A Cycling Holiday in India

Liz wanted a memorable holiday centred on a big birthday and for some reason India was chosen. Exodus Travels offered a 2 week cycling holiday to Kerala in south west India so we duly booked. We flew to Bangalore then transferred to Mysore for the start of our cycling The group we joined consisted of 14 people, couples and singles, of very mixed cycling ability but no real hardmen. The youngest was 50. The group had a cycling leader, a cycling backmarker and a support van carrying our luggage, which doubled as a sag wagon. Our accommodation was full board in very nice hotels and all lunch, elevenses and other breaks well organised..The route took us from Mysore through The Western Ghat mountains down to the western coast which abutted the Arabian sea. We followed the coast south to Varkala where the tour finished. The average mileage was about 45 miles with some rest days.The general sights and impressions were temples, religious ceremonies which often included elephants, lush arable land with tea plantations and vegetable/fruit crops, rich history, lots of colour and life and busy, busy, busy.

Highlights. Ooty. Known as Queen of the Hill Stations. Over 2000 metres high in the Western Ghat mountains. Subtropical ,surrounded by tea vegetable and fruit plantations. Botanical gardens, a lovely lake with recreational activities. The place was used by the British as a summer retreat. Part of largest protected forest reserve/wildlife reserve in India. The game of snooker was invented and developed in this area in the late 19th century.

Kochi Known as the Queen of the Arabian Sea .An important trading post going back to antiquity and later by used by the British, Dutch and Portuguese Has a huge multicultural heritage with many religions. Industrial Island community having the first water metro system in the world. We had a rest day here, hired a tuck tuck taxi at the phenomenal cost of 300 rupees for 3 hours (£3)

Kerala House Boat.The west coast of Kerala has a series of interconnecting lakes surrounded by tropical woodland. Initially we cycled through the area on quite lanes stopping at small businesses producing ropes, basketwork, smoked fish etc (the quietest part of the holiday lovely.). Boarded a house boat, sailed through the lakes and slept on the boat as it journeyed south through the waterway system.

Varkala.Coastal town with spectacular sandstone sea cliffs and beautiful sandy beeches. We both swam in the warm sea. Liz was the only lady with a swim suit the rest just wore traditional Indian dress. A popular resort with cafes and shops nestling atop the the wooded cliffs. This was the final stopping place on the tour. We realised here that we should a stopped extra nights in this very pleasant place.

To summarise the holiday, an experience but definitely a one off for me but Liz enjoyed it immensely, which is probably the main thing,
David Edge,

Navigating by GPS

Whilst it might look to some people as though we all know every single road like the backs of our hands, and indeed some club members really do, some of us are actually just following a course that has been uploaded onto a GPS bike computer. Something that these things weren’t very good at a few years ago was getting a route file loaded onto the computer, with lots of Garmin devices requiring that the computer was physically connected to a PC to upload files.

However, times are changing and even Garmin seem to have realised that people want to be able to upload a file directly from their phone. This post aims to briefly describe the procedure for recent Garmin devices.

A key part of doing this is having a Garmin bike computer and a phone that can communicate with each other via the Garmin Connect app.

You can start by planning a route using your preferred route planner. We quite like cycle.travel, but there are plenty of other options.

cycle.travel actually gives me an option to send the .gpx file to my Garmin Connect account, but lots of sources simply download the file to your phone. The only really important thing to remember is that once you have downloaded the file you need to open it using the Garmin Connect app.

Once the file has been opened in the Garmin Connect app you may need to edit the file name before you can save it, although sometimes this isn’t necessary.

Once you have saved the file to your Garmin account you can easily transfer it to your device by selecting the Send to Device option and syncing with the device.

Experience suggests that it is always best to check that you can find the uploaded course on your bike computer before you set off. On recent Garmin devices this tends to be from the main screen under Navigation > Courses > Saved Courses.

Emergency Information

The Club now requests that all riders have their emergency contact information with them whilst on club rides. This can be added to a smartphone so that the emergency information is accessible without unlocking the phone. This is usually referred to as ICE, In Case of Emergency.

On an Android phone this can be accessed via the Settings. The pictures below show how the Safety and Emergency option can be found in the Settings, and this provides options for entering an emergency contact number and medical information. This information can then by viewed without unlocking the phone by selecting Emergency Call, which provides a way to call the emergency contact number and view any relevant medical information.