The usual Sunday ride to Hussain Sagar, for our usual laps around it, got company this week in the form of a Saturday ride due to popular demand. So, on Saturday I started around 5am to reach there and Krish joined me at Nizampet road. We both reached Necklace road around 6 am where quite a few were already waiting. The waiting group invariably had the punctual Ramany with his child like warm smile along with quite a few new faces.

The new riders that I was meeting for the first time on this ride were, Ramana Reddy, Diwakar Goswami, Parth, Kapil, Arvind, Vinay, Dhiraj, Amit, Gokul. Ramana is a dentist who has just returned from US and brought along a Dohan folding bike while coming. Diwakar works with a software firm and stays near Kondapur. Parth resides in Sec’bad and owns a factory that manufactures machinery for cement plants. Dhiraj returned along with his Specialized road bike recently from California where he got hooked big time to cycling. Amit is Krish’s colleague while Gokul is his boss. Krish, Amit and Gokul are opening a bike shop on Aug’15th where they will stock Merida bikes to begin with. The passion Krish has for cycling and plans he has for providing quality products along with excellent after sales service augers well for the ever growing cycling enthusiasts in Hyderabad. It’s starting with a stall at our Aug’15th Freedom ride. So people flock and check them out.

The ride was a serene one with slightly overcast skies. The ride around Hussain sagar has always been an ideal starter’s ride of sorts. We tend to ride at an easy pace and let even the slowest of rider catch up. If he could not, we stop at various points anyway to regroup. It serves as a good builder ride that helps people get ready for bigger ones. Yaser is the comeback kid joining us on the rides after almost a month. He was determined to make it to the ride and did that after his late night shift that ended at 3am catching just a couple of hours of sleep. That’s the kind of passion these guys have for all things cycling.

End of first lap, we chatted for a while and checked out new bikes on the ride. Ravi Kiran’s Rock Rider 5.3, Dr. Ramana’s Dohan folder and Dhiraj’s Specialized road bike were eye candy. Just when I was starting on the second lap, I noticed I had a flat. I quickly flagged down Krish and Dhiraj who were carrying puncture repair kits. This was my first flat on any of the rides (if I discount the one I had a couple of weeks earlier at the start of the ride near Krish’s home). On both the occasions I convinced myself that I would not have a flat and left the puncture repair kit at home. Krish has been a savior for me on both the occasions. Krish and Dhiraj along with Yaser helped fix the flat and off we went to meet the rest of the group on the second lap.

In the second lap, Yaser again raced along with me and as usual managed to beat me to the post. Most of the riders decided to call it a day at the end of the second lap while Yaser, Dhiraj and Rock Rider Ravi Kiran decided to go on a third lap. Krish, Amit, Hawk Ravi Kiran and I decided we’d have a small breakfast before moving to our respective homes. We got on our bikes when Ravi Kiran flagged us down to declare a flat. I wondered if it was a bad day for Hawks. My hawk had a flat at the end of the first lap and Ravi Kiran’s at the end of the second lap. Luckily we had a cycle shop very near the place where Khairatabad Ganesh idol is set up. We gave the bike to be fixed there and went to the small hotel opposite that to fix our appetites. We just about finished our breakfast when Yaser and Dhiraj joined us after their third lap. These guys were quick. We dispersed from there and rode to our respective homes.

Thus it was a day of a couple of flat tires and lot of new riders joining on the rides.

The Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/hivenkat.d/FlatTiresAndNewBeginnings20090809#
My Stats: 57km