and secured our bikes against some pipes. It was like a duplex villa but with rooms on the inside called suites.
The Goof Up # 1 The one booked for us was Suite 2 and we happily entered Suite #1. Once we had freshened up, we quickly switched over to Suite#2.
We then loaded our bags into Suite #2 and started a ride towards Allepey/Alapuzhzha, our first of the Trifector destinations on this vacation. Having done the extensive homework on mapping routes and checking with google street view for the road and weather conditions, he route for Day1 ran along the coast as depicted in the pic below
The road conditions were top notch. Hmm I should use more biker friendly terms. So let me rephrase... The roads throughout were road bike friendly except 10 kms (there is a right and an immediate left about 200mts away at kanamaly) which is
super MTB friendly.
The road bike friendly streches:
The MTB friendly 10km stretch:
The humidity levels were high and we were sweating however, due to the green cover and quite a generous amount of shades time an again the hot rising from the tarmac was being cooled and was a pleasant experience. The early morning showers also were a boon in keeping the heat under control. We managed to stop at a couple of places to sip on limca/Mirinda. One tip to whoever manages to read this blog is to avoid coke/limca/thums up etc. Mirinda is probably the only drink that can be trusted. Limca and coke taste very different. To me it felt as if a mechanic had refilled the bottle. There was an aroma of grease. you might want to blame the shop for improper storage but I had similar experience in two different stalls. Halfway through the trip my urge to sit by the beach was at an all time high and soon we found ourselves at thyckkal beach. The gadgetry instinct kicked in and I started clicking pics of my bike and trying my photography skills. Soon the instagram monster arrived with his Asus Transformer prime and managed to capture video of me riding the trek by the beach onto the waves. This feat had to be repeated a few times. Why why??
1. The first time Ajith tried to capture he missed it some how.
2. The second time he had forgotten to set it in video mode.
3. I had lost momentum once and was riding in the lowest gear :-)
The Instagram monster :
Thyckkal Beach
My Trek by the beach along a boat.
WOW. So many houseboats, ferry boats, mini boats containing goods for for transit, Canoes boats resembling shikharas of the north. I was amazed and dumbstruck by just looking at the sheer number of houseboats. Wild thoughts prevailed. I recalled the 'boating' experiments of my schooldays when I used to make paper boats of which i knew only two kinds. The really standard and the knife boat (Had a protruding extension at the base of the boat). The spark to try something new was probably missing and that might explain why i didn't build houseboats that ride the rainwaters :-). Would've been a rocking houseboat at that. Soon Ajith parked his bike by a tree and we started clicking pictures of each houseboat that passed. We stood by another small boat that was used to carry some kind of a fruit that resembled mango but learnt that it was poisonous and had medicinal value. Maybe the reader can shed some light as to what that fruit is..!!
And now some houseboats... (courtesy - My Nokia X6)
As we didn't want to miss the sunset, it was a fast paced ride avg 28kph all the way to the Alappuzha beach. The sight of the ocean is a perfect finish for the day's ride. Or was it? As we pushed our bikes on the beach sands, a thought struck us why not try riding. Ajith managed to ride for about 30mts before stopping. Then I tried but only to stop at 10 mts :-) and it was so much fun watching the wheels getting sucked by sand. Then we pushed the bikes nearer to the shore. My trek had a stand while ajith made a "Sand stand".
At this point you'd be expecting a wrap up and end of excitement for Day 1 and head back to the room. And.... you are absolutely...... Wrong.!!! Ajith captured many pics of the sunset. After clicking he kept the Asus transformer on the handlebar over the bag. Then.. disaster, a big wave went right through the wheels of his bike as his bike was parked against one of the pillars of the pier. The tablet fell in water and what a shocker I could do nothing to rescue it as i was farther from his bike. Ajith rushed quickly and picked the tablet which was being dragged into the ocean by the waves. The next half hour was spent trying to drain the tablet off any water that has entered via the ports. There was trouble switching it off. With a dismal note we left the beach. We hit the MCR ( Main coast road) which was an NH and soon found a truck to draft which went good for about 10kms. then we stopped for dinner and had some tasty dosa. It was a quiet dinner as I was exhausted drafting the truck at an avg of 45+kph. On a roadbike it would've been a different ballgame but on an MTB there was lot more confidence just because of the disc brakes. After dinner we managed to hitchhike on a tempo traveller for the next 30kms to panampilly nagar junction. We headed to the room to catch some sleep as we had an early start for tomorrow's big adventure. How would tomorrow be like? More riding in the highly humid conditions ? More drafting? Hitchhiking? tender coconuts?
Wait for the Day 2 report..!!
