Nandi Hills Cycling trip

Simply awesome Cycling trip!

This trip was organized by me for my German Colleague Dr.Heiko Gerwens.
So, eventhough i have cycled sometime 6 months back, i had the hope and was very much interested to ride with this cycling enthusiast.
Once i said that we could go for a cycling trip, he is ready to drop all his schedules for the cycling. I could see the enthusiasm in cycling in his eyes :)

So, once he has confirmed the trip, the next job that came to my mind is to service my cycle and get ready with a cycle for Heiko.

After checking with SAP Roadies, finally i got a bike from Damu(my manager) a day before the trip.I went to koramangala with him in his car and rode his bike from Koramangala to Whitefield(20KM). Believe me, i cycled after 6 months and good that i reached in 1 hour and i directly went to the Hotel where Heiko stayed just for the curiosity of showing the bike to him and to check whether it fits him. Clock ticked 10' at night :). So he came and checked the bike for few minutes and he was so happy that i have made the arrangement such that the trip could be organized in a better way.

I understood that he knows about each and every part of Bike with the way he checked the bike :) Yes, a professional cyclist. Then i left home on that day.(Friday)

Next day, i gave my bike for service in Karnataka Cycle Shoppe and i got it ready by evening.Then mapped a route to avoid the highways and to stay in the outskirts so that i can take him along a route with less pollution and traffic and then went to bed at 11 PM(Saturday) hoping for sunday to come very soon after setting alarm in my mobile.

Yes.It is sunday and morning 4'15 i woke up and got ready for the trip. Reached Fortune hotel(opposite to my office SAP Labs) to join Heiko at 5'O clock.I was bit late by 10 minutes(because of locking the bike and other stuff...).

Yes,the trip started at 05:30 PM heading towards Nandi Hills.


So we started at 05:30 am from SAP Labs and took the outskirts to avoid pollution and traffic.The scenary was beautiful and the temperature was 12 degree celcius in the morning.



Since i ride the cycle almost after 6 months, my legs pleased me for the breaks for every 20 KM.I am sure if Heiko ride alone, he would have rided at the speed of 30 KM.
I slowed down his speed or to say he slowed down his speed just for me.



Almost after some 50 KM, we drunk some tender coconut water. Then we cycled further and we reached Nandi base camp at 09:15 am.






Then i asked Heiko to climb alone with his own speed not to wait for me since it is a peak and of elevation 4000 feet.After Heiko left to climb, i made sure whether the hotel down there will be available at 11'0 clock.





Then i started climbing for 1 KM and then after seeing the peak, i decided not to do the climb mainly because of Nil-Training for 6 months and considering the delay in returning back if i climb.So i got down and locked my bike in the hotel.

So pooled with a car guy to reach peak and yes Dr.Heiko finished climbing Nandi in less than 30 minutes :) I bowed my head and congratulated him for that climb :)



Then we roamed around the peak of Nandi for sometime and he climbed down(may be in record time), before i reach base camp in auto.
We had yummy breakfast at base camp. I hope Heiko liked Onion Dosa very much. He had 2 onion dosas and 1 masala dosa and i ended up having 2 onion dosas.

And then we started at 12:15 pm and i cycled following few inputs from Heiko. This time i took break only twice eventhough there were few ascents and descents were there. Yes we reached back home at 03:45 PM.


Fully satisfied in this cycling trip along with a great cycling enthusiast and a great human Dr.Heiko Gerwens.(He has got five cycles for different purposes in Germany :))

He is one of my inspirations in cycling and performance :)

Eventhough i have done bangalore-chennai trip along with our SAP Roadies-Amol, Venkat and Sathish in 22 hours and also Mysore.....i must accept that i didnt have self discipline to maintain the trainings.

Same is applicable in running also. Without trainings for last 3 months, directly ran 25KM during Ultra in 03:45 hrs.....

Resuming my cycling and running trainings from today onwards! Come what may!

Bike Details :
Me - Fomas Road King Deluxe
Heiko - Schwin Searcher

Route Map:

Google Map Route - ITPL to Nandi Hills

Distance : 130 KM
Time taken for cycling with breaks : 07:40 hrs.

My thanks to Akshay(Bangalore Bikers Club) for this wonderful route.
And a great thanks to Damu(SAP) for lending his bike for a day.
And also to Vinod(SAP) for the Helmet and to MJV(SAP) for his support!

Happy Cycling and Running!!!!

