Sun Cheaters cycle trip – day 26-27

After explaining my love of being outdoors to many of my colleagues at Annual Day, the most common response was that I should join the Chennai Trekking Club. It is an entirely volunteer-run society which organizes treks and other outdoor adventures all across the country for anyone who would like to join. Trips range from half a day to over a week, and take you as far as the Western and Eastern Ghats, or as close as the little hills just outside of Chennai. Treks vary greatly in difficulty to accommodate all types of trekkers, and they even organize “social treks” were you go out for a day of hiking with kids from the local orphanage. The CTC has 15,000 members and more than 4,000 active members. (Matthew interprets this as a great indication of how badly people want to get out of Chennai for the weekend, haha)

Feeling adventurous, Ajeetha and I decided to join the “Sun Cheaters” cycle trip offered by the CTC. It was billed as a 120-km “beginners” trip to Sathyavedu starting at 6:30PM on Friday evening and finishing back in Chennai at 8AM on Saturday morning, avoiding the hot daytime sun and sleeping outside in a church compound for the night. Sounded great!

Vijay, one of the trip organizers, was kind enough to have arranged rental cycles for all those who needed them and he had them ready and waiting at his place for us to claim on Friday evening. Ajeetha and I were the first to arrive at 5:30PM and we quickly selected and adjusted our bikes and helmets. Rakesh and Avais turned up soon after, and in typical Indian style, we all waited until 7:30PM for the other three ladies (Swarna, Aruna and Alekhya) to finally turn up.

At this point, after having tried a little practice ride, Avais decided that he wasn’t comfortable cycling and kindly volunteered to drive his car behind us instead. We gratefully loaded up his back seat with all of our bags, and finally pushed off from Vijay’s place at about 8PM.

Our bikes ready to go!

After a quick stop on the side of the highway to pick up our second group of riders, don our reflective vests and attach our torches to the fronts of our bikes (with string…), we were soon hurtling down the major highway toward Sathyavedu. Thankful to have cheated the sun, but still having to handle a lot of dust and quite a large amount of traffic (particularly frightening were the lorries trying to pass each other with no regard for how close they were to us cyclists), we completed the first 18km quite quickly and stopped for dinner at a favourite hole-in-the-wall roadside stop called Dhaba. A delicious dinner of roti, paneer and dahl soon arrived and we gobbled it up quickly.

Dinner – yummm!

A puncture in one of our tires kept us in the glow of Dhaba’s lights for a little while after dinner, but Thilak (the other trip organizer) quickly had the inner tube back in working condition and we headed onward. Re-energized by the filling dinner, we completed a fast-paced 10km ride to one of the engineering colleges, appreciating how much lighter the traffic was at this hour.

Puncture #1 outside of Dhaba.

As we veered off the highway and onto a country road, a particular windy patch required us to ride single file to beat the extra friction, but soon afterward, the quiet country road allowed us to ride together in a chatty group (which had previously been an impossibility on the highways because of the heavy traffic). The huge trees on either side of the road were beautiful and provided a peaceful contrast to the busy honking chaos of the highway. The only sounds to break the tranquility were the croaking of frogs – oh and the barking of a pack of five or six stray dogs who terrified us by chasing our bikes for 200m or so.

Group pic of the sun cheaters!

About 7km along the country road (and 10km from our destination), we decided to halt our mission since it had already reached 1:00AM. Luckily, we found a temple at the side of the road with a running water tap beside it. We had a quick wash (so much sweat, dirt and dust to clean off), laid out our sleeping mats down and fell asleep quickly.

Creepy idol looking out over our sleeping area.

Washing off at the tap outside the temple.

Bed time!

However, the rest of the night was anything but peaceful – with biting ants scampering all over us and constantly waking up either to the loud buzz of a mosquito right next to my ear (if I had been sleeping with my head uncovered) or drenched in sweat from having my head under the sheet.

I was therefore quite thankful to hear Thilak’s alarm go off, even though it had sounded at 4:30AM, a mere few hours after we had fallen asleep. We packed up quickly, starting back toward Chennai before the sun rose. Just as it was getting light, we stopped for a quick cup of chai/coffee along the highway to fuel us for the next segment.

Hanging out at the roadside chai place.

Cycling at the crack of dawn.

At our next break point, we made the sad discovery that Swarna’s cycle had an irreparable puncture. We loaded it into the back of the car and Swarna, Aruna and Alekyha took turns sitting in the car for the rest of the ride home.

Vijay and Rakesh at our second last break point – the kids loved our cycles!

As we pushed onwards, the sun was beginning to provide some real heat and we were beginning to feel the effects of too little sleep and quite a lot of cycling, but a steady pace took us to our last stopping point. Exhausted and hungry, we stopped at the side of the highway to enjoy a quick breakfast of bananas and several swigs of Bovonto to keep us energized for the last few kilometers home. What a crazy trip!