Syclovia - The Sunday sunshine ride

It was one of those usual weekends after a lot of work on weekdays. The Syclovia, the name itself sounded very interest, was a cycling event on Sunday, 21st Sep, 2014 started by Giant Starkenn. Though it was a cycling event, it had more than just cycling. The main purpose was to ride from Langford Town, Hosur Main Road to Phoenix Marketcity, Mahadevapura, but it also had some fun events like zumba, yoga, music and whole lot of fun. And the more interesting thing was that, the event was to be started at 5am in the early morning in the Bangalore climate. After I saw this meetup in BCG blog, I decided that I would go for it and thought that weekend fun was waiting for me.

We had to first register to participate in this event, and there was registration fee of 200 per head if you had a group, if not 300 for individual. I, of course part of BCG group, contacted the BCG SPOC person from Domlur on Thursday to register myself and to get a bicycle on rent (I didn't have a bicycle!). But I couldn't meet him for some reasons on that day. When I called him on Friday, he told me I could register myself on the event day early morning, but I had to be there before 4:45am, because there are limited bicycles for rent and they would be given first come first serve. I agreed and told him that I would be joining him on the event day.
 

Advertisement banner

On the event day, Sunday, I woke up by 4am in the morning, though I slept no earlier than 12am. I got ready and started by 4:30am. Kiran dropped me there by exactly 4:45am and left. It was the Military Grounds, Opposite Confident Propus Hotel, Langford Town, Hosur road. It looked like I was second one to come there. I saw two girls arleardy there waiting for registrations, I wondered what made these girls came so early. There were no registrations started yet. After waited for 10 minutes, I registered and also collected the goodies bag in which one T-Shirt was there, it printed Syclothon. The weather was not quite cold, and it felt refreshing on that early morning. Also it was still dark and there were hardly any lighting around. After sometime around 6am, I took the bicycle on rent, a geared one. In no time, people came one by one, and it now looked like real event with lot of crowd and the enthusiasm in all the faces. There were kids, youth, girls, parents and grand parents. It was wonderful to see the people came without age difference. At 6:20am, the fun events were started. Everyone gathered in the ground place, which belongs to military so the ground was huge and neat. There was a stage arranged and a guy with mic calling everyone to come front. He called few people to the stage and started asking how it felt coming here by morning 5am. Everyone said it was fantastic, fun and sportive. Family people told, it was good time for family to be together and it was the only morning when all the family members being together. For me, it was an adventure :P.

The huge ground

Talks My bicycle (Rented :P)

 There were some sessions lined up, in that, first one was Yoga. The person from Total Yoga organization came on to the stage, and spoke for sometime about Yoga. One thing he said that I could remember was Yoga connects people with the Nature, in the world where now people connected to electronic devices. Then, he did few Yoga asanas, everyone followed him. Few asanas were very difficult, but it was fun though only very few people were able to do. After Yoga, started the zumba, which everyone was waiting for. A lady came on to the stage, who was the trainer. She was not from India, I forgot which country. The music started and the zumba dance, and everyone followed her steps. At last she also performed for Dhinka Chika from Ready, and pretty good. It was real fun moment. It went on for 30 minutes.

Talks about the event

Before Yoga and Zumba session

When time was past 7am, the events were completed and the time has come for actual program - cycling. It took 20 minutes to gather everyone, the Starkenn volunteers were trying hard to keep everyone in 3 lines, but how could they? Anyway the ride started at 7:30pm from the starting point. The kids and ladies in the front, and followed by guys. We followed the route on Hosur road till St. John's hospital where we took left on to the Koramangala 100ft road. The inital 2 kilometers were pretty good. But the actual physical test started from then. We went on that 100ft road till Domlur, crossed the flyover, and took immediate left after the flyover. We rode straight on Indiranagar Double road for some time and then took right to meet the 100ft road again. In between, they had provided drinks for all. It was really needed at that time. I had two packets and I felt like re-energized. Then started again. After riding on the 100ft road till the dead end, we reached old madras road. We continued on the old madras road till we hit the outer ring road. There at KR Puram, we took the U turn and got on to Whitefield road. It was the last stretch in our ride. I was observing a kid who would be around 4 years, was on his small bicycle. For him, at his age, ride for this long was really a tough one. He seemed already exhausting, but he was encouraged and supported by his mom, who was on her bicycle, kept one hand on his back and pushing little bit to reduce the stress on the kid. It felt good to see, reminded how mom's were very important part of anyone's life.
 

We finally reached the destination - the Phoenix Marketcity at around 9am. The total distance covered is 19 kms and the time it took is 1:30 hours. The above image was the summary report pulled from Endomondo Android application. We did not feel we were tired when we reach there, the crowd was amazing and all the faces were glowing as they achieved something. We had again the milk and some biscuits provided by them. After some time around 9:30pm, we reached to the center place of the mall, where there was a huge place with a big stage. There started again the fun events. Started by Yoga, this time another lady was teaching the Yoga. Then following a unique event of Drums. There was one band who does only the drum play (with hands). They provided few drums to the crowd, whoever got the drums they took and started beating. But then the band of 3 people came on to the stage. They said they first play the drums first and then they would teach how to play. I thought they would play some classical beats, but they played excellent catchy beats that could make anyone dance. And few people gathered in groups and danced to the beat. It was really superb music, they had a great talent. After that other band performed two Hindi songs. They were also okay and that was the last event.
Everyone came out and there were BMTC buses waiting for us to take us to the starting point, Langford Town. The bus took us to the starting point and it was almost 12pm when we reached there. And that ended our half-day event.

Yoga session at Phoenix mall

Drum beats by the 3 talents

Dance to the beats

Learning the drums play

A performance by a band

It was really a special day with lot of fun and cycling. Thanks to all the sponsors for organizing this event and spreading cycling awareness to the people in Bangalore. And let's hope there will be many more events come in future.