It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything

It was a breezy evening in the worlds famous marina beach with a huge crowd watching the nature's beauty with their near and dear ones.
Two friends named Ram and Sam met each other at the sea shores as they usually do.Yes,which better place will you get except the beach.It is their regular meeting point once in a week.

Both Ram and Sam worked in a software company as system analyst for around 5 years, drawing a decent salary every month.Their nature of job is to write some computer programs to solve the business problems faced by the customer and they always reserve their weekends for parties as most of the software engineers do.
When they meet each other,they used to share a lot of experiences they gone throughout the week.

One such conversation happened which was worth discussing.
Hi Sam,how do you da? - ram questioned with a energetic voice putting his hands over sam's shoulders.
Ya,am doing ok da.how about you? - sam replied with a lazy tone, removing ram's hand from his shoulder.
This action of Sam,looked strange to Ram.
But he continued,'So Sam, any good news from your side?".
"Nothing Ram,i am terribly upset with what is happening in my life"-Sam opened up.
"Whats the problem dude,why you are so upset.Please share with me if you facing any problem"-ram pacified with a soothing voice,understanding the sam's mindset.
"Nothing specific da.But I am really bored with this life.Waking up in the morning,going to office,coding programs for 8 hours,come back home and sleep.The same routine happening throughout, for the last 5 years.I am sick of such kind of life.What kind of mechanism is it?"-Sam outbursted all his emotions to Ram,his only close friend.

Ram was little happy now,reason being what Sam told was already there in Ram's mind as well.But he didnt show it off outside.After all he is also software engineer right?
By then,both reached the seashore where there was little less crowd enjoying themself watching the beautiful water waves.


Ram and Sam sat down on the sands with legs folded facing the full moon in front of them and started biting the groundnuts that they bought for time pass.
“What a good atmosphere dude.Moon in front,stars around us and the water waves touching our feet.awesome right.."-replied the Ram ,deviating from the topic as much as he can to avoid himself getting along with sam's discussion.He was afraid that he will outcry himself in front of Sam.Ram is smart at times.

Actually, Sam didnt listen to what Ram has said.He was into his own boring world thinking that except him, others are happy about their life.Pity Sam,he thought that Ram was also very happy in his life without any problems but Ram knows the truth.
"Sam,dont think too much about such things.We need to face the life as it comes.It was already written in our forehead,what we are going to become and we need to just follow without deviating from the path"-That was ram's philosophical reply to sam.Yes,Ram is an ordinary common man who takes life as it comes.

Though he is also bored with work he do,he somehow got used it as the saying goes 'Initially you will hate it,then you will get used to it and at the end you will get institutionalized".

"No Ram.i am not thinking too much.I am just sharing my thoughts about life.Tell me honestly did you acheive whatever you want to achieve in life?"-Sam asked ram in a polite tone.

"Yes..yes..i am earning a very decent salary and i have a car.I am also going to purchase a home and i will get married soon.whatelse is required?.That is all i want to achieve and i am going to achive it for sure"-That was Ram's reply.
As i already mentioned,Ram is a very common man whom we can see anywhere around us.He didn't have any hard desires towards anything.He want to get settled in his life and stay in that company for life long with salary hikes and promotions.
But Sam is not like that.He had his own desires and passions for the things he love to do.Somehow he took the software profession due to the financial dependencies in his family.But his whole interests was in something else.But he hate that profession to the core.

Ram continued,"See Sam.Everybody have their own desires/goals to achieve.But sometimes we have to relax our desires and we need to get along with the crowd.If we try to deviate from others with the hope of succeeding in it,life will go for a toss."

"Sorry Ram .I don’t want to be one among the crowd in giving up the desires and passions just for money.I would like to follow a path to fullfill my desires and passions.I am going to do what i want to do.Enough is enough,i have wasted five years in doing a work which i don’t have heart for.Atleast by now i am happy that i have realized my mistake.”-Sam shared his thoughts to Ram in a very optimistic tone.

“I can understand you.But what are you planning to do”-Ram questioned Sam.
After a long pause,Sam replied ‘ I am going to resign my job’.
“What??? Are you become mad .What are you going to do after that?Did you get any other job?”-Ram fired as many questions to Sam in a shocking mood.
“No friend.I don’t want to do the same mistake again in my life. Due to unavoidable circumstances,i took this software profession. My goal is to become a entrepreneur and i am going to become one”-Sam told to Ram.

“Are you aware that you will be losing your job and moreover you will lose the salary what you are getting now.You will lose all the privileges that you got now?”-Ram questioned again.
Sam didn’t speak anything ,instead he showed the backside of the paper in which the groundnuts was packed.The paper read ‘It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.’