2012 - The Year of the Bike
2012 has been a turning point in my life. The activity that brought about this change is cycling. I began the year as a guy who was never into any sort of physical activity, and as a guy who couldn't run even half a mile. The 50km rides in the end of 2011 were notoriously difficult, and people twice my age were better off than I was. But it would end with a spanky new roadbike, a crash, a surgery and thoughts about life itself!
The year of the dragon began with Shome Das and myself pitching off on the Bangalore-Mumbai highway. He was way ahead of me and I struggled to keep him visible. He was generous enough to slow down for me often. He was that monster of a guy, with over sized muscles and an exceptional biker. He used to train rigorously everyday. January 2012 was the time when I was gearing up for the first conference submission of my life. 14th Jan was the deadline and I was putting my days into making that thing look good. Biking had become infrequent, and the only significant ride was a 150Km ride on 6th Jan to Denkanikottai, Tamil Nadu. It was a successful failure, with the Fomas roadbike almost breaking down near Denkanikottai. Had to manage to limp it back home, abandoning plans for a 200Km trip to Anchetty. January 2012 was the time when my Fomas gave most of it's troubles, and more than half of my stipend went in fixing them. That also made me really good at the mechanics of a roadbike.
February through april was very routine. I rode an average of 20-30 Km a day with Nikhil, mostly as a morning workout. Most of the time was spent on learning and playing around with CUDA and OpenGL, among other things. With march, came the rejection of my ISSAC submission. It was time for change. Experimentation was virtually absent from my work and I've to do it quick to make the work acceptable. March 2012 was also a big month in my biking career. I climbed Nandi hills for the first time along with Nikhil, after a string of misfortunes. My tire blew up midway in the descent, and that taught me to consider heating up of the rims while zooming on the descents.
April saw the completion of my ME course work and an unexpectedly positive outcome from the computer graphics course. Though I hardly attended any classes, I began to love the subject and began to explore curious stuff like Fractals and Julia Sets (such as the image given below) and their consequences in my own area. I ended up reading Mandelbrot's work on fractals. I had my thread ceremony in april, a historic occasion for my family and me.
May was a month of change. My masters thesis was nearing completion, along with some solid experimental evidence. On the other front, an IISc racing team was taking shape. It was in may that I met Gokul (a.k.a. Sheldon). He was a very geeky and curious guy, who re-ignited the experimenter in me. We used to go on late night rides, to beat the day time heat.
April also saw the realization of a childhood dream: an aviation photoshoot. Was able to bike up next to the runway at Yelahanka AFB and shoot some Antonov-32 transports and Mi-17 choppers.
The first half of june was spent in finishing off my masters. A submission to a top notch ACM journal and the M.E. final presentations. I had decided previously to forego my job at Nvidia and continue at IISc for a PhD. The PhD selection interviews were conducted in the first week of june. I had sold my Hero Octane and bought a new B'Twin Rockrider 5.0. This was to be my most dependable bike. It's extremely stable and had that sense of confidence built into it. 6 months later, I still feel this is the best bike I ever rode. Come second week of june, I was basically free. A new roadbike was on the cards and I was evaluating several options. The Fomas Road King had done some 6000 Km by then and was in a dire condition. It was due to be retired for a better roadbike. Also, I decided to ride the brevets in july.
The 200Km brevet was scheduled for the 7th of july. I caught fever on 5th. A recee ride on 6th July ended in failure, when I had to bail out 15 Km into the ride. Miraculously my health improved and I caught a good night's sleep. A shot of paracetamol on the morning of 7th cleared any remaining illness. The rain and sun gods favoured me by providing heavy cloud cover, without any rain. The 200Km brevet was flawless, having finished in time. Pretty good feat on a steel MTB. By this time I was longing for a roadbike to replace the limping Fomas. I dared not attempt the other brevets on the 5.0 as I was neither that fit nor did I have top notch lights. I manned the controls on the other 3 brevets that month. A 200Km attempt on the Fomas ended almost 10Km into the ride, with Vikram and I returning home and restarting it on the awesomely stable 5.0. The end of July brought me an awesome new roadbike, the B'Twin Triban 3. It was slightly more than an entry level roadbike, but still enough to count on for some serious biking. I had my PhD admission formalities on 31st July.
The august of 2012 brought about some changes in perspective. I had a course in program analysis, which I took up for the sole intention of exploration. I was beginning to look at the applications of algorithmic algebra in areas like control systems and program analysis. On the other side of life, I shipped in a few of my B.Tech era robotics equipment to my room, mainly an AVR programmer and a few of my DIY circuits. I hadn't touched them yet, as I was busy in biking and course work. It was in august that Amith, Ravi and I began a racing team called 'Flankers'. We had very quick rides to train up for an upcoming time trial. I had a head injury in a collision with a motorbike on 12th august. Luckily it was just a few millimeters long scar, with no consequences. We trained various team formations like drafting and peletons. The new roadbike gave a light and agile set of wheels to the athlete in me.
