It was announced that club is hosting a night BRM. Because of my deep sleep pattern, I was reluctant to register. Then gradually I gave a thought that I will try with shivaratri ride. In that ride I was awake till almost 1.30pm and I could sustain it. Then the thought process started in my mind that if I could complete this 200BRM by 5am in this morning then I will have to be awake for 3and1/2 hours more. Then I gave a final thought that I will register and then I registered. On that date of registration only few of us had registered. Looking at the less number of registrations again I was in two minds. Somehow the number swelled up to 10 then I decided to move.
On 20th march I attended the office till 1pm and went home and slept off till 4.30pm and then had my food and was ready by 5pm and slowly moved towards oaks2. As usual the registration process was on and regular checkup of front light and back light, helmet and reflector jacket was carried on. Later teams were ready for flag off. The process was handled by shivanand and karthik and also route briefing was done.
At the flag off time anand baid and kaustub had not come but later it was confirmed that kaustub was not well and anand will be late by 5to10min. Well wishers like, Mr satish annigeri, anand shanbhag, subbu were present and I am very much thankful to them for there for kind gesture. Finally the flag off was done and all the cycles started moving towards belgum. After the start I realized that I had not started my strava app, I stopped and started the same. Slowly but convincingly the vehicles started moving towards Dharwad. There was heavy traffic and we felt we were moving along with the traffic with lot of stoppages. When we reached Navlur bridge I preferred not to ride over the bridge and took the side lane. After Navlur bridge there is no proper simulation of roads leading to Dharwad and you will be confused when many vehicles surround you at the junction.
When we reached Gandhinagar bus stop I had to get down the vehicle and used walking path to cross the heavy traffic and same was the situation at jublee circle also.
It was around 6.30pm that we crossed mental hospital and we had covered around 22km which was a satisfactory because as was the average. The sun was slowly setting down and the temperature was cooling down. When we reached by-pass the traffic problem was eased and everybody was relaxed over that.
We must appreciate the visualization of great dream of shri vajapayee about the 6 lane highway project. .We felt and realized the paramount importance of 6 lane project only when we cycled up through the project. The roads was so wide that we never felt hindrance of any sort. He truly deserves the salute from all the citizens of India.
The dawning sun created a slight problem of vision because of strange phase of end of the day and beginning of the night; but slowly and steadily moved towards kittur . En route I met prashant, a software engineer. Myself, suraj and prashant were moving in a group and reached kittur. In fact we were searching for some water bottles and by surprise we saw shrikant desoande and shivanand and we realized that it was surprise check point. Shrikant despande performs very productive work and extends very timely support to all the cyclist and athletes in north Karnataka.We thank him from the bottom of the heart. We were served with energy bar which was worth eating and I loaded one more on my stock. It was around 8o clock and we were keeping up an good average of 21kms.
After having water and energy bar we were refreshed a bit and started moving towards Belgum, we were happy that 50% of the distance was covered.
After some distance suraj had some cramp in the leg and slowed down a bit. Myself and prashant started moving slowly. After some distance suraj was out of sight and I was worried and hence I waited for him at mk hubli bridge and prashant continued. Sitting on the bridge I remembered of some parathas in the bag and as I was to wait for suraj, I felt I should have parathas .Even after having parathas suraj was not in sight. And I decided to move towards bagewadi. I knew cycling up the bhagewadi ghat is a hilarious task, and I had decided to ride it.
Slowly and confidentially I peddled up the ghat and I could experience the hilariousness of ghat. It was very tough and was equally happy that I could successfully complete it.
Immediately when ghat ended I could see a very beautifully illuminated survarna saudha. When we reach this place every person will have the feeling that we are in the belgum -the kunda city. Here I could catch up prashant. Peddling down the city we reached belgum city but our end point was kakti village sai dhaba .Aalong with prashant we reached sai dhaba and we had grand reception at the U-TURN point. My good friend raju naik and his team served us very delicious dhal khichadi , oranges ,bananans, water after good hospitality I rested for half an hour .
After having a good face wash we started moving towards hubli myself and prashant decided to move together so that we can make judicious use of lights. The night was very silent and even comparatively the traffic was also less and we felt that it was blessing in disguise. After some chat with police people at suvarna saudha we started moving towards kittur. After some distance prashant told me that he is tired accordingly we stopped at same bus stop. And had some parathas and chapatti. This place was some 5km from kittur.r
Kittur was a selfie point and we posted it to hbc. Than we started moving towards dharwad. The moment we reached entry to dharwad we were extremely happy that we will be reaching hubli soon. We were near Agriculture College and again prashant wanted some rest and thus we took rest on the footpath. In fact I advised him to go flat on footpath but was ok with sterling exercises. Thereafter when we entered the city we were extremely comfortable as we had sufficient illumination of municipality under the same illumination we reached hubli and oaks2. As usual shivanand and prasannna received us in style and had standy photos It was around