The surge of excitement kept me on my toes till the 27th. I managed to finish the TCS 10 run under 55 mins and was contempt with the achievement. Return Tickets booked in KSRTC Airavata Club Class Mercedes coach. The boarding point was Shantinagar BS at evening 7.30. After a quick check with Ajith Jagadish ( another cyclist that I met earlier on a ride to mysore) and he confirmed his readiness for the trip. Such was his attitude about this trip that he wasn't interested in knowing the routes or destination. Just wanted to get the bums on the saddle and ride till the legs beg for mercy. That's a great spirit and certainly is a mind over matter as one gets to face the challenges during the unplanned trip. Little did we realize that there was so much more in store for us than what we had on minds.
The excitement begins as soon as we meet at Apple istore at Raghavendra swamy mutt 5th block. A km into riding, I quickly lose sight of Ajith. Dang, he rode like a stung bee. After a couple of attempts to reach him on the phone caught up near cosmopolitan club and then we continued against traffic on the one way all the way to Ashoka pillar and then towards inner roads that leads to shantinagar bus stand. This was a quick huffy puffy ride and my T shirt was wet in no time.Only once we stopped I understood the scale of Ajith's luggage. He almost had a caravan on his back rather than a 'backpack'. As we waited for our bus we caught up on the daily lives and the BBCh races. As usual my X6 gets to show its carl zeiss magic hence out it comes from my pocket and I'm clicking away to glory. Then we see the Mercedes Benz coach that we're supposed to board and soon load our bikes and not without the fuss from the conductor who asks us to remove the pedals. We tell him that the wheels will be removed and then we'll mount them vertically. As the passengers had boarded the conductor reluctantly agreen to just push the bikes in and do we did and I secured the bikes against the side rails in the luggage compartment. Luggage cost = 330 as per ticket for two bikes. Thats all ?? Absolutely not. You've got to grease the hands of the conductor else he simply doesn't allow your bike. Add another 70 and he's satisified and I got my change for Rs.500 only at the destination. He was happy to pocket Rs.170 if not bothered.
Here's how the bikes were loaded ::
After confirming the PNR number we got seated and had a relaxed drive till the dinner stop at McDees on Hosur road just beyond hosur. The service at the hotel was delayed hence we were the last passengers to board the bus when one gentleman started yelling about the delay. I happily chose to ignore him as my tummy was happy and it was time to settle in to sleep like a baby as per the advertisement outside the bus :-). However Ajith had some nice rebuttals ready and after a few comments the angry businessman mallu finallys shut up and we got moving. Fast forward 9 hours @ Vytilla. We soon near vytilla junction and then head to the KSRTC Inter state bus stand. Reached the bus stand at 6 AM and we could smell the wet earth from early morning shower. Soon it was time to get the bikes out. I headed out to collect change while Ajith managed to reassemble the bikes to riding condition again. Just had to remove the disk brake spacer and put the front wheel back on my 4300D while Ajith's bike was a simpler task of fixing the front wheels back again. Soon we consulted the GPS on Ajith's mobile and we had to reach Panampily nagar and as per GPS it was a good 4 kms away. As it looked like it might rain again, he stopped to pull out a secret weapon to protect his luggage, a secret/hidden waterproofing for his "caravan".
After about 15 mins of riding we reached panampilly nagar and started looking for the BSNL stay. A few mins of confusing directions from the caretaker we managed to locate it and secured our bikes against some pipes. It was like a duplex villa but with rooms on the inside called suites.
The Goof Up # 1 The one booked for us was Suite 2 and we happily entered Suite #1. Once we had freshened up, we quickly switched over to Suite#2.
We then loaded our bags into Suite #2 and started a ride towards Allepey/Alapuzhzha, our first of the Trifector destinations on this vacation. Having done the extensive homework on mapping routes and checking with google street view for the road and weather conditions, he route for Day1 ran along the coast as depicted in the pic below
super MTB friendly.
The road bike friendly streches:
The MTB friendly 10km stretch:
The humidity levels were high and we were sweating however, due to the green cover and quite a generous amount of shades time an again the hot rising from the tarmac was being cooled and was a pleasant experience. The early morning showers also were a boon in keeping the heat under control. We managed to stop at a couple of places to sip on limca/Mirinda. One tip to whoever manages to read this blog is to avoid coke/limca/thums up etc. Mirinda is probably the only drink that can be trusted. Limca and coke taste very different. To me it felt as if a mechanic had refilled the bottle. There was an aroma of grease. you might want to blame the shop for improper storage but I had similar experience in two different stalls. Halfway through the trip my urge to sit by the beach was at an all time high and soon we found ourselves at thyckkal beach. The gadgetry instinct kicked in and I started clicking pics of my bike and trying my photography skills. Soon the instagram monster arrived with his Asus Transformer prime and managed to capture video of me riding the trek by the beach onto the waves. This feat had to be repeated a few times. Why why??
