Bums On The Saddle ...

Selling anything is hard. Especially if you aren't selling just a commodity but an experience. That's what I learnt when I 'interned' at Bums On The Saddle.

Let me first just say this: Bums On The Saddle Rocks. Period. In BOTS you'd be never sold a bike, but an experience.

Okay, back to topic. I took a short break from all IT stuff and started working with BOTS with Rohan and Sid. I do have some retail selling experience as a cashier at a restaurant , as a waiter at a hotel and Salesman at an ice-cream shop. But boy was this different !

First, nothing goes just smooth. There will be a lot of things that aren't just going to fall in place. As a local bike shop guy, there are a hundred things you need to take care at any given point of time.

In this short period of time we :

Moved to a new place
Started designing the new set-up
Made a downhill training session happen ( big shout out to Nelly and Iggy !)
Made live streaming of Tour de France happen at the shop.
Put quite a few people on new cycles !
...


Thanks BOTS for the experience ! Love you guys :)

Tour de France 2011

Mother of all the cycling races is around the corner ! Tour de France starts on July 2nd.

Though all time favorite Lance is not racing this time around, I am totally rooting for Mark Cavendish, one of the best sprinter of our time. I can't wait to see Team HTC-Highroad leading him out to front and then Mark beating hell out of others :D

Imagine cycling at around 50 km/h for about 150-180 kilometers and then for the last 500 meters or so, sprinting at 70-80 km/h ! That is a treat to watch !


Here is old but informative article about all the questions you may have about Tour de France.

http://likeithateit.net/?p=240


Timings of stages as per IST here: [ http://goo.gl/MW4MM ]

[ https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?hl=en_US&hl=en_US&key=0Alpl9ukYBm8mdEY4SkFFMFFGSmpKejlxNHRlRnZJdkE&output=html ]

:-)

Offroading in Bangalore !

A short clip of photos and videos of our Bangalore Bicycle Championship's last race in namma Bengaluru. Shot and compiled by Sagar.






What a race !

Check out the photos I clicked here:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.145784058827141.35962.100001866448053&l=e7e82fec74

Check this out too : http://blog.bumsonthesaddle.com/2011/5/16/bbch-is-awesome

Mainstream trance track for the day ...

Commuting to office by cycle in Bangalore - Part 2

I've been commuting to office on a cycle for little more than 2 years now. Time to look back at the over all experience :)

I wrote about this long back, here.

Lets go through those again !

-> Distance I commute on bike -- It varied from 16 km to 10 km to 2 km, and now 6 km. (One way)

-> Time it takes -- Less than any motorbike or car. On a serious note, cycle is actually faster. Especially if the route is packed with other polluting vehicles (did you notice the smugness, hee hee)

-> How long I've been cycling to office : Little more than 2 years

-> What bike do I have: I have 2 bikes now. One is an awesome hard tail mountain bike (Trek 4300). Other one is a sexy road bike (Trek 1.5).

-> Where did I buy these mean machines? -- I bought both the bikes from Bums On the Saddle, The best bicycling shop in Bangalore. Those folks are actual bikers who know their stuff.

-> Okay, Isn't it kind of dangerous to cycle around in crazy Bangalore traffic ? No, not really. It's intimidating for sure. Once you understand how to mingle with the rest of the traffic, it gets easier.

-> How many times I've crashed due to other vehicles : zero

-> How many times I've crashed due to my own stupidity : Two (survived with minor bruises to body, big dent to my ego)

-> How many times I've got yelled at from other motorists? None. (Surprise)

-> How many times I've given the 'finger' to other motorists : quite a few. When I am on a bike, I am very aggressive and fast. Hence, me yelling at other slow moving vehicles is inevitable.

-> How many times kids have given me 'Thumbs up' : more than a few. Kids love bikes. I always smile at them when they keep staring at the bike / or my funny attire.

The number of bike commuters is increasing day by day in Bangalore. I regularly meet a lot of bikers on the road everyday. I can't wait to see Bangalore turning into Amsterdam :)

:-)

Trip to Kanha Bandhavgarh

Phew !

