Ready to Fly: Bike ride with gal-pals to Hesaraghatta Grasslands

The same monotonous life of mine was beckoning me and I was desperately looking to reinstate my lost biking spirit, when a post for a bike ride on BTC caught my eyes.

It was a women’s biking club meet up, which meant I could meet some of my old gal pals as well as connect to, new faces.

When the D-Day finally arrived, I got up early and took a nice shower after a sleepless night full of excitement and got ready to join the first mammoth women’s group ride of my life. One hell of a group ride this was supposed, the first women’s biking club formed by BTC thus taking their first baby step embarking history, marking the first footprint into a new era of women’s biking, with 6 bikers planned to arrive! After putting on my armor and packing small necessities for the ride, I turned on the ignition and pat came her reply…she was ready to take me to my first group ride of the year!

After leaving home at around 6.00 AM, I cruised to the meet-up point. It is a clear morning after a long spell of rain at night. The moment I rolled my bike I felt the chill wind gushing inside my helmet and jacket, making my adrenaline pump up! So badly I needed this rejuvenation, I thought! As a part of the habit, I started with a 50-60 km’s per hour, even though the roads were ultra smooth and traffic free. I got my bike tank full of petrol to feed her and cruised towards the meeting point.

The gang from Bangalore was scheduled to meet-up near Hebbal-esteem mall around 7.00 AM. I, Jyoti and Ritu were supposed to meet near Tin Factory-Hebbal flyover and then drive together to the meet-up point. Around 7.05 AM we were near Esteem mall, with Deepthy and Juby already waiting for us. 10 min later Rajalakshmi shows up with her 11 year old daughter Vaishnavi which was quite a surprise but a delighted one. A few meters ahead, surprises awaited us in form of Piyush and Viru, who accompanied us through the entire journey. I was glad to meet Deepthy, Ritu, Viru and Piyush, the gang leaders and after we were done with the intros, the briefing came into surface!

Piyush briefed us about the etiquette of group riding and trust me they were invaluable! I never cared about formations or hand signals, being mostly a solo rider. All this was so-so new to me! The signals for slow down, stopping and hazard indication were shown and I was extremely excited to see them in practice.

We had a lead and a sweep and the rules were pretty simple:

• Don’t overtake your lead.
• Don’t fall behind your sweep.
• Make sure you can see the one leading you in front and the one tailing you in the Rear View Mirror.
• Take care of the one behind you, if you don’t see him, slow down. In this way, the whole group will slow down!
• If you need to stop due to any reason, get out of the pack, reach your lead and ask him to stop!

All this new rules made me a bit apprehensive. I am used to driving at 60-70 speed solo and overtake any one blocking my path. But riding in a group and acting like one is bit difficult which lead to tiny-winy mistakes.  Nevertheless, a beautiful sunny morning scooting through the country side road, breezing by, is a great way to start your weekend. 

Around 9.00 AM we stopped at a small hotel for breakfast. After fueling up on puris, idli vadas, pulav and tea/coffee we jumped back on our bikes and headed towards our destination. After asking for directions from the localities towards Hesaraghatta Grasslands we finally reached Nrityagram around 9.45ish, parked our bikes and had another round of formal intros. 

Around 10.00 AM we went into Nrityagram had a look around, watched few Odissi dance steps, clicked a zillion pics and exited around 11.30 AM. We then made our way towards Hesaraghatta Grasslands, but unfortunately the place was prohibited due to some naxalites issues. 

Sadly we all turned our bikes and made it back to Hesaraghatta Lake which unfortunately was dried up, but we ended up clicking few pics anyways. Around 1.00 AM we started back to Bangalore, reached our meet-up point, had a feedback session, thus ending our journey. 

I end this journey by quoting “Because its not the destination that is important but the road towards it…."

The Language of Trekking - Madhugiri Fort

Trekking with a bunch of strangers was definitely not my cup of tea till now, but 2nd Feb changed all of it. I couldn’t possibly pen down the fun I had with a bunch of strangers that once I dreaded to trek along. This small outing definitely changed my insights on a lot of perceptions that I made on assumptions in my life. Well like someone said “Change is the only thing that’s constant” and this change is definitely most welcoming. 

