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| The uphill and dowhill sections of the Sinhagad ride |
Why did I go there!? I have ridden almost 800kms now, and never ever till date have I shuddered at the thought of, and during, a downhill. Today I did. And my fears were right, the downhill almost broke open my wrists, jammed my back, busted my hips, cracked my neck and screwed (no pun) my shoulders ... there can't be anything worse. Up Sinhagad, it's a not a road, it's merely a bunch of stones (of all forms and sizes) scattered around as per whim (the stone's) and glued together with - sometimes tar, sometimes, loose dirt! Did I not know that the road was bad? Oh yeah, I did. But last time, when I had been there on my Apache, the bike suspension had kept these intricate road stats at bay, and even though I had cursed the bad road that time as well, actual details of 'just-how-bad-is-bad' I experienced today on a suspension-less near-road-bike - my Sporterra Sport - with it's tiny 700x38c tires filled to the brim with fresh morning air.
Sinhagad ride was on the back of the mind for sometime due to the way it's placed alongside Lavasa (ha!). I wanted to check just how tough it was going to be on a cycle. So in the morning I left, just about time when the skies were lightening up. Thought the Warje road would be better than the always-under-construction-and-dug-up Sinhagad road. But boy, was I wrong! The Warje road is at least as bad, if not worse, as the Sinhagad road; and what with the tiny suffocating gullies stinking of rotten meat everywhere. Uptill Donaje, the road is pathetic to put it very mildly. And from Donaje till Sinhagad, the road is beyond my stock of a gentleman's vocabulary.
As for the ride, during uphill you dont mind bad roads because you are anyway at a snail's pace. So uphill: good road is good to have, not a necessity. Going by the elevation plot, it looks like a mighty inclined one, but the gradient at 4.8%, is less than the 6% gradient of Lavasa climb. All along the ride, I never felt like losing it at any point in time. On Lavasa, it does feel like that during the Lavasa-4 to Lavasa-3 stretch. Here, I was quite at ease during the first part of the climb and carried on feeling quite fresh, no huffing or puffing. To give it to the Sinhagad climb, the last 2.5kms stretch indeed sports a respectable 8% gradient. But all along, it never looked like I wouldnt make it without a stop; except for the last stretch where, after passing on an opportunity to sip some water on a platued road, and then never getting any chance later on due to continuous climb, I was on the edge of getting dehydrated. The wheels were slipping due to loads of gravel on the road, and to make the matter worse, the chain was slipping and the rear derailleur (it's Alivio for crying out loud!) had developed a mind of it's own, changing gears when it deemed fit. I, for once, thought that I would have to take a stop and attend to the issues. But carry on I did, summoning all my endurance. And good enough, reached the top of Sinhagad without a single stop after leaving home.
When I check the stats and look back on the ride, I feel Lavasa gets exhausting in the final climb probably because you need to first ride ~40kms to reach the base of the climb - 2 ghats along the route; while here for Sinhagad the distance is exactly half of that without any ghats enroute. So comparatively you are mighty fresh when you arrive at the base, and then it's not that big a deal to reach the top.
After reaching the top, by the time I noticed a non-piercing boulder to sit and settled on it, I found out the phone battery was dying. So I immediately saved the uphill ride and replaced the battery with a spare one that I had carried. The prudence of spending a thousand bucks on a spare battery finally paid off. More importantly, not forgetting to carry it and then actually having it around when needed, was even more satisfying. So even though the ride is split into two halves - uphill and downhill -, and however much I would have liked to have recorded in a single GPX, I at least could have it recorded.
The downhill from Sinhagad top, has already been given a grand treatment, so no more on that again. But I was desperately looking forward to get onto even a semi-decent road where all my bones wouldn't have to rattle like they were stuffed in a leather bag and swayed end to end; where a vibration started at a knuckle of my toe will not have to end up at the tip of the highest standing hair on my head. But the misery continued till I got on the bypass.
The moment I hit bypass, that smooth surface of tar was such a relief and so inviting, that I threw caution to winds and raced like a man with a mission, outpacing a Maruti Omni enroute. There. Even my cycle has outpaced a Maruti now. You better be not around until I will have to out-run you, you Maruti people ;) The joy of seeing utter disbelief in that Omni driver's eyes, for a moment, made me forget the dusty, trafficy, unsettled, tormenting ride on the Sinhagad road till then.
The nearly same timings for uphill and downhill are an indication of how much I would have cursed everyone and everything that came in a kilometer's distance of being even remotely responsible for the road condition.
Here is a short comparison of a Lavasa and Sinhagad cycling ride (in my eyes) --
And here are uphill and downhill tracks recorded and maintained on Sports-Tracker -
Home to Sinhagad (uphill): http://www.sports-tracker.com/#/workout/shreyas/cjb0cf3e6mo4pvem
Sinhagad To back Home (downhill): http://www.sports-tracker.com/#/workout/shreyas/cjb0cf3e6mo4pvem
Sinhagad ride was on the back of the mind for sometime due to the way it's placed alongside Lavasa (ha!). I wanted to check just how tough it was going to be on a cycle. So in the morning I left, just about time when the skies were lightening up. Thought the Warje road would be better than the always-under-construction-and-dug-up Sinhagad road. But boy, was I wrong! The Warje road is at least as bad, if not worse, as the Sinhagad road; and what with the tiny suffocating gullies stinking of rotten meat everywhere. Uptill Donaje, the road is pathetic to put it very mildly. And from Donaje till Sinhagad, the road is beyond my stock of a gentleman's vocabulary.
