The Green Isle ride - Day 1

Previously: The Green Isle ride - Day 0

We reached the makkandur home stay at around 5:30 am staurday morning. It was still dark. 5 mins walk down the hill from the highway was the homestay. Typical coorg style, secluded and beautiful, but the weather condition was all wet and slushy as expected. There were 5 rooms and we were allotted accordingly. The plan was to get ready, have breakfast there and leave by 7:30am. At this point i realized that unlike jalori, we could leave all our baggage here and go for cycling. You see, in jalori, it was more like camping. You’d have to cycle from one camp to another and couldn’t leave anything behind. So much for travelling light and stuffing everything into one bag!

Anyway, it was around 8 by the time we geared up and started the ride. It was raining already. Everyone were excited. Phalgun got a GIANT for the ride, and with dual disk brakes, it seemed to be in tip-top condition for the ride.

The first day ride was to Mandalpatti peak, then down to coorg and back to the home stay by evening. Here’s the route map that was planned. http://www.gpsies.com/map.do?fileId=vyupbpboejmdcpqe

The ride took off with a nice convoy-ish style and we were soon off the highway and on the slopes. Needless to say, it was serene and beautiful.  As we peddled through the harsh terrain, I could soon feel the heavy vibration on my bike as it didn’t have any suspensions and there lots of potholes and rubble. I was breaking cautiously as the downs were steep and a fall to the left would prove deadly in the gushing river below. Two ups & downs and before I knew it, my rear brakepads wore out ! I couldn’t believe it. Really. It had just been about 30 mins of ride so far and one set was already out! If I kept up the same rate, I feared, I’d soon be out of breaks. Not good at all.  So I reduced my pace and was now slowly cruising along the curves trying to use the front breaks as less as possible to converse the brakepads. It was going well now, although many were far ahead of me and Phalgun. I was following him so that I could know when & where to break and slowdown in the curves downhill.  

As we approached the first river crossing, we saw the others on the bridge. Admiring at the view and clicking some photos. When we both joined them, a guy’s derailleur was bent and the chain had come out. My tool set proved useful

As we continued along we were greeted by lush green landscapes and the light spray of rain made it magical.

It was like postcard perfect scenes all through. I had completely forgotten about my breaks it was more of flat lands and uphill and my front brakes were serving me good.

I felt I was right. This didn’t seem as harsh as the jalori pathways. Sure it had lots of steep curves and all, but it was still decently paved roads. The puncture kit & spare tubes still seemed unneeded. I guess I had overlooked my rear breakpads and had to pay the price of going slowly with just front brakes.  All in all, it was going smooth and nice.

Well, I guess it was too soon to think that day. It had been about an hour since my rear breakpads gave up on me and just when I thought it was all going well, on the next downhill, my front breaks wore out too! I was gaining speed even though I held hard on both the breaks. I could hear the sound of the worn out breakpads clasping the tyres. I couldn’t see anything past the right curve ahead except for the riverbed.  As a spontaneous reaction I shifted to the slush on the side hoping my thin tyres would slow down in it and kept my feet down to stop the bike. It was a bad idea as I could have toppled or slipped hurting myself, but fortunately I stopped with a short slide. Frankly, those few seconds gave me a big scare, especially looking at the river right next to the curve which was flowing high beyond its limits.

I got back on and looked at the brakepads. It seemed alright, and when still, it did hold properly. I wondered what happened back there and slowly moved along. Phalgun was waiting for me at the other side of the curve and after a short chat of what just happened, we continued. He was in front, and I followed him behind slowly. At the end of the downhill we noticed few of the riders grouped up with their bikes. As we approached closer, we noticed one of the bike’s tyre was punctured.