1. The first time Ajith tried to capture he missed it some how.
2. The second time he had forgotten to set it in video mode.
3. I had lost momentum once and was riding in the lowest gear :-)
The Instagram monster :
Thyckkal Beach
My Trek by the beach along a boat.
Experiment with new methods/modes of capture
All in all it similar to the "ride-in-beach" just like the drive in beach in Muzhappilangad and hardly any crowd when we entered but soon we could see considerable groups of people entering the waters. Though I had my trusty Nokia X6 working its magic via carl zeiss and capturing the natural colours it was no match for the Asus Transformer Prime. The video was HD and of stunning clarity. After the harsh ride on the 10km stretch the rear wheel on Ajith's Trek had a bend and the brake levers were swaying when on the move. So we tried to fiddle with the brake settings without much luck. Soon it was good enough to be on the move but with the bend still conspicuous, we decided that it will be sorted out once we were back in the room in Cochin. Nibbling on the energy bar equivalents that Ajith managed to source from abroad, we managed to reach Allepey at 3pm. Once the batteries are near-empty, a cyclists eye then assumes that it is a hawk eye and looking out for prey which then was visible to us as Al-Firdouse restaurant. Unfortunately only meals was available and nothing else and fortunately, atleast that was available :-). It was after a long time that i ended up eating Kerala rice which resembles the idly rice locally available however a new luncheon experience is never an unwelcome to a bleary cyclist. I finished my meal as quick as a woodpecker drills. Ajith on the other hand took it nice and easy which gave me more time to realize that we in fact were at Allepey or Alappuzha. We had next hour and a half at our disposal to explore the backwaters and soon we hit a small trail alongside a channel that was covered in weed. We followed the trail for about half a km after which we hit the main road which was narrow but the water was clear of weed and we hoped that we could see houseboats soon.In about 15-20 mins of riding we were at a T-Junction and our cameras were probably just bobbing in the pouches ready to swing in to action.
Action >> Camera >> Click, Click,
Crossed a small bridge to ride alongside the mini-channel.
Off the trail and on tarmac to reach marine expressways.
And now some houseboats... (courtesy - My Nokia X6)
This one come to park for a short while.
On the way to the market
Something like Shikara but a lot smaller
As we didn't want to miss the sunset, it was a fast paced ride avg 28kph all the way to the Alappuzha beach. The sight of the ocean is a perfect finish for the day's ride. Or was it? As we pushed our bikes on the beach sands, a thought struck us why not try riding. Ajith managed to ride for about 30mts before stopping. Then I tried but only to stop at 10 mts :-) and it was so much fun watching the wheels getting sucked by sand. Then we pushed the bikes nearer to the shore. My trek had a stand while ajith made a "Sand stand".
The bicycle 'limits'
Love this pic
At this point you'd be expecting a wrap up and end of excitement for Day 1 and head back to the room. And.... you are absolutely...... Wrong.!!! Ajith captured many pics of the sunset. After clicking he kept the Asus transformer on the handlebar over the bag. Then.. disaster, a big wave went right through the wheels of his bike as his bike was parked against one of the pillars of the pier. The tablet fell in water and what a shocker I could do nothing to rescue it as i was farther from his bike. Ajith rushed quickly and picked the tablet which was being dragged into the ocean by the waves. The next half hour was spent trying to drain the tablet off any water that has entered via the ports. There was trouble switching it off. With a dismal note we left the beach. We hit the MCR ( Main coast road) which was an NH and soon found a truck to draft which went good for about 10kms. then we stopped for dinner and had some tasty dosa. It was a quiet dinner as I was exhausted drafting the truck at an avg of 45+kph. On a roadbike it would've been a different ballgame but on an MTB there was lot more confidence just because of the disc brakes. After dinner we managed to hitchhike on a tempo traveller for the next 30kms to panampilly nagar junction. We headed to the room to catch some sleep as we had an early start for tomorrow's big adventure. How would tomorrow be like? More riding in the highly humid conditions ? More drafting? Hitchhiking? tender coconuts?
Wait for the Day 2 report..!!
Must have been fantastic riding on those small roads along the coast! Kerala used to be a bike-friendly State with lots of bicyclists but I guess now they are all buying mobikes - good to know they are still safe for bicycles, at least on the smaller roads.
ReplyDeleteYep.. and I'd love to get back to riding in kerala anyday :-). Monsoons would be even better :-)
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