Yesterday, I happened to visit the Hyderabad Bicycling Club meet-up site after a long time. I was looking if there is any ride planned for today that I can join. Our HBC never disappoints being one of the most active meet up groups. There is a ride planned around the Hussain sagar. I’ve sent an RSVP that I would be there.

I started from Miyapur around 5:10am and reached Ravi Kiran’s place at Erramanjil in 34mins with an average speed of 28kmph. I started with the intent of bettering the 32mins of my last trip to his place but that was not to be. I’ve now relegated that to the next time.

From Ravi’s place both of us rode to Necklace road and took a lap around the lake as there was time before the group start time of 6:10am. Just then Wg Cdr CSV Ramany was arriving at the designated meeting place near NTR park. We told him of our plans to join the group after taking a lap around the lake; he waved us his wishes with a warm smile. Ramany is 54 years old and was once a fighter jet pilot. Incidentally, it is his 30th marriage anniversary today. The enthusiasm of this 54 year youngster is unbelievable. He was arriving at the meeting place more than 15minutes in advance and that speaks something of his child like enthusiasm and Indian Air force discipline. Kudos Ramany garu.

Ravi and I made a lap around the lake and met the group at Prasad’s at 6:10am. There were eight of us from the Hyderabad Bicycling Club (HBC) and a couple of photographers from the Hyderabad Photography Club (HPC). I initially thought they were from press as I saw them clicking away and was imagining our photos on the cover page of the Washington Post. Ha ha ha… 😉 After the introductions, it became clear that they were photography enthusiasts just live we were cycling enthusiasts.

It’s a great thing that people from varied backgrounds who hardly know each other but share a common interest can get together like this. I think such a thing is only possible in this information age, the age of the internet.

We were half way through the lap just rolling at an easy pace chatting up with each other when one of riders hit was hit by a car door near Indira park. One gentleman coming for a morning walk in the park with his 5year old just parked and was opening his door to get down when our guy had a collision with it. Thankfully he was not injured badly. It was again a stark reminder of the basic rule among bicyclists. STAY AWAY FROM DOORS. Any parked vehicle can be a trap waiting to bombard you with an opening door. Lesson learnt and wounds tendered to, we moved on.

At this point, one of the riders, Yaser Saleem was wondering why we were all riding that slow and wanted to challenge the head winds with his leg power. I offered to join him and we raced ahead. This guy is amazingly fit. He was riding a single speed Hero Ranger which is quite heavy but was flying besides my road bike that was in high gear. We reached our starting point and cooled our heals while waiting for the rest of the group to come join us. Later, I came to know that Yaser was in fact involved with bicycling at competitive levels in his teens and trained along with professional cyclists. Although, that was a long time back and he lost touch with serious cycling for a while, the experience was there to be seen.

Meanwhile, everyone in the group has arrived and we chatted for while and decided to take another lap around the lake to stop at a chai shop for refreshments and break up for the day.
Yaser and I started off again racing by on tank bund till we reached the chai shop. We waited for others and had some refreshments when everyone arrived. We discussed a bit on possible future ride routes. We all conveyed our good wishes to Wg Cdr CSV Ramany on his 30th marriage anniversary and he was on his way home.

The ride meet-up was organized by Habib who is a 16 year old (He says he is 16 and half though 🙂 ) intermediate student. A 16 year old student and a 54 year young wing commander and the rest averaging 25-35 years and from similarly varied backgrounds. The bikes each one was riding were from as different a background as their proud owners. 42 year young Vijay with his Firefox 18 speed, 32 year old Ravi Kiran with his vintage Hero Hawk single speed, 26year old Ravi Kiran with his 10 speed Hero Hawk, 30 odd years young Jwala with his BSA folding bike, 20 odd year old Praveen with his hero single speed bike, 54 year young wing commander Ramany with his 18 speed hercules MTB, 16 year old Habib with his single speed hero and 33 year young Yaser with his single speed Hero Ranger MTB. And of course I was riding my 10 speed Hero Hawk. Let me tell you, it was fun getting to meet this bunch of people. I had a great time.