Showing posts with label Morning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Morning. Show all posts

Thursday, June 9, 2011

New beginnings

A little over a month after I bought the bergamont, the presta valve on the front tyre broke because my local bike shop guys couldn't figure out how to fill air through it. As fate would have it, I suddenly got busy with work which is finally coming my way. The combined effect of which was my bike lying idle in my stilt parking.
This went on for three weeks till Wednesday, when I decided to get it fixed once and for all.

I got the bike back last evening and planned to ride with two of my friends to Koregaon park.
It also gave me the perfect opportunity to click photos with funky effects through my new tough and water resistant phone!


We had a leisurely ride in overcast conditions and it didn't rain till we reached Koregaon Park.


After a brief water and group photo break, we rode towards Vohuman cafe for breakfast. The one time I went there, the walls were covered with baby posters. Quite creepy! This time, the walls were bare and freshly painted with beige and brown oil paint. It somehow made that place brighter than before.
Our cycles parked and chained to each other, we sat in and enjoyed a leisurely breakfast of bun omelette, bun butter jam and tea as it drizzled outside. Discussing architecture for a good 20 minutes before the non architect intervened and the topic of conversation shifted to more generic themes.


After the breakfast, we decided to ride back on the river side road, which was once the subject of great controversy. But thats a thing of the past. It started drizzling, and the traffic had also increased substantially. We stopped to click photos of the Mutha river while crossing over to the other side. I saw horses grazing on the greens by the river and I had to stop to take pictures of those tall and bony white horses.


As we rode home, it drizzled a bit more, but not enough to drench us. Reached home happy to have my bergamont get back in action! Looking forward to cycling more this monsoon!

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Thursday ridin'

So till 9.30 PM on Wednesday, I still didn't know if we were going cycling the next day. With hopes of finding the starting point and route for the next day's ride, I read Ankur's message that night, only to be disappointed. He had messaged to look out for Bappa in the ongoing T20 WC warm up India - Pak match... Who wants to watch a warm up match that late at night?!?!
So I messaged him asking if we had any plans. Apparently we did not... because, I got no reply. Apparently, he fell asleep. So I decided to wake up early and motivate myself for a ride alone.
So I set up my alarm for 5.30 AM, but woke up at 5.15 AM.
And I got dressed, filled my partially crushed water bottle, and started off alone at 6.15AM.
Initially I planned to ride from Home - Senapati Bapat road - Pashan circle - Bavdhan - (Pune's own)Chandni Chowk - home.
But by the time I reached the University circle, I had already made massive changes in the route I was going to take. Instead of turning left towards Bavdhan, I went straight towards the Baner-Pashan Link road, and went all the way to Baner, and on the gradual uphill climb back to University circle...
Then it was downhill. but then - 'Fun suddenly came' when I started speeding on 3-7 downhill. I must be going at around 50 KM PH, and the momentum, along with the sudden burst of adrenalin allowed me to climb the flyover without changing the gear, and maintaining my speed over about 30 KM PH. I admit, it wasn't difficult, but I really had a great time doing it...
So off I was towards Fergusson college road, and stopped for a few sips of cool water at the end of the gradual climb there. I turned right towards BMCC, and went all the way from Law college road towards home pretty fast... And I remembered ... I have a camera...
Have Camera, will click...

So with the camera now slung around me, I was trying out all sorts of different angles while riding... 7.30 AM traffic... yeverything is passible...
So I was already home... an hour and fifteen minutes... that was what it took for approximately 25 kilometres... not bad, but not too good either.
Well, at least the photos weren't that bad... ;0)