30th December 2011.Aliyar-Valparai

This is a ride i have wanted to do for quite a while now,eversince i heard Jacob mention how scenic it is and that the 40 Hair Pin Bends are quite a challenge.Over the last month i have been lucky enough to do quite a few rides up in the mountains.So i thought the biking muscles are in the best shape to do some more climbing,also Jacob had his brand new GIANT Trance X1 that he wanted to inaugurate with a special ride.
So we decided to do it on the 30th,that way we will have enough time to recover for the party on new year's eve.We set off from my home at 6am on the 30th,bikes loaded onto my landcruiser.Jacob's new GIANT and my Orbea OIZ. The drive to Aliyar which is the foothills took about 90 minutes.Temperature was around 20degreesC ,the roads were a bit damp with overnight rains and the sky was overcast.We started unloading hoping for a dry day.

After a quick bite and fill up of our drink bottles we set off.The initial couple of kilometres was a nice gradual climb allowing you to get nicely warmed up and settle into a rhythm,the weather was fantastic and i had this feeling that it was going to be one of those days where you feel u have limitless energy.
The climb started and Jacob told me that from there on it was going to be a climb for the next 30 odd kilometres with probably a kilometre inbetween where the road descends.In any case we were not too concerned as we had not set any time targets but i for one did not want to make too many stops as that makes things difficult with the body cooling down.
45 minutes in were were at kilometre 12,where we stopped since Jacob had spotted two Indian Hornbills in flight in the valley to our right.We refueled our drink bottles with water ,very happy to have seen two examples of this very rare and endangered bird.The road at this point continued at around what i would say is a catagory3 or slightly more of a climb,and very soon we were half way up having completed 20 out of the 40 hair pin bends and again fantastic sight of a lone Great Indian Hornbill in full flight.I have never seen a bird that big ever and it was like looking at a small airplane in the distance.

The bikes were performing brilliantly,Jacob was loving his new Giant and was experimenting with the rear shock as we rode,and my OIZ was as brilliant as ever.Things were going real smooth and after one more refuelling stop we reached the highest point on the road at around 10.15am.the altitude reading showed 1250 metres and we were 33 kilometres into the ride having completed the 40 hairpin bends with relative ease i have to say.So we climbeed around 1000mtrs in 33 kilometres which i would say is a pretty decent climb.It was then downhill for the next 7 kilometres to the town of Valparai.

Valparai is home to another endangered species- the lion tailed macaque,this is an Old World Monkey which is endemic to the Western Ghats of South India.As we finished our ride at the 40th km we were extremely fortunate to see a handfull of them,a very rare sight indeed.I have now decided to carry a proper camera on my rides as images with a mobile phone just do not cut it.

We then decided to turn back and head up the hill for a few kilometres,close to where we saw the Hornbill hoping maybe we would be lucky enought to get another sighting,and also load the bikes back onto the car and grab some lunch.
A couple of kilometres later ,a few hundred metres before we were to stop and load on to the landcruiser, i look back briefly and see Jacob flying over his handlebar after accidently hitting the front brakes really hard  and land very heavily on his left shoulder breaking a collar bone.The bike suffering very minor scratches if any since it fell on him and he took the impact.Neither of us could believe what had just happened cause there was no need at that point for him to hit the brakes.Its just one of those things that will have us wondering forever i guess.
Since we had a car following us all the time we were able to get him right away to the only hospital in the area, which was can u believe it 50 metres from where he fell.They quickly cleaned him up and put a sling around his neck to hold his shoulder and we drove off to Coimbatore where he would require surgery on the broken collar bone.

I wish him a speedy recovery.It would be a few months before he rides his bicycle again.It was yet another  memorable ride for the both of us for more reasons than one this time.We would never ever think of doing long distance rides alone.