FAT TWIN BREVET: KGF 200 - ROCKY BHAI RIDE

Sometimes meeting the legends and talking to them can inspire and motivate common people to do something meaningful in life. This happened to us a fortnight ago when we met the legend in cycling community Lt. Col. Bharat Pannu. The simple words “kar lo, ho jayega” and “ Goal without a time frame is no goal” hit our minds so much that we were convinced to foray into the journey of fat tandem in our next brevet.

Just after a week of meeting him, Bangalore Randounners (BR) announced the KGF 200 Brevet- Rocky Bhai Ride. It was supposed to be a challenging route with a scenic trail passing by Hosakote, Malur, Bangarpet, KGF, Nachipakkam, Berigai, Sarjapur and ending at Konark Kanteerava stadium. As a warning note, the organisers had made it clear that the route includes stretches of bad roads and heavy in city traffic. As per the note from organisers " KGF is a challenging BRM which requires both physcal and mental strength, good navigation skills, patience. Riders will be rewarded with scenic and pristine beauty from 85-145 km." Having the experience of riding tandem and fat bike, the words from Bharat Pannu acted as a cherry on the cake: no one was going to stop us. Registered and fully confident that we can finish it.

Before I begin telling you about our journey of brevet, let me tell you about the possession of our FAT TANDEM BIKE: the 10th member of our family. Like the youngest child in the family is the apple of the eyes of the parents, the FAT TANDEM, is the closest to our hearts. We saw the fat tandem bike in a review video in You tube 2 years ago. After we finished our tandem brevet and my fat bike BP 100, we approached FITTRIP BIKES (A Delhi based company) that we want to buy it so that we can do a 200 brevet on this. This was somewhere in 2019. Initially the company was not convinced with our idea but then after regular persistence, they agreed and sent it to us just 2 days before national lockdown was announced in India. The cycle was stuck midway at a warehouse in Belgaum. Post lockdown the cycle was delivered to us (in May). We were elated to get the first look of the bike. After the ritual servicing of the bike by Rakesh from RR cycles(Bangalore), the first 50 kms ride was attempted. It was fun, an altogether different experience, surreal…A month of practice and training and getting adapted to the massive bike we took it slow and just enjoyed every bit of the ride. 22nd Sept 2020, we attempted our maiden century ride on FAT TANDEM, Yeshwanthpur-Nagarjuna College-Yeshwanthpur. What we realised, although there were challenges involved in riding it, we loved riding the fat twin. It was a head turner on road and no one could ignore it. After the century ride, I was involved in my solo cycling on fat bike and so before attempting the KGF 200, we did a century ride on fat tandem on 29 Dec. The ride was awesome and the bike was almost perfect (except for a tak tak sound when shifting to higher gears, which occurred randomly at certain times. ) 

DEC 5th 2020: The ride day

All set, we reached the starting point Konark Kanteerava Stadium at 5:15 am. We along with 95 others fellow cyclists flagged off at 6:00 am. The weather was awesome, cloudy with mild drizzles. The head winds for the first 80 kms of the route did not play any spoil sport due to the awesome weather and scenic trails. It was total fun riding with strong cyclists like Raj, Avishek and many others...The rolling terrains passing through the country side of Bangalore suburbs posed a treat to our eyes. The reaction of small kids as we passed through the villages were worth noticing. They cheered us saying Hi, Byee, All the Best. We were very careful riding through the rough stretch and reached first CP at 82 kms 1:30 mins earlier. The 30 kms route after the first CP (despite the bad roads) was beautiful with rolling roads, canopy of trees on both sides of the road, cloudy sky: I would say everything was just perfect to cycle and we reached the manned CP at 114 kms, 1: 45 mins prior. Quickly grabbing food within 15 mins, we continued for the next leg of the journey which included an uphill section of 20 kms. Just after the CP, 10 kms were narrow and lonely roads with steep descent. The rolling and climb sections welcomed us after 125 kms. We slowly moved on and reached the hydration point where Pooja and Madhav were waiting. It was such a thoughtful gesture by these guys to celebrate their daughter’s birthday by setting up a hydration point midway at the uphill mark. Awesome guys, May their tribe increase !! After storing some food stuffs and having glucose and water we moved on. Although the roads ahead had hair pin bends but the enough buffer collected helped us in crossing the uphill section with a decent pace. The 3rd CP at 160 kms was also covered with 1.5 hrs buffer time. Now we were relaxed because we had enough time to brave the heavy in city traffic. The gravel and mud roads due to construction plus traffic made our pace a bit slow. All the vehicles were slowing down as they passed us to get a glance of the bike. Even the bus driver used to slow down to look at the monstrous bike carefully. Many people were slowing down to take photos and videos of us riding the bike. Finally we reached the end point at 6:07 pm (almost 1.5 hrs before time). 

Special thanks to Mohan Subramanyam, Anil Kadsur, Prasad Sadashiva and BR Team for organising such an amazing brevet. Thanks to Srinivas Murthy and his family, son of Nation Cycling champion (1963) V Ramakrishna, for the yummy home prepared food at the manned CP. 

One of the best brevet till date, satisfied we were for completing it in style. So our FAT TANDEM Journey : hunting, approaching FITTRIP, possessing, training and finally completing 200 kms : it was a roller coaster journey of fun and adventures. No doubt it is challenging to ride the bike: huge steel frame, huge rolling resistance due to fat wheels, manouvering through city traffic, greater turning radius and off course tandeming. But who cares about all these. It is perfectly said " When life gives you 100 reasons to cry, give it 1000 reasons to smile." We have all the reasons to pick up the bike with a smiling face and enjoy our ride.

Now the question asked by everyone "What next??" Well this is just the beginning and we look forward to more memorable rides on our fat TANDEM. 

                    

   The scenic trails through the countryside

                                                                  The long road ahead......                                                 

                                                                     Country side roads

                                                                                             Foggy Weather " The hero of the day "

                                                                                          @ Manned CP

                                                                    Meet the FAT TWIN

                                                                                    With Pooja @ refreshment point

                                                                      The hair pin bend

1, 2, 3 and go.....

                                                                   The mandatory couple photo after the ride

                    

                                                                                               At the finish line

                                                                                               The TEAM

                                                                                           We the SPOKIES

                                                                                      The Route Map

** Of course, we did not wait for any photoshoot on the way. All the photo credits goes to Avishek and Shilpa.**