Kolar Gold Fields 300k BRM - Ride Report

Introduction:

Kolar Gold Fields is a 300 km Brevet organised by IISc Randonneurs. Following is a brief description from their website:

The Kolar Gold Fields 300km BRM takes you through some ancient and important towns in the Kolar Gold Fields region near Bangalore. It then crosses into the neighbouring state of Andhra Pradesh travelling a beautiful road from Venkatagirikota before entering Tamil Nadu. We then trace the Palar river to Vaniyambadi, before returning via NH-46 in the shadow of the Yelagiri hills and NH-7 to Bangalore via Krishnagiri.

This is an ACP-sanctioned brevet ride, and must be completely self-supported. The ride must be finished within 20 hours, but note that it is not a competitive ride.

Ride Summary:

Following is my detailed ride Report:

I started around 6:10 am with Karthik and Somaskanda amidst slight drizzle and very pleasant weather. About 2 kms into the ride as we were approaching Old Madras Road, my Btwin bottle cage came off and was on the ground along with the bottle. An oncoming car crushed the bottle cage and I was left with a bottle full of water but nothing to keep it! What a start for the ride!.. Somaskanda offered to carry my bottle in his back pack as it had some space. We rode on non stop till Malur, the 1st control point and reached there around 8 am. Had nice breakfast at Malur and also met some of the other riders over there. Karthik had an extra bottle cage on his bike and he offered to carry my bottle from then on. And that's how he became my support vehicle for the rest of the ride! :-)

With Karthik at the Malur Backup ATM control

Anil Kadsur also passed us at this point - I thought it must be one of his morning rides where he accompanies people for part of their rides and then heads back home.. I saw him next only at the end point and that's when I realised, he did the whole ride! Without any lights/reflective vest/puncture kit etc. He was allowed to do the ride purely because he hadn't registered and was outside organisers' jurisdiction.

Continuing from Malur we found that the road, although well paved, was slightly narrow and we had to be wary of trucks coming from either side. Suddenly the rains increased and my poncho came out!. Although it protects very well against the rain and the back spray, it has the tendency to swell up almost like a parachute! Not the best thing to do if you are riding a bicycle but I really wanted my butt and back to remain dry and this was the only way to do it! The roads turned really bad as we approached Tekal and a little bit after it. However the rain had stopped by now and it was bright and sunny so I promptly removed my poncho and was quite glad to do so!

Me riding with my poncho on. A mini parachute! A strange sight that earned me many a stare

Slushy non existent roads due to overnight rains

We rode steadily as we crossed Bangarapet and the KGF!. The heat was steadily increasing and after we passed Bethamangala we were almost out of water. So stopped for a small snack (biscuits/bananas) break and stocked up on water as well. Soon we reached Venkatagirikota and were relieved not to see any road blocks! We didn't want to stay much in AP and continued on our way to Pernambut without stopping. Soon we reached the famous descent to Pernambut. This was the best part of the whole route with awesome downhills and beautiful scenery on either side of the road. We rode merrily clicking pictures on the way and enjoying the downhill. We knew about the dangerous bumps at the AP/TN border right in the middle of the descent and were careful as we approached them. Some pictures of the descent:

The dangerous bumps at the AP/TN border right in the middle of a long descent.

An awesome view of the valley during the descent 

Soon we reached Pernambut control at 1:15 pm and took another water/snack break. We had decided to have lunch at the Mufasa's restaurant after Vaniambadi and only have small snack breaks until then. The route from Pernambut to Vaniambadi had good tree cover on some sections and that helped! However, the temperatures were quite high (~34C) and that was taking its toll. We took another chikki/coke break at Oomerabad. Rode strongly after that to reach Vaniambadi around 3:15 pm. Crossed it and reached Mufasa around 3:45. Had nice lunch and a longish (~1 hr) break. Met a couple of riders from Coimbatore who were doing this ride as a preparation for a 600k later in Chennai. Temperature was 37C when we reached Mufasa and 35C when we started from there!. The 3 hr ride between 2 pm to 6 pm was the toughest part of this whole ride and we really felt that we were riding through hell! 

Hot sun in the afternoon and no shade meant a very tough ride. Riding in this period really felt like hell

Awesome and filling lunch at Mufasa Restaurant

The weather started getting cooler after 6 and we could feel the increase in riding speed. However, now we had to deal with the climbs as we crossed Krishnagiri and I learnt from Karthik that there are even more severe climbs between Shoolagiri and Hosur.

Right after Krishanagiri, we caught up with Vijay who had just had the 3rd puncture of his ride. We helped him change the tube and started from there. We had hardly gone 300m when Vijay again had a flat!..There was nothing (thorn/nail) in the tire to indicate what caused the flat but we could see that the tube was punctured on the outer side (thus ruling out a bad rim tape). I gave him my tube and changed it for him as he was visibly frustrated. This tube held on and we continued on the ride.

Crossed Shoolagiri around 9:30pm and decided to have some food at the McD after that. With our batteries charged, started riding hard after that. Guess what! Vijay got another flat abt 15 kms from Hosur! This time Somaskanda offered him one of his "patched" tubes which we quickly changed and got on with the ride. Reached Hosur around 11:15pm and took another 15 min water break. Ride after Hosur was relatively flat and we rode fast to reach the end control around 12:40 am!

As soon as we reached the end control, we were greeted with nice chocolates (Snickers) by the organisers. They had also arranged for some light snacks (wafers/chikki/tea). I believe the tea was from Siga (thanks!). Awesome (festive) atmosphere at the end control where every rider was greeted so well that they would have forgotten the exhaustion of a tough ride (at least for some time).

Full set of pictures from my camera can be found here

Preliminary results of the brevet can be found here