Due to some academic constraints, I had to drop short daily rides since august. These were replaced by 200Km rides every weekend. Almost always this included the Nandi climb. By the end of september I'd have climbed Nandi scores of times, clocking 34 minutes on my 5.0 in one attempt. The increase in my radius of reach facilitated going to places farther off than I had been previously. We traced the river Arkavathi, rode along the Nandi hills range, followed village roads all the way to AP border, and the list goes on. This went on all the way till october.
I was to head for a training ride with Meera on the 7th of october. I wanted to try out toe clips and so, had to get to Lalbagh on the morning of 6th to collect pedals with toe clips from Chethu. Just a few meters from the IISc gate, I was blinded by the headlights of an oncoming motorbike and hit a notorious pothole. It sent me flying and I landed on my right hand, breaking it in two. After a quick first aid, I flew home. I had ORIF surgery and a plate installed. I was at home for 3 weeks, returning to IISc only in the end of october. I was not to ride for another 5 months! And I was to have a cast around my right hand till the end of december. This time, I shipped in almost my entire B.Tech robotics stuff.
November was the robotics month! Gokul and Ramnath re-ignited the inventor in me. The hand was no hinderance. Puneeth and Nilanjan joined in at the idea of a Robotics Club. All this began with a chance encounter with Gokul and Ramnath in the mess. IISc Robotics Club was formally started on 25th november at Jubilee Park. The strength kept increasing in the following days. I ordered an Arduino UNO for myself and Ramnath ordered a Raspberry Pi. As I began exploring analog and digital sensors and Arduino programming, Ramnath began exploring OpenCV and computer vision. All this was in parallel with riding on a home trainer!
December brought a lot of surprises. My long standing ACM journal paper came back with positive remarks and a suggestion that I put it in ISSAC'13. A research proposal to the Indian Navy was on the cards. Chevalier-XVI, my first robot in 3 years had taken shape. It was basically an object tracker with a sonar and compound eye, meant to demonstrate some libraries that I developed. I spent an exceptional amount of time on a robust chassis and platform for all future robots. I began experimenting with LCD screens, ethernet modules and Zigbee modules. Made a battery tester for home applications using an Arduino Leonardo. We drew up plans for an Arduino Mega based home automation system, with some brainstorming on the IISc Robotics club forum. By the 18th of december, the era of the cast around my hand was over. It was finally opened and the hand became operational in a day. The year is scheduled to end with a journey back to IISc on 31st night. Hopefully I'd be spending january on the saddle!
The year of the dragon began with Shome Das and myself pitching off on the Bangalore-Mumbai highway. He was way ahead of me and I struggled to keep him visible. He was generous enough to slow down for me often. He was that monster of a guy, with over sized muscles and an exceptional biker. He used to train rigorously everyday. January 2012 was the time when I was gearing up for the first conference submission of my life. 14th Jan was the deadline and I was putting my days into making that thing look good. Biking had become infrequent, and the only significant ride was a 150Km ride on 6th Jan to Denkanikottai, Tamil Nadu. It was a successful failure, with the Fomas roadbike almost breaking down near Denkanikottai. Had to manage to limp it back home, abandoning plans for a 200Km trip to Anchetty. January 2012 was the time when my Fomas gave most of it's troubles, and more than half of my stipend went in fixing them. That also made me really good at the mechanics of a roadbike.
February through april was very routine. I rode an average of 20-30 Km a day with Nikhil, mostly as a morning workout. Most of the time was spent on learning and playing around with CUDA and OpenGL, among other things. With march, came the rejection of my ISSAC submission. It was time for change. Experimentation was virtually absent from my work and I've to do it quick to make the work acceptable. March 2012 was also a big month in my biking career. I climbed Nandi hills for the first time along with Nikhil, after a string of misfortunes. My tire blew up midway in the descent, and that taught me to consider heating up of the rims while zooming on the descents.April saw the completion of my ME course work and an unexpectedly positive outcome from the computer graphics course. Though I hardly attended any classes, I began to love the subject and began to explore curious stuff like Fractals and Julia Sets (such as the image given below) and their consequences in my own area. I ended up reading Mandelbrot's work on fractals. I had my thread ceremony in april, a historic occasion for my family and me.
May was a month of change. My masters thesis was nearing completion, along with some solid experimental evidence. On the other front, an IISc racing team was taking shape. It was in may that I met Gokul (a.k.a. Sheldon). He was a very geeky and curious guy, who re-ignited the experimenter in me. We used to go on late night rides, to beat the day time heat.