An awesome week long vacation to Kanha and Bandhavgarh National parks !

And here comes the pictures :)


Lets start with state bird of Karnataka, the Indian Roller. Here is a profile pic of it.



After lunch one day, in Kanha, I see an Indian Roller sitting on a tree in front of our log hut. I had to take pics of it :)

It ended up me chasing the bird around the resort, clicking some 300 pics of the same bird !



It was like shooting a model, it went on posing, I went on clicking !



Only thing that was missing was, I just couldn't take a good pic of it flying :-( But, in Bandhavgarh, while waiting for a tiger to show up (it did not) , I get a chance to shoot this pic. This is Indian Roller, flying !



Another beautiful bird I loved is Shikra. It's a small (comparatively ) bird of prey.



Look at those glowing red eyes !

Here is another pic :



If anyone calls you Goobe in Kannada, never get upset anymore. They actually mean, 'you are cute' :-)

Here is a rare jungle owlet :



And common spotted owlets:



One more:



Birds of prey are always majestic to look at. Following are an Indian Vulture, Crested Serpent Eagle and Changeable Hawk Eagle respectively :







One rare sighting was that of a Porcupine ! Apparently they are nocturnal, and aren't easy to find in day light. But little fella graced us with his presence !



Though it looks cute n all, it is a very dangerous animal. Even tigers are known getting hurt by these !


Okay. Lets look at some Tigers !

Her name is Kankati, Kan = Ear in Hindi, kati =torn .

She is around 5 years old. Apparently, she got into a teritorial fight with other tigress and killed her. During that fight, she lost her left eye. Also her right ear is cut.



Here she is walking past our jeep ! She was walking very near to us !

Boy o Boy o Boy !




All in all, it was fantastic ! More picture are here in my flickr page:

Let me know what you think !

psychedelic trance track for the night !

I'm listening to this track over and over again. Your mileage may vary :P

Trip to B.R.Hills

So, a bunch of us went to B.R.Hills this weekend.

Highlight of the trip: Tigers and Leopards didn't get a chance to meet us. We were too busy :-(

But here is a nice one: We spotted a "Draco, The Flying Lizard"





Can you spot the lizard ? :-)


Also, there were amazing number of different kinds of birds !

Here is a good shot of Racket-Tailed Drongo !





Also I got a chance to try out Canon 500 mm lens !

Fear ...

Fear has always been a strange emotion for me. How much ever I convince myself that my fear related to few things are completely irrational, I am still left weak kneed :-(

I don't know how many times I've ranted that I want to hold a snake in my hand and take pics of it. I was almost convinced that if I see a non-venomous snake I wouldn't hesitate a second to catch it. I was very confident that I am not afraid of non-venomous snakes.

But,

During recent trip to back home, I ran into a chance of seeing a rat snake very close by. You see, I should have jumped on to the opportunity, run behind the snake and catch it. At least that was what I should have done.

Sigh.

So, first thing I did is to run, get my camera and take a pic.

From Blah

Then I ran towards the snake with all the intention of catching it. Just when I was this close to the snake, I froze. My mind was blank. I hesitated. Just for few seconds, I think I had no thoughts in my mind. Just staring at the snake.

That's all the time need for the super fast rat snake to run away.

So much for my courage and confidence :-(

According to my Mom, this fella is a frequent visitor for our garden.

So, as they (who ?) say, there is always next time :-)

Some Random Macro Shots

So, I bought the new macro lens (Canon 100mm f2.8), hence I had to shoot some tiny stuff.

Yet to get used to the lens, initial reaction : 'Not really impressed'.

Few shots:

From RandomMacroShots

From RandomMacroShots

This one - me likey !

From RandomMacroShots

From RandomMacroShots

From RandomMacroShots

I like this one too !

I so want to try a reverse mount of lens to shoot some super macro pics. Just need to put some effort. Also need a nice flash.

:-)