ir0006 - Tristate 600

About:

Tristate 600 is one of the interesting brevet routes offered by IISc Randonneurs, which involves a pass through two elephant corridors. Be it long descents, fair share of climbs, gruelling heat, soothing cold, or assisting as well as attacking winds, this route has a variety any Randonneur can expect..

Starting from the IISc Campus, riders take Kanakpura road and pass through a scenic road with occasionally showing up lakes, to reach Sathanur. From Sathanur, riders take a U turn to reach back Harohalli, from where they endure some nice ascents passing through an elephant corridor under the hot sun to reach Attibele.

From Attibele starts an all descent ride to Vellore where the riders gain time to rest and prepare for the sweet climbs that are following to reach Palamner through the second elephant corridor. From Palamner, the riders take NH-219 towards Punganur, to reach Srinivaspur. From Srinivaspur starts all plain roads where riders trace Chintamani and Sidlaghatta to reach Chikkaballapur and join the 4 laned Bangalore - Hyderabad highway towards Bangalore. One final push is what needed to reach back IISc to complete the epic ride that lasted for the 30+ hours.

Surface:

Kanakpura road NH-209 is a two-lane undivided national highway. It has excellent surface all the way till Sathanur.

The route from Harohalli to Anekal has moderate surface with a few potholes for the first 25 km. The remaining stretch till Anekal on SH-87 and then from Anekal to Attibele on SH-35 has good surface.

NH-7 (Attibele-Krishnagiri) and NH-46 (Krishnagiri-Vellore) are excellent four-lane highways with divider. However, in NH 46, because of ongoing overpass construction work at some places, the space on shoulders is not available.

The road from Pallikonda to Gudiyattam is moderate. From Gudiyattam to Palamner the road is narrow with lot of turns and climbs through the ghats. This road has good surface except for the last 15 km before Palamner. This last stretch has a few potholes.

Roads from Palamner to Srinivaspur are two laned with good surface. NH-234 from Srinivaspur till Chikballapur is a narrow, two-lane, undivided national highway. It has good surface outside towns, except for when it passes over some bunds. It is in very bad shape inside some towns for short stretches (100m). There are no potholes outside towns, but watch out for unmarked speed breakers near small villages. NH-7, ORR and New BEL Road have mostly excellent surfaces.

Traffic:

There may be considerable traffic till Kanakpura road inside the city even with an early morning start. Kanakpura road NH-209 has medium to heavy traffic outside the city. Watch out for overtaking heavy vehicles at the turns along the highway.

The Harohalli-Anekal stretch has very low traffic. SH-35 (Anekal-Attibele) has low to medium traffic.

NH-7 (Attibele-Krishnagiri) and NH-46 (Krishnagiri-Vellore) have heavy traffic even at night. Make sure you are visible to traffic by using reflective vests and proper lights. There may be some truck traffic between Pallikonda and Gudiyattam. SH-127 between Gudiyattam and Palamner has very low traffic. Watch out for oncoming cars along the narrow ghat sections.

Roads between Palamner and Srinivaspur, and NH-234 from Srinivaspur has low to medium traffic. Heavy vehicles (buses) ply on this route. NH-7 has medium to high traffic, even at night, and with NHAI flyover construction, there are a number of diversions that are difficult to ride for cyclists. Watch for merging traffic. ORR has medium traffic, and New BEL Road has low to medium traffic.

Terrain:

Two stretches will present most of the climbs on this route - one between Harohalli and Anekal and the other between Vellore and Palamaner. There will be some less steep climbing between Palamaner and Punganur.

The road is mostly downhill till Kanakpura. The road from Hosur to Krishnagiri is also largely downhill. Krishnagiri-Vellore has gentle descents and ascents. Mulbagal onwards, NH-234 is mostly flat with long gentle descents and some very gentle ascents. Man-made flyovers on NH-7.

Here is the elevation profile generated by utrack.crempa.net for the route from data provided by gpsvisualizer.com

Map:

This is the route map provided below for reference. A gpx track of the route can be found here. Please note the map and GPX are provided for information only. The cue-sheet is the official guide to the route.

View IISc Rando - Tri State 600KM in a larger map

Cue-sheet:

A draft cuesheet is available. A final cuesheet will be made available to the riders before the ride.

Credits:

Recce : Mustafa, Karthikeyan, Sreepathi, Chiddu, Kalpesh, Akhilesh

Cuesheet : Authors of Tristate 600 - previous runs, and Kalpesh