Team-BHP (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/)

-   Bicycles (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/bicycles/)

-   -   The Bicycles thread (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/bicycles/20785-bicycles-thread-265.html)

I live in Camp bro.

I'll PM you my number. We should meet!

Cheers, Doc

ohh I see. That's the other end. Never mind. PM me your number and we can plan to meet.

Hi Ganesh and all,
I've a request similar to that of Amitwlele, except mine's for Bangalore. To introduce my situation, I accidentally resumed cycling (after a gap of about 20+ years) around 4 years back when I and a friend walked out of Decathlon with RockRider 5.3 MTB. I had no idea of road, hybrid and mtb when this happened. Since then I started cycling to work once or twice a week. Its a considerable stretch of around 21kms one way in about 1 hour, with 60% bad roads and potholes, fair mix of up and downhill on both ways. This has now become a norm and I've covered about 6k kms which is not much when compared to most of you here, but I've just been riding to work 1/2 a week.

I recently started interacting with few riding groups and planning to join them for longer rides apart from the work commute. Additionally smitten by the road bike upgrade on seeing few overtake me with ease. I started hunting around and not sure whether to go for a proper road bike (concerns over bad roads all along my work commute) or an endurance bike (learnt about these over last few days) or a slicker Hybrid.
Appreciate any inputs on this.

PS: I'm 41 years old, 178cms tall and weigh about 78kgs. I generally average around 17-20kmph on rides so far.

After procrastinating for over a year I took the plunge and purchased a Montra Trance D (2018).

I have a few queries. I will be primarily using it for early morning fitness runs. What are the key accessories I would need ? Some of the accessories I can think of are?

1. A tail light and a front light
2. Mobile holder
3. A good sturdy helmet - any suggestions please ?
4. A good lock - suggestions.
5. Bottle holder?

What else do I need?

I am a noob in the bicycle scene and will start taking this exercise seriously so need your help guys. Thanks in advance.

We need to plan a Team - BHP cycle ride. I know atleast 4-5 BHPians doing rides in Pune. So much for Live to Drive stupid:

I now totally agree with the point you mentioned about different postures. :) Did the 200 BRM (Pune - Panchgani - Pune) this weekend and boy I was tired of holding the handle bars in one position especially on the long never ending Wai to Panchgani stretch (Pasarni Ghat).

Did not experience this in the earlier BRM rides but this was tough.

This more or less covers the accessories list for short rides.

Maybe an Portable Air Pump, Puncture Kit and Spare tube in case you are planning to go slightly longer distances and out of city limits.

Pasarni is tough because it's long. The gradient is not bad. Bhor (Khopoli) is long and bad both.

Plus there is no roadside respite fir water or shade on Pasarni. You just need to keep climbing. Monotonous once you find the right gear. And every blind corner in the hill is a false hope ...

What I found worse actually (last season's Strawberry Fields 300) was after you summit Pasarni, there is another 25 odd km of continuous dips and climbs from Panchgani to Mahabaleshwar.

THAT was really morale breaking frankly.

Even the multiple scoops of fresh strawberry ice cream along the way did not help. Lol

Cheers, Doc

Thanks a lot. Any suggestions for helmets? And the price range I should look at ?

For climbing, as well as high speed driving when you get a nice long neutral gradient flat when you want to munch distance and make up time, for a flatbar bike, barends are indispensable.

So used to them I am now, I find moving to a plain flatbar near impossible now.

My Scott .....



My ACT .....



The ACT is lower and I get a much nicer aggressive position that I favor over the taller more relaxed commuterish Scott.

I prefer to have them inclined at between 22 to 25 degrees.

Do try them before going roadie.

Cheers, Doc

Cool! Count me in. I ride an humble Montra. I stay in Kothrud but it doesn't matter for the T-BHP group cycle ride.

Count me in as well.

I ride an even more humble Hercules (desi cousin of Montra). Lol

Cheers, Doc

It sure is monotonous and energy sapping in the afternoon sun. And you can actually see the cars still climbing far ahead in the distance and that is even more painful. Next time I climb Pasarni i am not looking up. :)

You have got me worried. Bhor even tougher. Thanks for the warning. I am going to Mumbai on 17th on the bike and was thinking of doing the return as well on the cycle. Will have to think about it.

Interesting. Should give it a try.

Noob question - Why aren't Aero bars allowed in BRMs?

Congratulations! We missed each other by just a week, was there running around a week ago :)

haha - my thoughts exactly! Got fooled so many times, I literally did not believe my friends (on the last climb) who said the turning point is just a few kms away :uncontrol

But the fun part of the Panchgani BRM is the return route is (feels) all downwards. You have the luxury of using the tunnel on the Khandala ghat. And even the Katraj ghat reverse climb (towards Pune) doesn't feel like a climb.

The Media ghat run gets over quick. Though you do knock off a reasonable 20-30 Kms super quick (depends on your risk appetite and how bad the road is and your luck Vis a vis punctures or falls). It's very bad right now.

But after Media there is a really dirty 40 km slog on sapping rolling gradients all the way in to Satara that killed me last time.

The Satara Khambatki leg is also painful till the tunnel. Those 40 km almost always take more than they should.

Cheers, Doc

Decathlon has helmets at multiple price points. I got the 500 cycling helmet for 2K. I like decathlon stuff - they're priced well and VFM.

Thanks I will check them out.

Has anyone heard of XMR helmets? I saw one in Matt black at Track n Trail. Looked really good. Was retailing for 999.