My friend’s bike, which I am in possession of when he is in the US, has been extremely useful for me in order to undertake this long and perilious journey across this huge distance. Normally, thirty six kilometres isn’t really a big deal. But when all of it involves riding through Bangalore city, and through peak traffic on a weekday evening, you would be pardoned if you thought I was being masochistic. This, especially considering the ride is from the south west end of Bangalore till its north east end.
Riding at the speed I do (I rarely speed beyond 60, stick to the rules at all times, refrain from honking and never ever ever ever ride on the pavement), it takes me a considerable amount of time to cover that distance. Although, in my defence, even if I were to actually ride much faster, the net time spent on the road would still be the same.
I was initially contemplating going via Residency Road, getting onto Airport Road at Domlur and then heading straight along it till I could take a left and turn off towards the road that leads to CV Raman Nagar and DRDO, but with some genius having dug up parts of Residency Road, and Namma Metro rendering MG Road unusable for the next decade, only fools would rush in, where circumspect motorists fear to tread.
Nevertheless, I’ve devised a divide and conquer approach to ensure that I am able to complete that long and painful journey and still be fresh like a Lipton Taaza chaai ad model by the end of it all. This has ensured that I’ve divided the route into four logical sectors, each of thirty minutes duration.
Sector 1 – Global Village to Deve Gowda Petrol Bunk: usually tackled through the back route via Uttarahalli, and is mostly peaceful if navigated upon at the right time, with a small jam that invariably happens at the petrol bunk intersection due to work going on at the Kadirenahalli junction underpass, and the resulting traffic diversion thereafter.
Sector 2 – Deve Gowda Petrol Bunk to Hosur Road Forum Signal: This sector requires a bit of luck, some knowledge of the inside roads, and the willingness to go through Tilak Nagar in Jayanagar, which comprises of some of the craziest auto drivers ever known to mankind. The kinds that would swerve sideways when going along the road, just like F1 cars would in a warm-up lap just before the race starts. With some reasonable manoeuvering especially on after the Dairy Circle flyover, this entire section can also be covered optimistically in 30 minutes.
Sector 3 – Hosur Road Forum Signal to Indiranagar – Domlur flyover: Ideally, this section should be the fastest, but is also the one populated with most HTs, and as a result, even the most careful of motorists should, in a bid to save their lives and have as few near death experiences as possible, ride as if they’re in a battlefield. The good people of Koramangala seem not to care too much about major road intersections, and are virtually colour blind to traffic lights. Once you fear the worst is over, there’s the Inner Ring Road connecting Koramangala to Indiranagar.
This road, which is sheer joy to ride on before 7 AM and after 10 PM is just about unbearable at other times, particularly due to the lack of speed breakers, and also because anyone who has to go towards Indiranagar from EGL necessarily has to cut through the gap in the divider and take a U turn, causing a reasonably pathetic pile up.
However, due to the presence of Radio Indigo, and with the request hour on the evening show hosted by Rohit Barker, where sometimes, one is so lucky so as to get one’s request played, this horrible sector can be successfully navigated peacefully.
Sector 4 – Indiranagar Flyover to Drummer’s House: This is the last sector, and the closer one approaches the final destination, the greater the hunger pangs one feels. The feeling of hunger peaks near the BEML intersection at the end of New Thippasandra, and for another three kilometres thereafter, the ride is sheer torture. Until recently, this had some of the worst roads, and would make one’s teeth clatter in a manner that to me was fondly reminiscent of the noise the skeleton in our biology lab in school used to make since he had a defective spring connecting his skull to his jawbone.
Given I plan to undertake similar journeys via cycle on the weekends, albeit from my house in Banashankari 3rd stage, the whole comparision of both journeys should be quite interesting, in the very least.