After being a part of BTC group for almost a year it was definitely a shame on not being part of even one trek till today. I had to change this part of mine and take that one step forward to participate in one of the treks that would be the ice breaker. After constant debate with my conscience to join a trek atleast once, I juggled through my options every week right from the Karwar trek to Nandi hills to Shivagange, finally deciding to put forth my name for Madhugiri trek, and BINGO, Madhugiri won the lot. Even after nominating myself for this trek, I was having double thoughts on weather I should go ahead with this trek or withdrew my name till the very last moment. Glad I didn’t do any such dramas to backout.

How to I start to explain my amazing experience, I could go on and on and on about this trek and one can just get exhausted reading them. So I would try to keep it short and simple  so, here goes my gaga about my trek. Let me start with Sangamesh, our organizer who arranged this trek very smoothly without any issues. Well, for an organizer, I could say he was the sweetest person, a  very calm and patient guy, who constantly picked our calls at nights (on 1st Feb one day prior to the trek) and reassured us that we could do this trek. We were supposed to be in majestic by 6.45 in the morning and leave to Madhugiri by 7. Almost all the trekkers were in majestic by 7 except me, yeah I know that’s quite unimpressive, but believe me I am usually not a unpunctual person, but as fate decided I was late that day not by a mere 5 or 10 min but I was 40 min off the grid, so let me first apologize to each one for being late and a word that this wont happen again. So, back on track, about Sangamesh, I thought he might leave me and go ahead with the trek, but, like I said, he was definitely nice to me on that context, and so was the other folks who didn’t crib about me being late. GLAD!!

Once I reached the pre-decided place for meet up, I hopped into the bus and quietly went and sat in one of the free seats. I met Vanati and her school friend Swetha, two school buddies, who had so much to share with each other, that I let them be in there own world. Next I met Priyanka, and chit chatted with her till we reached Madhugiri, and as amazed I am now priyanka turned out to be the most famous person in the trek. I met Lucy next, an American, she was awesome at trekking, one of the three folks who reached the top of the fort when we were just half way to the top :D 

We reached Dabaspet, had our breakfast at one of the mess joint, packed our lunch and left to the destination. Once we reached Madhugiri, we had a formal introduction with everyone and then started out trek to reach the fort, a walk that was 4 km away. When I first saw the path we had to trek and the height of the fort, I thought it was a baby’s walk to me, gosh, wasn’t I wrong, it took every bit of energy in my system to reach the top. First 15 min I walked with an attitude that, I would reach the top in half an hour without any issues, but reality struck me after 15 min when I was panting so bad that every 5th step I make I was forced to rest for atleast 5 min to catch my breathe. To be frank, I was glad my stamina wasn’t that great, coz once I knew I cant reach the top by continuously walking, I decided to stick with my group and follow there strategy of walking for few min and then resting for few minutes. This cycle worked perfectly for me, there was a scream of encouragement when you doubt yourself if you could make it to the top, there were atleast 4 pairs of hand that comes forward when you are stuck at a particular place, there were atleast a dozen of food items to eat and energize oneself, there were times when we had fun pulling each others leg especially Priyanka’s . I, Ankit and Jyothi had so much fun together I couldn’t say I met them for the first time. Prabhakar was constantly encouraging me to pursue my fantasy in cycling along with Jyothi, Vishnu was always silent, Priyanka always giving witty looks to Sangamesh and Ankit. 

Chit-chatting, posing for photos, acting like monkeys by climibing over walls or huge stones we finally made it to the top in couple of hours. We spend sometime up on the fort, had our lunch, took more than a zillion photos and the finally started descending. I thought ascending would be a difficult task than descending, oh boy, wasn’t I wrong again, ascending the rocks just caused panting effect, but descending was more gruesome, it’s a really challenge to your legs especially your thighs and ankles, and believe me I am still in pain, while I write this blog, my leg rest over my CPU and scream at every inch I move.

Nevertheless, the pain or the panting, nothing stopped me from enjoying this trek. I am glad I was part of this trek and I am looking forward to many more treks with BTC in future. Thanks to our amazing 3 photographers who were so enthusiastic to clicks snaps and we were always ready to pose ;) 

For now, its me Manju signing out. Bye-bye.