Engagement with hills
After my last solo tour , I have been wanting to execute a short 3-4 day ride which would pass through hills. I popped the idea to one the cyclist friend and luckily his schedule allowed to to join.
We started to plan the route, as usual I had chosen a route which would have lot of Uphills and tough climbs. Our plan was to start from coimbatore cross ooty/gudalur of nilgiris and head to waynad in kerala. From waynad we planned to enter karnataka and climb up to Madikeri(coorg). Then the route would pass to Mysore and go towards MM hills. On the 4th day the plan was to to go to coimbatore via Mettur. This plan was demanding physically and mentally , but the only change we anticipated , failure to reach MM hills on 3rd day and then doing the hills on 4th day and reaching coimbatore which would increase the 4th day distance to 270km.
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Day 1 - Coimbatore to Pattavayal
So here we are on the start of the tour, we started as per the plan and reached base of Ooty hills by 6 am. From this point it was all about riding uphill for next 49km. Enthusiastically we climbed fast and reached some 20 kms by 8.10, which meant that we might reach Ooty comfortably by midnoon. This would keep us on track to comfortably reach Gudalur the same day.
And with same confidence we started and within 1km got a puncture. We lost closed to 15 min in changing the tube. 15 minutes sounds small but when you are on hills, you don’t want to waste time. We got back on the road and took our first break at Coonoor Spent about an 1hr at my friend place and had breakfast
From here we headed towards Ooty which was about 20km more. Initial 2-3 km after the breakfast was little slow but eventually, we got momentum. Around 12.15 at Ooty, we went for lunch and post that towards Guadalur. The road towards gudalur is not in great condition but the views compensate for that.
As per plan of day 1 we had reached gudalur at 4.45 itself and was about to call it off for the day. This is where Shravanan suggested to go ahead until 7 pm and cover more distance so that next day distance can be reduced as the next day was going to be hilly as well.
We rode another 20-25km and took off at beautiful village of pattavayal. Gudalur to pattavayal comprises of small hills but magnificent views. The best part was our stay which was just outside the entry of Waynad forest reserve.
Day 2- Pattavayal to Madikeri(Coorg)
We were aware of the route from here to waynaad. Since it was going to be 10km within the forest which has lot of Animal activity, we started out late from usual (7 am). This 10km of stretch only had greens and tribal homes. Around 8 am we took halt for breakfast in waynaad (kerala). Officially, now we had crossed tamilnadu and entered in kerala.
A good local breakfast and we were off to our next destination Madikeri(Coorg, karnataka) and towards our next milestone Kutta(border of Kerala and Karnataka).
The distance and climbs started taking toll on us also the road conditions were not very supportive. On top of all this when we entered karnataka , sharavanan started feeling uneasy probably because of tea.
Coorg district is known for its coffee plantations and forest stretches. The ride was getting difficult but because of constant rains, we kept recovering easily on the go. It was not possible to avoid late evening ride even if we had rode at 30kmph because last 8km uphill to Madikeri was still yet to come, hence we slowed down to save our energy.
The decision on previous day to ride more than the target distance helped us, else it would have been late night for us today to reach Madikeri. The climbs to Madikeri were easy not challenging, but the last 3km kills you. I had not gone on my lowest gears on any hills until now.
Anyways finally by 7.40pm we managed to reach Madikeri, shravanan had to manage the ride with poor health. Here ,we decided to cut down our ride to 3 days only and drop other hills which we had planned for 4th day.
Day 3- Madikeri to Mysore
We didn’t get much of sleep on this day. Today we had planned to reach mysore and end the ride. Since we were on hill station, our initial thoughts were a fast ride to mysore considering the route will be majorly downhills.
However, it’s not the way it seems, post 30 kms the route to mysore is a rolling route where there are long straight uphill and downhill. There are few handy flat sections.
Anyways we rode our best and reached mysore. The distance to mysore was not much (118km), but it did challenge us. We ended our ride on the 3rd day. Next day we took comfortable Bus ride to Coimbatore, convinced with the thought suffering on cycle was comfortable than the bus ride.
