Monsoon Mashup (2013)

Dark clouds, humidity, dull mornings and thunder concert nights, welcome monsoons. Pouring rains got the baking summer affected mountains a relief. Not to mention the super traction mode they switched on for some trails. While all of us here in Pune swapped our 2.5”s for skinnier 2.3”s, the slush fest was just getting started. After taking the top spots at the Bangalore Bicycle Championships ‘Turahalli DH Madness’ again this year, The Pune crew was getting warmed up for the rain slides on home trails. But before we left from namma Bengaluru, we stuck some more Turahalli and Nandi hill dirt on our tyres.

Post BBCh event rides are a good outro to our Bangalore visit. While Piyush and his buddies packed back for Pune cause of School, Gautam Taode and I along with Bangalore locals Ignatius Chen Chin Fa and Robin Darius Conz logged in some more Bangalore trail time. Some newer lines on Turahalli were spotted; some cameras were ridden over before we headed to Nandi hills. A longer pedal power trail, Nandi on a drizzly day is fun for sure. Sharp turns, baby heads, roots and rock slabs, the ride was captured beautifully by the photog crew, Swaati Langeh (Big Rush) and Robin (‘The Con’ Photographer).

Once off from Bangalore, the rain songs were playing full volume in Pune on arrival. The OG mountain bike fanatic from Pune, Sameer Dharmadhikari was all stoked to ride the old Pune trails with us, the new kids he says. Small cars full of bikes, Sameer, Gautam Taode, Praveen Prabhakaran and Piyush assembled on our favorite hill, Dighi. All green in the monsoons, the trails were painted with beautiful fluorescent grass. To add to the colour scheme, GT and P-ush blazed down the dirt on bright orange and green bikes. While the older gentlemen on bikes, Sameer and Prawnz took it easy on the dew trails, the rest of us went hunting for new steeps and bigger drop lines to launch off of, with cream results.

As the rains are exiting the skies, we are excited to see what the dry winter sun brings along. Sure some wicked times will be seen in beanies and sweatshirts.