The Nandi Climb!

The Nandi!

The Nandi! This one’s on everyone’s list at all times or so it seems. New riders want to do their first, experienced riders want to beat their best! On top of that every now and then people you meet talk about having done it during their childhood. The latest is my cycling buddy Anil Kadsur doing the climb running bare foot!

What’s all the fuss about anyway? Nandi may not be the toughest climb but is certainly the toughest around Bangalore! It is roughly 400 meter climb in just over 7kms.

Like any Bangalore cyclist, I wanted to do the Nandi climb too. As always, after a few email exchanges Shankar, Kalyan and few others signed up. Others dropped out over night leaving 3 of us behind 🙂

The next morning Sep 03 2011, I started from home at 5:30am on my Canondale Five MTB reaching Hebbal Flyover (24kms) at around 6:40am. After a short wait Kalyan arrived on his sparkling new Trek 3700 MTB. He told us later that he cleaned his bike for every ride. Hope my bike did not hear him say that 😛 Shankar caught up at Chandra cafe in Yelahanka. We finished our breakfast and started the expedition.

Shankar had done the Nandi climb 4.5 times on his MTB none in the last one year. On this ride, he wanted to do it on his road bike targeting sub 40’s. Kalyan had done it once before a couple of weeks ago. He just wanted to be better at it. Me, no expectations whatsoever! All the things I heard about Nandi had me rather confused. All I wanted was to kill my curiosity 🙂

Shankar was keen to avoid the busy Airport rode and all the construction along that way. We decided to take the alternate road through Doddaballapur road. We were to ride 50kms more to the base and then the 7km climb.

As we started, Shankar shot off on his road bike while Kalyan and I rode together on our MTBs. Being my first time I rode conservatively so I could give it all during the climb. We took a couple of short breaks on the way. The weather was very good at this time, cloudy and not much winds. The traffic seemed a little aggressive but was okay. The long deserted road just after we made a right turn at Doddaballapur reminded me of Mr Bean’s holiday where he waits for a lift forever 🙂

Kalyan posing during on the Mr Bean's Holiday Road

Shankar and Kishan posing on Mr Bean's Holiday Road

We arrived at the base at about 10:30 or so I think. I had clocked 75kms from home by now. I was a little tired probably due to the small breakfast but no lack of enthusiasm!

We took a rather longish break over there. All three of us had maggi which almost seems like a tradition! In the meantime, 3 riders one of them with his son arrived one after the other, Rajesh, Hari and Ravi. Rajesh was complaining that he took 2 min more due to the winds (he had done 24 min!!). These guys are racers and professionals at cycling. It was an good experience to meet someone of that standards.

Rajesh Nair and Kishan Kumar at the Maggi Place

Bikes at Nandi Base

The Climb that matters!
We rode over to the junction (small bull statue) which marks the start of the Nandi climb and began our expedition. We set out stop watches and started together. Our roadie took off and was almost out of sight in no time at all!

Kalyan took off too and was about 15 feet ahead of me. I paced myself and was focused on my own effort. My aim was to cover the distance and not to break a record. So, I just took it easy. To my surprise, I was on 2×6 I suspect right at the start. I’m a 2×7 rider and this kinda felt sad buy it’s the Nandi – right? It’s got to be like this I thought!

Kalyan started mash up’s right at the start at about 100 meters into the ride. I said to myself “no mash up’s dude” and kept going. I saw him make a short loop and continue on the ride. I guessed it was his way to build momentum (It was not until the next day while talking to Sreeharsha i got to know that the technique is used when a gear does not engage during a climb). I was not sure what gear selection he was on nor how he was approaching the climb but to my surprise, I was overtaking him even before we both had done 1 km! I was still doing 2×6 and quite comfortable at it.

I was happy to see the Nandi Hills 7kms sign soon enough. That is a source of inspiration and a natural countdown, something to cheer me up at regular intervals! I worked through the first 4 kilometers shifting up and down in the second gear. When I saw the 3 kms to Nandi board, I wondered if I could to the entire distance in 2x combination. Wouldn’t that be something? That became my soft target now. I was very eager now.

