I was off the saddle for a few weeks (thanks to my work schedule working with customers all across the world with an (no so) early morning start with Australia and then ending up with California). It was tough to find time for proper 8 hour sleep. Forget the saddle. I was finding occasional 30 minutes on the trainer and nothing to boast as a real ride on the tarmac..
When the cycle day invite came in I decided to be there mainly to get a reason to ride than show up there to support other cyclists in Bangalore on the road fighting for our rights of the road (or fighting for better treatment from Govt and other road users).
Coincidentally the cycle day fell on the same day as the Bangalore critical mass, I rode critical mass in February earlier in the year and never showed up due to the conflicts I had with my weekend classes (oh, did I tell you that I am done with my weekend classes which started in 2011? Yes I have now added an MBA Degree into my qualification which I felt lacking in me in the industry I work). So back on the topic, in February I rode with a couple of folks near my area to the critical mass and I messaged one of them asking if I can join him for the ride to the Cycle day ride venue.
Come 27th Oct, 2013. I met my ride partner for the day Aditya Kumar at Banaswadi Fire Station and we started riding towards Cubbon Park – the venue for the cycle day event. While I was waiting for Aditya another guy crossed me on a Hercules spring susser bike and as we noticed him ahead of us in the direction of Cubbon park we wanted to make sure he is another guy riding for the event. The answer was yes and we 3 continued our ride. Call it a silly mistake I had not worn my HR strap properly and it started showing numbers which didn’t make any sense. I fell back on the ITC flyover climb and I struggled to catch up with them and in the end was getting exhausted, I had no idea about my heart rate and couldn’t foresee this happening.
By the time I reached Cubbon park I was totally exhausted even though it was a mere 10Km I had ridden, I started to worry about the return ride đŸ˜‰ The cycle day ride started slightly late and that helped me recover and breath better. All the critical mass which happened earlier in year had participation in the range of 40 to 70 cyclists, I was suddenly excited to see the turnout of about 1000 cyclists of the event. Thanks to the organizers, one of the organizer was Kerberon  Automation who are behind ATCAG a cycling rental network in Bangalore who offered almost 100 cycles on rent for free for the event.
The cycle day ride lasted for a couple of Km only and was inaugurated by the Mayor. It was a great sight to see cyclists from different parts of Bangalore and there were even kids and housewives in the group.
In between the ride, the cyclists also had a chance to return what they used to get from other motorcyclists đŸ™‚ There was a funny (and bad) part of the ride when motorcyclists and cars were angrily waiting for getting their way cleared. I certainly could see a number of impatient ones in the lot.
The ride ended after it covered a partial round of Cubbon park and we received our post ride nutrition through Nandini badam milk arranged by organizers. As the riders were busy gulping them down there were some short speeches by organizers and a veteran rider from the Go Green group.
The usual critical mass ride followed and a handful of riders joined Go Green riders for the critical mass. We joined this ride and turned off from a point where we could ride back home rather than getting back to the starting point.
My return ride was not as tiring as the initial one, probably I was eager to ride faster and reach the venue on time and ended up tiring myself out. The return ride was greeted by the ITC flyover and I climbed it slowly. I probably did a better climbing in my February critical mass return ride which clearly indicated that I am out of regular rides.
More snaps from the day can be found below.