Dec 2012: Kolar Gold Fields 300

The Ride

The Kolar Gold Fields region may not have nuggets of gold anymore, but it does have significant nuggets of history. This second brevet of the 2012/2013 season, the Kolar Gold Fields 300km BRM takes you through some ancient and important towns in the Kolar Gold Fields region near Bangalore. It then crosses into the neighbouring state of Andhra Pradesh travelling a beautiful road from Venkatagirikota before entering Tamil Nadu. We then trace the Palar river to Vaniyambadi, before returning via NH-46 in the shadow of the Yelagiri hills and NH-7 to Bangalore via Krishnagiri.

This is an ACP-sanctioned brevet ride, and must be completely self-supported. The ride must be finished within 20 hours, but note that it is not a competitive ride.

Ride Summary

Date: December 08, 2012, 6 AM

Start: M G Road Metro Station

End: Silk Board Junction on the Outer Ring Road

Distance: 315 km

Time limit: 20 hours

The ride is open to all cyclists regardless of their affiliation.

Rules and Regulations

Please read the rules and regulations for a randonnée.

Lights and reflective jackets are compulsory for this brevet. You will not be allowed to start without them.

The rider must return his/her brevet card to the organizers at the end of the brevet for their ride to be homologated. Riders completing the brevet successfully can opt for a medal from ACP, for which a separate medal fee of INR 350 must be paid. Cards and medals will be returned after a few months.

Registration Information

You can register online using RRBM.

Registrations are charged a fee of INR 200/. Payment details shall mailed to those who register online. Please note that payment is via online transfer to a bank account, and as this might take a few days to happen, do register early enough for you to be able to make the payment. Online registrations will close automatically on Dec 05, 2012, 6PM.

You will need to sign a waiver at the start, if you haven't done so already.

You can see the current list of registrants here.

Please note on-the-spot registrations at the venue are absolutely, totally, completely and utterly discouraged because we are extremely lazy people who have no interests whatsoever in taking on the hassles of few such isolated cases. So please do register online before they close down.

Route

Surface: Mostly state-highways and national highways, the road is in excellent condition except for SH-95 from Hoskote to Bethmangala. The stretch between Malur and Tekal and Tekal to Bethmangala have stretches of 4-5 kms with quite a few potholes, though roads continue to be paved throughout. Roads in AP and TN are in excellent shape. The steep downhill, as seen in the elevation profile below is fast and quite dangerous. Riders are cautioned to have a good set of working brakes and ride this stretch carefully.

Traffic: NH-4, NH-46 and NH-7 are all national highways and have significant amounts of traffic, though they have large shoulders and should present no problems. SH-95 is quiet, but features heavy vehicle traffic, and is narrow. Be careful of oncoming and overtaking vehicles. All the other roads have moderate traffic. NH-7 also has a few sections where road widening work is being undertaken. This might lead to slow movement of traffic.

Terrain: Here is the elevation profile generated by utrack.crempa.net for the route from data provided by gpsvisualizer.com, there is about 1750m of climbing.