I quenched by thirst on the go to avoid breaks early in the ride. Fortunately, there were a few breathers till this point allowing me to do that. While my focus was completely on the ride I did pay attention to some details on the way. Firstly, the groups of monkeys spread at regular intervals staring at me and probably saying “Humans…!”. The next one worth mentioning is the passing motorists all with different expressions on their faces. I could read a few which were like “What the…”, some showing a thumbs up, while others screaming to make me look silly. The third one rather humorous is the regular sighting of young couple acting like they had stopped to make some adjustments to their hair or the motorcycle or if nothing else seating position 🙂 needless to mention the lonely motorcycles and scooters parked by the sides. Wonder where the riders were!! 😉 Last but not the least is the breathtaking view of the landscape from the hill!

By now I had seen the 3kms sign and was still on 2x selection. Just when I was feeling strong about it, I encountered a killer hairpin bend. I stuck to as left as possible to get the best line. The right hand side of the road looked like a slide. Infact, a ford ikon that passed me was probably Lowe than my knees! This is when my soft target vaporized as I had to switch to 1×3. After getting past the hairpin, I was able to move up and down 1x with occasional switch to 2x.

I made it this far without a single break. Hey, why not make that my new soft target? Fortunately, I was not too thirsty now. I could do this ONLY if I controlled my mind and the temptation for a break due to the toughness of the climb.

I crossed the 2kms sign board now. This next kilometer was crazy. Every stone and rock was inviting me to rest my leg on it. I tried to look away from those darn things but it was not easy!

I managed to hold it together and reach the 1km sign! This is when the darnest thing happened! I was very tired by now and losing momentum steadily! I was in 1x combination for most part and arrived at another killer hairpin i took a brave decision to mash up in 2x, gain momentum and then switch back to 1x. It was a simple plan but failed miserably! As I had imagined, I switched to 2x, mashed up but then my bike would not switch back to 1x. I was basically screwed! There I was right in the middle of a hairpin bend stuck in between 1x and 2x!! I tried various things like giving it a pause, pedaling backwards slightly, etc. None seemed to work. I was adamant not to put my foot down – literally! I switched back to 2x and continued mashing up. I saw another hairpin bend and eagerly tried switching again but failed too, forcing me to go back to 2x! I gave it my all and continues the mash up.

To my great and most pleasant surprise, just after that hairpin bend, I caught the sight of the Arch. I’ve never in my life felt so good on seeing an Arch (other than my wife Archana whom I call Arch!). The last kilometer was really not a kilometer fortunately. I saw Shankar sitting just next to the Arch surrounded by people. I had made it! I entered the arch, got off the bike, shook hands, parked it and sat down! I had clocked 50min to the top without a break. Kalyan arrived a few minutes later. He clocked 1:02 and Shankar had done 37min, his first roadie and sub 40.

We all posed at the arch and celebrated with a drink and a couple of popcorns. We did not mind a monkey snatching away one of our popcorns too. We were all too happy for that 🙂

Kalyan

Shankar

...and that

The descent was fun! We did not bother to time it but we were probably down in 10 min! Kalyan recorded the descent on his iPhone camera . I’ll add the video as soon as I have access to it!

We had lunch at the base and started riding back. We faced some terrible headwinds on the way back. In fact it was so bad that I was using similar gear combinations as the first 4 kms of the climb!

Kalyan split at Chandra Cafe, Shankar and I went on for another celebration at the corner house before we split. I rode till the hebbal flyover with a great interest in doing 150 but gave up on that and dumped myself and the bike in an autorickshaw. I hide my guilt of cutting short the ride behind the fact that my nephew was waiting for me to setup his Xbox 🙂

And that’s all folks. Thank you for your interest and sparing the time to read my wonderful experience! Look forward to hear your comments/views…

Following are a few related links:
Nandi hall of fame
My ride on endomondo
Kalyan’s album on picassa