Cycling in Chennai Roads (CMBT, Annanagar, Nungambakkam & Egmore)

One of my friend has offered me his bicycle to use it for some days. I thought of riding it for some kilometers on a holiday. I have seen people riding bicycle through East Coast Road, however my interest was inclined towards riding thorough the inner parts of the city. I woke up before clock ticking 5:00 AM on the very first Saturday morning of 2020. It was not raining outside like new year day, seeing that I was telling myself, everything is set for a ride today. To start with I have set a target of riding till Vadapalani Forum Mall from Sholinganallur, which is an average of 25 KM for one way. After getting refreshed I started riding at 5:15 AM, within few minutes I reached OMR(Old Mahabalipuram Road) from my place. It was a steady ride at a moderate speed in OMR which has one of the well maintained roads in Chennai. I would say, even if is not loved like ECR, still it has never failed to attract cycle enthusiasts. I liked riding through OMR in early morning, I took a right before Anna University and travelled through Mount Road, T Nagar,  Ashok  Nagar and finally into the 100 feet road and in few minutes from there reached Forum Mall at 7:00 AM precisely. Well, not bad, reached as planned, I was telling myself. Just thought about one of my friend who stays near by and called to check the availability to meet if possible. But my friend had other plans who answered my phone in a sleeping tone who woke up to my phone call. Then I thought of touching CMBT bus terminus and return. I started riding through inner roads of Saligramam and eventually connected in 100 feet road, just a couple of kilometers before CMBT bus terminus. Soon reached CMBT.

A sudden thought appeared in my mind to visit the places that I have never been before in Chennai. One such kind of place is CMBT Market, which I have only seen of it's outside while traveling in bus before. After few minutes of pedaling, I entered into the market around by 8:00 AM and took a ride in the Flower market which doesn't have that much crowd. Soon took an exit and entered into Fruits market, where I was astonished with the loads of banana stacked everywhere. There was a good amount of Pineapple too. I didn't park my cycle anywhere, just took it along with me wherever I go even across the very narrow streets of the market. After few minutes of site seeing there, entered into the very busy vegetable market which occupies the largest portion of the overall market area. There were lot of wholesale purchases happening. More trucks and meen body vehicles were busy in either loading or unloading vegetable sacks. Without any doubt, the market is feeding many day labors who were really busy in their work by carrying those vegetable sacks. I took an entry into one of the very narrow sub street of the market, where you can buy vegetables in retail. When retails means in-terms of kilograms. Trust me, It is not place to buy vegetables in-terms of grams. Then entered into another busy main street and took an exit by around 8:25 AM from one of the Asia's largest perishable goods market complex.

I continued my cycle trip towards Thirumangalam and then Anna Nagar (formerly known as Naduvakkarai) which is one of the prime residential area located in north-western part of Chennai. I have been into few places of Anna nagar before including the tower park. As I liked it before, I visited the Anna Nagar Tower Park (officially known as Dr. Visveswaraya Tower Park) around 8:45 AM, part of my this trip too.  The park has 135-foot-tall, 12-storied tower located at the centre which is the tallest park tower in Chennai. I took my bicycle inside the park, the atmosphere was very nice in the morning. People were looking like prominent fellows in the society. I planned my next stops there and after spending sometime about 15 minutes took an exit on the other side of the park. I was riding through Anna Nagar Third Avenue towards Numgambakkam. Anna Nagar has very good and spacious roads filled with trees on both sides. It was nice to pedal on the Anna Nagar Arch Flyover seeing the heights of Ampa Skywalk Mall, which connected me in the very popular nelson-manikam road. While coming down on the flyover, I just realized why people took their bicycle to the mountain tops by walk and riding it down. It was a wonderful feeling when going down on this bridge like flying in bikes though you are just sitting on a bicycle. Of-course climbing up on the bridge was tough and allowed me to test the lowest gear possible.

Around 10:00 AM, I reached Semmozhi Poonga by crossing the Gemeni flyover, which is an another untouched place by me. I parked my bicycle outside and took an entry ticket for 20/- Rupees and entered into the Poonga. There were different species of plants, little amount of high trees and aromatic herbs around. It is not a bigger one, it is comparatively small. You can also spot variety of birds singing on those tress and few Mongooses around. Most of the places were filled with couples who were doing romance, which will leave you to think, is it paid lovers park?. There was also couple of families, bunch of students taking photographs and there was a shop and the shop owner was setting it up for the day. I had a walking all around the park and left from there in 20 minutes around by 10:20 AM. When I entered Mount Road, Sun is heating bit, riding becomes little difficult. I took a left turn, right after the Spencer Plaza mall and riding towards one another place which I have been thinking about visiting it for years.

Around 11:00 AM, finally I entered into Government Museum Complex on Pantheon Road, Egmore which also houses one of the four National Depository Libraries which receive a copy of all books, newspapers and periodicals published in India, which is none other than Connemara Public Library. I parked my cycle in the parking area and signed the register and entered into the library. It was an excellent place where you can find the books about almost in the all the flavors including General, Engineering, History, Business, Law, Medicine, Literature, Languages and Text books as well. I could even spot all of my engineering text books out there. Little nostalgia after a decade on looking at them. I roamed around all the floors and then came back to ground floor again to look around the general section in detail. The old library building is blocked for a maintenance. Upon enquiring with the support staff, I came to know, It will take couple of months to return its serving state. You can also get a membership and you can take books to home as per the library rules. Overall, it seems there are wonderful copies of books that you can consider for reading. I was not in a good mindset to read there. I had some water and took a visit of the other buildings out there which are housing Museum and Art Galleries. The environment was very calm and clean. People were even reading outside scattering under the old trees. Trust me, if you are an avid reader, you can spend days here. Even for visiting, including Museum, it is worth to consider for an half or full day. My suggestion would be pack your lunch, go and spend few hours at least. If you are in Chennai, you must consider about visiting this wonderful place without fail. After spending couple of hours I planned to return to my room.

Since I skipped my morning breakfast, I had two Tender Coconuts on the way. On the way back to  my room, thought of meeting one of my friend at Mettukuppam. Reached there around 2:15 PM. Since it was sunny, riding back was not pleasant as in the morning. I had a light lunch at Mettukuppam. I spent around about an hour there and started riding again and reached my room back around 4:00 PM in the evening. Roughly, I think I have covered around 60~70 KMs, which it is not a great distance for any cyclists, However it was a very different experience for me to know the City by Bicycle. Please do inbox me (mnselvaraj@gmail.com) or text me (+91-9952359249), if you know any best place within the City to ride, I will try my best to visit and write about it.

With great thanks - Selva.