Mysore to Wayanad!
Back in 2008 when the idea of a bicycle tour through the Nilgiris was being discussed by a few friends like Ravi Ranjan Kumar, Rajesh Nair on an online bicycle forum called the Bikeszone, Venkatesh Shivarama a.k.a Wheelsports Venky was one of the guys who actively helped in the tour taking shape into what ultimately became Tour of Nilgiris!
Venky rode the inaugural edition in 2008 and a few other times. This year, Venky is back riding the tour and got his friend Sathish Marathe Rao from Dallas to join him. Sathish was a Karnataka state cycling champion in the 70s. He toured the world on his bicycle and eventually settled in the US where he now runs a chain of Udupi restaurants.
It was befitting that these two amazing gentlemen were chosen to flag off the 14th edition of the tour from Mysore this morning!
Mysore seems like what Bangalore was 20 years ago, serene, full of greenery and a very well planned and well maintained city. As around 90 of us headed out of Mysore on our bikes around 7:30am, the city was just coming to life with the Sunday morning market being the main source of activity.
A bunch of young riders from the Mysore cycling fraternity and Cyclopaedia team gave us company for the first 50k or so before heading back into Mysore.
The day’s route took us via HD Kote and through Nagarahole forest reserve. From the support station at the 37km mark at Hommaragally, Anu Bhise joined me to ride towards Nagarahole.
I met Anu for the first time last year on TFN. She was riding the tour along with her dad and brother while her mom was also there on the tour as their support crew.
This year while her brother could not join as he is busy with his engineering college, her mom took up cycling and joined the tour as a rider along with her dad. It was super inspiring to see the family ride together. Kudos to Lalit for spreading the love of cycling to his entire family and supporting them.
The 18 year old, Anu has done well at the district and state selections and will be representing Karnataka at the cycling Nationals in the road race next month. All the best, Anu!
The roads were pretty nice till we got to Nagarahole forest reserve at about the 79km mark. We were asked to ride through the forest as a big bunch. As we waited at the forest checkpoint for more riders to join, Anand Kapoor and Nandini Sharma kept us entertained with some Bollywood songs of yester years!
The roads through the Nagarahole forest were pretty sketchy and tested the integrity of our skeletal system thoroughly. We had to negotiate multiple rumblers which would appear right after a steep downhill where we would be carrying a considerable amount of momentum. They kept things pretty exciting but unfortunately that meant we could not take our eyes off the road to enjoy the beauty of the forest reserve that we were riding through.
Once we entered Kerala near the Bavali forest office, where we had a sumptuous lunch, the roads were silky smooth. It was a stark contrast to what we just witnessed with the Karnataka roads.
With the roads in great condition, we could actually enjoy the views as we rode towards the day’s competitive segment of 12.5km through the forest section.
Note from the organizers: This year there are competitive segments on 5 days out of 7 days of riding. Since there is no Kalahatty climb this time, the climb segments on day three and day six will be considered for KOM competition while the segments on day one, day two and day five will be considered for general classification (GC).
Today’s competitive segment was a 12.5km segment that was basically 3 small climbs followed by 3 descents.
As I started riding the competitive segment for the day, I immediately realised that legs were refusing to obey the requests to suffer. I had to scale back and decided to just enjoy the ride without worrying about the timing etc.
This year too, I haven’t done much intensity during the last two months. I also need to get used to the new bike that I got just last week. So, I decided to chillax and enjoy the tour.
After the day’s CS, we still had 6km to get to our hotel in Wayanad with a couple of really steep kickers. We made it to Sterling Wayanad, a brilliant resort that we have been using for the last couple of years at the tour. It was 143km ride which was surprisingly harder than what it looked on paper.
What’s Ahead?!
Tomorrow, we have an 80km local loop in Wayanad with a 6km climbing CS section. This is a route that I’ve never ridden and is supposed to be very scenic. Really looking forward to it.