And to add to my paranoia, it was a schwinn hybrid bike. Also, another guy’s breaks were completely worn out too. I soon understood the difference between the V-brakes and the disk brakes. Felt it was high time for me to change into a new pair of brakepads. But then, I noticed blood on one of the riders leg and when asked she mentioned it was from the leech. I had completely forgotten about leeches till then, and as we were speaking, we saw a leech climbing the other guy’s shoes. I was keen on not wanting to be host for these blood sucking creatures, so moved further to a clearer spot and changed my rear brakepads. It felt good to ride at a faster pace again, but few others also faced flat tyres in a while. I just hoped I’d not have to deal with it too.

We then approached the mandalpatti climb. We heard it was 4-6km of continuous uphill, but it did feel a lot long than that. I felt particularly happy about the uphill as I could ride up easily while many struggled. The path was steep but clear and the weather turned out to be just fantastic. It felt like an indescribable joy ride.

It was noon when we approached the mandalpatti peak. Few of them were already there at the small food stall having coffee/tea. I was wrong to assume that was the peak. It was just the point where the paved road ended and the next portion of the road was complete off-roading.

I kid you not. Only 4x4 jeeps go across this treacherous path. Visibility becomes extremely low with the fog and mist and rain. The deep pot holes filled with water is like a proper trap set in place to halt the vehicles.

After a point there isn’t any road at all. Its just rocks and boulders. It was an extremely fun ride for the guys with MTB, whereas me, I was worried throughout this section hoping my breaks would not wear out again and also not to have a flat tyre riding on these rubble and rocks.

Slowly, we reached the top of madalpatti. Or rather I should say “I reached slowly”… I didn’t want to take the risk of having a flat tyre and not getting to cycle the next day. There was still one and half day of cycling left. So, while others cycled their way through, I pushed my bike slowly as by now, the new pair of breakpads on the rear wheel failed. The front set had gone out long back.

Despite all the cribbing, I was extremely happy after reaching the top. That my humble hybrid, with pretty much every nut and bolt on it loosened, withstood those treacherous conditions.  And with that feeling of achievement, I lifted up my bike as a trophy atop mandalpatti : )

Frankly, I can’t say it was an amazing view from the top as we couldn’t see anything beyond few meters due to the mist and to add to it, it rained heavily as well.

It wasn’t over yet, I was told. We still had to go the “tree of souls” (as people called it jovially. Picked up from the movie “Avatar”, if you remember it). I completely pushed my bike for this part. There was no way I could cycle in those boulders and gravel and rocky crevices. My thin road tyre would get stuck in them or slip through and fall.

On reaching the spot, we saw this big tree, leafless and seemed lifeless too. As beautiful as it looked, it had a creepy haunting feeling to it, you know, like they show in those horror movies.

It was incredibly windy on the top. We climbed to a small view point there, and the wind was so strong that it almost pushed us away. It was cold and rainy and wet everywhere, but if you ask me or pretty much anyone on the ride, it was worth breaking every drop of sweat to reach the top.

We didn’t have a great deal of time to spend there. It was almost 1pm I think and it was still a long way back to our home stay. I wouldn’t have to explicitly mention the hunger for food, as you can imagine, everyone was just craving for lunch.

Coming back down to the paved road from the top, I had to go through another round of break issue. Now my rear brakepads, the new pair I had fit a while back, they weren’t holding on. I didn’t understand why and when I looked, I noticed the brakepads left a black powdery coating on the tyre rims. I guessed that wasn’t providing enough friction for the brakepads to hold, so I washed it off with water, but it still didn’t seem to be useful. I couldn’t stop and fit the other set of new ones as the path was narrow and the jeeps were going through rashly. I decided to change them at the point below where the paved road starts and I’d push it down all the way till there. So Phalgun and the others carried along and I was all alone on the top. Its one of those times when you get that sense of extreme content and happiness and start to sing and talk to yourself; and so did i.

Few moments later, I caught up with another guy who was in front. The same guy I had mentioned earlier whose brakes had worn out. He had a cut above his upper lip and was bleeding. He told me that he continued to cycle without brakes and toppled and fell. I was happy to not have gone through the same fate. Even after suggesting to push along, he continued to cycle and go ahead. Crazy! I finally reached the paved road in a while and Phalgun was waiting for me. Instead of replacing the rear brakepads, I decided to let be and replace the completely worn out front brakes with the new one. Now I’m not sure if I was doing the right thing or not, but then it seemed the most logical.

