BBCh 11, 2010 at RRI

BBCh stands for Bangalore Bicycle Championships. The 11th race of the year happened at the Raman Research Institute. No two circuits are alike. Some are pure concrete circuits, some are totally mud circuits, some are a mix. I was there to witness what a semi-professional cycling race looked like. As soon as I reached the venue, I took a lap around the circuit. The first thing I noticed about it was how narrow it was. Overtaking was going to be VERY difficult. There were a few other interesting parts of the circuit like a) a very very narrow part where people would almost be forced to ride in a single file b) a small mud stretch etc. It is a 1 hour long race and whoever does the most laps wins. The last few laps are supposedly very interesting. The way they keep track of track positions is also interesting. I expected people to start off slowly and slowly increase their pace towards the end like how they do it in a long distance running race. But what do I see? They are at their limits starting from the first lap! and they're comfortably doing an average of around 30 kmph on a very tight circuit! These guys are really good! After the first few laps about 4-5 emerged as the real contenders to win when an accident forced the organizers to abandon the race. The guy who fell had a bad injury on the face and he was taken to a nearby hospital (there was an ambulance ready too! nice). There were a few foreigners too. Last year's BBCh winner was a foreigner. Interestingly, there were many more girls than I expected - mostly spectators but a few raced too. There was a really pretty one (I assumed her to be European but it's impossible to tell. One of those foreigners' daughters I'm guessing. Please be there when I win!) among the spectators I totally fell for. As Keshav said, I really need to grow a pair. And finally, there was a kiddies' race (thats what they called it) which I thought was very cute.

Awesome experience overall!  I soooo wish I had taken a camera with me. RRI was so beautiful. The whole atmosphere was so cheerful. I'm definitely going to be there for the future races. Probably race too.

PS: Will post some pics as soon as they get posted.
Edit: Pics from the race. More. From the Kiddies' race.

Current Reading List

We recently had a meeting with a VP (who has also been a professor for about 15 years) where he talked about how he kept himself updated on the advances in the technical front. Apparently, he sleeps at 11 PM and wakes up at 4 AM and his day starts there. In connection with this, he was talking about what all books he reads, his recommendations and his current reading list. For a person at that level, the list was VERY extensive. The books covered topics from hardcore CS to management to fiction to philosophy. There is a "Recommended Reading" section on his website that I found interesting. The best thing I liked about him was his curiosity about things. Inspired by him, I wanted to put up a (modest) list of books I'm currently reading, have read and my recommendations. Will do that soon.

Edit: Updated Books (I'm very sure I missed a lot here), Movies, Music.

The magic of RSS!

Just started using RSS for my usual browsing and its just amazing! I can follow most of the websites with zero effort. I use Google Reader to read feeds. Can't believe I didn't start using this earlier!

Sooo much to learn

Very little time to. Have no one here who can help. On my own for some more time.