As for the ride, during uphill you dont mind bad roads because you are anyway at a snail's pace. So uphill: good road is good to have, not a necessity. Going by the elevation plot, it looks like a mighty inclined one, but the gradient at 4.8%, is less than the 6% gradient of Lavasa climb. All along the ride, I never felt like losing it at any point in time. On Lavasa, it does feel like that during the Lavasa-4 to Lavasa-3 stretch. Here, I was quite at ease during the first part of the climb and carried on feeling quite fresh, no huffing or puffing. To give it to the Sinhagad climb, the last 2.5kms stretch indeed sports a respectable 8% gradient. But all along, it never looked like I wouldnt make it without a stop; except for the last stretch where, after passing on an opportunity to sip some water on a platued road, and then never getting any chance later on due to continuous climb, I was on the edge of getting dehydrated. The wheels were slipping due to loads of gravel on the road, and to make the matter worse, the chain was slipping and the rear derailleur (it's Alivio for crying out loud!) had developed a mind of it's own, changing gears when it deemed fit. I, for once, thought that I would have to take a stop and attend to the issues. But carry on I did, summoning all my endurance. And good enough, reached the top of Sinhagad without a single stop after leaving home.
When I check the stats and look back on the ride, I feel Lavasa gets exhausting in the final climb probably because you need to first ride ~40kms to reach the base of the climb - 2 ghats along the route; while here for Sinhagad the distance is exactly half of that without any ghats enroute. So comparatively you are mighty fresh when you arrive at the base, and then it's not that big a deal to reach the top.
After reaching the top, by the time I noticed a non-piercing boulder to sit and settled on it, I found out the phone battery was dying. So I immediately saved the uphill ride and replaced the battery with a spare one that I had carried. The prudence of spending a thousand bucks on a spare battery finally paid off. More importantly, not forgetting to carry it and then actually having it around when needed, was even more satisfying. So even though the ride is split into two halves - uphill and downhill -, and however much I would have liked to have recorded in a single GPX, I at least could have it recorded.
The downhill from Sinhagad top, has already been given a grand treatment, so no more on that again. But I was desperately looking forward to get onto even a semi-decent road where all my bones wouldn't have to rattle like they were stuffed in a leather bag and swayed end to end; where a vibration started at a knuckle of my toe will not have to end up at the tip of the highest standing hair on my head. But the misery continued till I got on the bypass.
The moment I hit bypass, that smooth surface of tar was such a relief and so inviting, that I threw caution to winds and raced like a man with a mission, outpacing a Maruti Omni enroute. There. Even my cycle has outpaced a Maruti now. You better be not around until I will have to out-run you, you Maruti people ;) The joy of seeing utter disbelief in that Omni driver's eyes, for a moment, made me forget the dusty, trafficy, unsettled, tormenting ride on the Sinhagad road till then.
The nearly same timings for uphill and downhill are an indication of how much I would have cursed everyone and everything that came in a kilometer's distance of being even remotely responsible for the road condition.
Here is a short comparison of a Lavasa and Sinhagad cycling ride (in my eyes) --
| Destination: | Lavasa (aah!) | Sinhagad |
| Distance till Base: | ~36kms | ~18kms |
| Climb from Base: | 8kms | 12kms |
| Overall Gradient: | 6% | 4.8% |
| Top Gradient: | 8.1% for 4.6kms (mid climb - around Lavasa-4 milestone) | 8% for 2.5kms (final climb till the top) |
| Road Condition: | Goooooooooooood!! | Horror of horrors! |
| Will I go Back: | Hell Yeah! | Well, not until I lose my mind ... again. |
And here are uphill and downhill tracks recorded and maintained on Sports-Tracker -
Home to Sinhagad (uphill): http://www.sports-tracker.com/#/workout/shreyas/cjb0cf3e6mo4pvem
Sinhagad To back Home (downhill): http://www.sports-tracker.com/#/workout/shreyas/cjb0cf3e6mo4pvem
3 comments:
Hi Shreyas. This is Gireesh. I have also started cycling a few months back with my friends. We are a group of 4 cyclists. Until now, we have been to Lonavla, Panshet, Sinhagad base, Temghar dam(en route to Lavasa) and in and around Pune. Our experience of Lavasa was bit different. We could not go upto Lavasa because we started late from Pune(around 9:30am) and it was a hot day which slowed us down near Temghar. But the return journey was like falling from the sky on Airavat! Superfast!
I will now climb the Sinhagad on my Schnell Snipper soon, a long awaited task..
its not abt cycle.... schell snipper can easily climb sinhgad or lavasa too unless you are hungry for that dedication... and ofcourse for good climbing you need a perfect technique so you can climb non stop... most ppl do mistakes by having high gear settings started from climb or goin to high gear on climb... never ever put or change gear on high unless you are professional... if you put on high gear you will get speed for 2 min and then you are exhausted... ultimate advice will be use same gear for whole climb or you can lower it during climb... and dont stop on cljmb stop on flat road... have a good ride cheers
Nine years have passed since you post and now even Lavasa is terrible. Well I had plans to go up to Mutha top but the road around Manas lake was so bad that I turned around. I've done Lavasa a few times last year (2019) and till then the road was good. 2020 is another story.
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