With the new brakepads fixed, it was time we started our descent. We were last and very hungry. We were informed that there would be a canter on the same way we had come and lunch would be served there. We cycled for quite a while and just when we were beginning to think if we had missed it somewhere in between, we saw the canter at the far corner. It was parked further than we had expected and we just hoped lunch wasn’t over. It wasn’t; there was still lots left. As I removed my gloves, I noticed little blood on my right fist. I guessed it was a leech bite but I didn’t notice any leech on my hand or falling off of it when I removed my gloves. Phalgun also had got a bite on his leg and on comparing with his bite, it was clear that it was indeed that blood sucking worm that had bit me. Anyway, it like a small scratch. Washed it off and it was time for lunch.

After lunch, we had a choice to either continue the ride back to makkandur home stay via madikeri or load the bikes in the canter and a jeep ride back. Most of us opted for the ride, while few who were tired and those whose bikes had a flat tyre and brake problems went along in the jeep.

It started raining by the time me and phalgun left. We were the last to leave again, but I wanted to make sure my brakes were perfectly proper before I left for this part of the ride. I really didn’t want to push along again. I realized my rear brakes were of bad quality, so I borrowed a good pair from the mechanic and replaced them. In fact, I was lucky as that was the last pair the mechanic has as well.

So with that all set, I was back in top form and left to hurry and catch up with the others. Soon we were on the steep uphill. We continued on and on, but the uphill never seemed to end. Phalgun and two others along with us pushed through many of them, but I was determined to not give up and stop. Yet, there was two or three location where I couldn’t just keep up and had to push along as well. I had climbed mandalpatti without stopping but after a full tummy, I was getting lazy and tiring too. In the next two hours of ride, we’d have climbed uphill for 1.5 hours and only 30 mins of downhill. Or atleast that’s what it felt like. By now I had altogether a different respect to the Western Ghats compared to jalori. Jalori felt very easy compared to this although I remember it having steep inclines as well. That’s when I realized I had done jalori on a Trek 3700, while here, I was on a hybrid which felt more like a road bike. MTB and road bikes have different gear ratios when compared, meaning, MTBs are much smoother & comfortable to pedal whereas road bikes were much tighter and were meant for speed. As I cycled Phalgun’s MTB for a while I could clearly realize the difference. Well, I ain’t an expert in cycling, so I’m not sure if this was right but it sure did feel like that.

We finally reached madikeri and continued along the madikeri-mysore highway. There were many vehicles coming along, so we had to be careful and maintain a steady pace and that’s when I started pouring down heavily. My so claimed waterproof shoes from quechua now had water seeped into it. It had withstood water all the while from morning but now, I guess water was entering from the upper opening from the socks due to the rain. It felt uncomfortable but had no choice than to continue. We reached the circle where we had to take left towards makkandur and it seemed completely downhill from there on. Aah finally, some good downhill. But since the conditions was all wet, there was that paranoia of not breaking properly. So again I let Phalgun go ahead and I followed behind him. We kept this up well until a point where I noticed a CAM water bottle (the one we had gotten as goodies the previous night) fallen on the road.  I thought it was phalgun’s that had fallen off, so stopped to pick it up. As I continued, I didn’t notice him ahead. I increased my pace to catch him but couldn’t. Looked like he had taken off. He has historically never liked rain so I knew he’d be in a hurry to get back to the home stay as soon as possible. So I was now all alone again, in the heavy rain cycling downhill. The feeling was just wonderful, but not for long. I kept going on and on but never reached our homestay. And to add to it, I couldn’t remember the name “makkandur” to ask anyone for direction; but then, there weren’t anyone outside in the rains to ask as well. It was time to take out the map for direction. At that moment, I felt proud of my packing. Unlike many others, I had kept the map inside watertight plastic cover, rolled it and kept on the top of my backpack. I could easily take it out, see it and keep it back without having to open the bag in the rain and getting everything wet. If not, it would have just gotten soaked in water within a few seconds and tore apart. Remember the movie scenes where a sniper on a mission in dense rainforests takes out a map to read directions to his target? Yup I was wearing a similar hat and was in that same feeling :D

