SingleSpeed Bus1Express

I would hate to miss a ride with my brevet partner and Master Shifu :). The plan was simple, he rides my single speed commuter, 'The Silver Shadow'  and I get the Bliss Mobile, KHS Flite 300. We catch up in the morning by 5.30 and quickly swap the seatpost as my commuter gets an upgrade to a lightskin seatpost that has integrated tail lights. Installed a stock saddle from the carbon KHS. A sore miss for a commuter is the water bottle holders. However, not to fret, there's the APB 300 Btwin cage mount that just wraps around any tubing on your bike. The ride starts by about 6AM and we settle into the cruise mode and average about 25kph. A couple of bananas and Tea served us well for the ride to base followed by the tricky climb. I would not have blogged about this ride had it not been for that crazy bit, Opendro rides a single speed, which honestly I didn't think was possible especially when I had swapped out the cog from an 18 to 16t and I've been contemplating a change to 14T. Why not make this ride interesting and post Kanakpura, I switched to singlespeed and the search for the correct gear to match the pedal strokes of the single speed began. soon enough,  the perfect match was with 1x7 (so that translates to 34t chainring and 13t ring on the cassette). So it was decided that it was going to be a day of single speed riding. Right, now all I had to do was forget that there were shifters on my bike. Once we reached the base with the very first slope, my gears started to skip pretty bad, so I had to switch to bigger chainring and find something comparable on the cog and this turned out to be 2x3 (50t on chainring and 21t at the cassette / 8 speed 2300 groupset). Not an exact match and I was slightly at an advantage but there was no skipping of the chain. For the first km, we kept company and stopped twice. Then settled into a rhythm and just slalomed all the way to the summit with one stop in enroute. Next, as soon as I started the descent found Opendro just about a 100mts  so urged him not to stop and he rode all the way to the temple another km ahead. The Borewell at the temple was dry so we decided to get back to the exit gate where there's a water source. However, we managed to get water from the locals who also were kind enough to invite us for lunch. However, we made do with water and continued our journey. The good news for the riders is that there is no gravel on the road unilke last time and its a lot safer. Challenging the next single speed timing for this climb. 43mins. 
Anyone?? 

Whattay climb 

At peace under a tree right opposite to the temple

The 'single speed' bikes for this trip

Start (From the base and not the gate which is about 50mts ahead):: 9:33AM
End time (The gate at the summit) :: 10:16AM 
Number of stops :: 3 Each for approximately about 30secs. 

Tip :: If you are planning for food stop at Kanakpura, this is a great option for cyclists as there is a secure basement parking and the hotel itself is at the basement so you have the bikes always in sight. Look for hotel Gokul. 
https://goo.gl/maps/MdUvtw9zGY52. If you are headed from Bangalore to Mysore, it is located on the right side.

There's a further deep dive into the specifics of the climb and I urge you to review this blog by Opendro: How steep can you climb?