April also saw the realization of a childhood dream: an aviation photoshoot. Was able to bike up next to the runway at Yelahanka AFB and shoot some Antonov-32 transports and Mi-17 choppers.
The first half of june was spent in finishing off my masters. A submission to a top notch ACM journal and the M.E. final presentations. I had decided previously to forego my job at Nvidia and continue at IISc for a PhD. The PhD selection interviews were conducted in the first week of june. I had sold my Hero Octane and bought a new B'Twin Rockrider 5.0. This was to be my most dependable bike. It's extremely stable and had that sense of confidence built into it. 6 months later, I still feel this is the best bike I ever rode. Come second week of june, I was basically free. A new roadbike was on the cards and I was evaluating several options. The Fomas Road King had done some 6000 Km by then and was in a dire condition. It was due to be retired for a better roadbike. Also, I decided to ride the brevets in july.
The 200Km brevet was scheduled for the 7th of july. I caught fever on 5th. A recee ride on 6th July ended in failure, when I had to bail out 15 Km into the ride. Miraculously my health improved and I caught a good night's sleep. A shot of paracetamol on the morning of 7th cleared any remaining illness. The rain and sun gods favoured me by providing heavy cloud cover, without any rain. The 200Km brevet was flawless, having finished in time. Pretty good feat on a steel MTB. By this time I was longing for a roadbike to replace the limping Fomas. I dared not attempt the other brevets on the 5.0 as I was neither that fit nor did I have top notch lights. I manned the controls on the other 3 brevets that month. A 200Km attempt on the Fomas ended almost 10Km into the ride, with Vikram and I returning home and restarting it on the awesomely stable 5.0. The end of July brought me an awesome new roadbike, the B'Twin Triban 3. It was slightly more than an entry level roadbike, but still enough to count on for some serious biking. I had my PhD admission formalities on 31st July.
The august of 2012 brought about some changes in perspective. I had a course in program analysis, which I took up for the sole intention of exploration. I was beginning to look at the applications of algorithmic algebra in areas like control systems and program analysis. On the other side of life, I shipped in a few of my B.Tech era robotics equipment to my room, mainly an AVR programmer and a few of my DIY circuits. I hadn't touched them yet, as I was busy in biking and course work. It was in august that Amith, Ravi and I began a racing team called 'Flankers'. We had very quick rides to train up for an upcoming time trial. I had a head injury in a collision with a motorbike on 12th august. Luckily it was just a few millimeters long scar, with no consequences. We trained various team formations like drafting and peletons. The new roadbike gave a light and agile set of wheels to the athlete in me.
Due to some academic constraints, I had to drop short daily rides since august. These were replaced by 200Km rides every weekend. Almost always this included the Nandi climb. By the end of september I'd have climbed Nandi scores of times, clocking 34 minutes on my 5.0 in one attempt. The increase in my radius of reach facilitated going to places farther off than I had been previously. We traced the river Arkavathi, rode along the Nandi hills range, followed village roads all the way to AP border, and the list goes on. This went on all the way till october.
I was to head for a training ride with Meera on the 7th of october. I wanted to try out toe clips and so, had to get to Lalbagh on the morning of 6th to collect pedals with toe clips from Chethu. Just a few meters from the IISc gate, I was blinded by the headlights of an oncoming motorbike and hit a notorious pothole. It sent me flying and I landed on my right hand, breaking it in two. After a quick first aid, I flew home. I had ORIF surgery and a plate installed. I was at home for 3 weeks, returning to IISc only in the end of october. I was not to ride for another 5 months! And I was to have a cast around my right hand till the end of december. This time, I shipped in almost my entire B.Tech robotics stuff.
November was the robotics month! Gokul and Ramnath re-ignited the inventor in me. The hand was no hinderance. Puneeth and Nilanjan joined in at the idea of a Robotics Club. All this began with a chance encounter with Gokul and Ramnath in the mess. IISc Robotics Club was formally started on 25th november at Jubilee Park. The strength kept increasing in the following days. I ordered an Arduino UNO for myself and Ramnath ordered a Raspberry Pi. As I began exploring analog and digital sensors and Arduino programming, Ramnath began exploring OpenCV and computer vision. All this was in parallel with riding on a home trainer!
An eventful 2012 , I must say. And the blog , obviously, was quite engaging.
ReplyDeleteGreat writeup man ... Surely you have an eventful year ... Its better this way, than year where nothing happens! You know the chinese curse that says - May you live in interesting times!!
ReplyDeleteLets go up one more hill man ... Chamundi maybe ....
yea man! lets climb something!
ReplyDelete