I wasn’t far off, was within a KM away from the homestay. But moreover, I got the name “makkandur” from the map and I could now look at the road direction boards for the way. In few mins I reached the place. Saw our bus parked on the side and I took left towards the homestay. As I approached, I could see others already reached and seated outside sipping the evening hot tea. I guess it was about 4:30pm or 5:00pm by this time. I wasn’t the last; there were 3 more behind me I was told. Anyway it was time to go cleanup and have a nice hot shower. Phalgun was already getting ready for his turn. When I showed him the bottle, he told me it wasn’t his. That even he had seen it on the road but didn’t want to stop and lose his momentum, so had continued it. I came out and asked it was anyone’s there who has lost their bottle. But everyone nodded their head sideways. Well then, so much for rescuing the bottle, I told myself and came in.

After some tasty evening snacks and nice hot bath, I joined them all for group conversation that was already in full swing. I didn’t particularly speak much, just sat and listened to them. It was mostly about politics, states and all other worldly matters that didn’t seem to provoke any interest in me. I plugged in my earphones and turned towards the parked bikes in front of us. It brought in a sense of contempt and achievement looking at them, that we had completed the day’s ride successfully.

As we were set into our own moods, there was a gust of wind that collapsed most of our parked bikes, mine included. As I approached my bike to pick it up, I noticed the one besides mine fallen on top of my bike on the side of the derailleur. On Friday when I left home, as I was getting my bike down, I hit the stair fence broke my derailleur shield exposing it. And now, this fallen bike on mine had pushed the derailleur into the spokes and broken my front mudguard. I just hoped my derailleur wasn’t broken and it luckily wasn’t. Had to pull it out and it was fine, but my mudguard wasn’t so lucky. The mudguard itself wasn’t broken, but its attachment hinge was split in two. Nothing I could do about it, so just kept it aside hoping I could take it back home and fix it somehow.

It was getting dark by then, so others made the shopping list for some drinks and other non-veg menu they wanted for the dinner. I wasn’t keen on either of it, although I wanted to add in some chocs to the list which phalgun prevented me from adding. I was getting a slight headache, so I just went into our room and fell asleep. By the time I woke, or rather phalgun woke me up, dinner was ready. It was good, authentic coorg style. Other had gotten what they had ordered from the list and were at it. Few stayed back for some more talking but we called it a day and went to sleep.

Overall it was a fantastic day. Lot of good things learnt as well. As per phalgun’s strava app readings, we had covered about 43km. He had initially missed some portion of the track forgetting to turn it on, so it was actually about 46km that day.

Here is the strava readings http://www.strava.com/activities/174625056

Lessons learnt:

1. Never go cheap on brakes!! Buy good quality ones and keep at least 2 pairs of them for rides like this one
2. Never try extreme off-roading with road bikes or hybrid without suspensions & having road tyres
3. If you are not confident on your bike’s brakes, then do not attempt downhill.
4. The difference between a costly 30000-40000 INR bike Vs a 12000INR one. Higher the cost, better the features and comfort
5. How effective & precise disk brakes are and the difficulty in maintaining them when compared to standard V-brakes
6. A puncture kit is extremely essential. You’ll never know when you’ll have a flat tyre.
7. Tyre tube stems come in different sizes.
8. When visiting coorg during monsoons, pack a pair of dry clothes & footwear for every single day of the stay there
9. It doesn’t rain heavily like in the cities in coorg throughout the day. It keeps drizzling throughout the day accompanied by heavy downpour for short while in between and is perfectly fine for travelling. Landslides & treefalls, however, are the ones to be concerned about
10. Leeches aren’t present in all the places.