Electric Cycles in Mysuru

Ask someone who rides here daily what they like about it and you'll probably hear "it's easy" first. Not dead flat, mind. The town is about 770 m up and its streets swell and dip gently, so the run from Kuvempunagar past Saraswathipuram into the old centre around Sayyaji Rao Road hardly calls on the motor. Where you'll want it is the crawl near Devaraja Market and the palace. Brake, wait, pull away, repeat.

Then there's work. Infosys runs its big campus out at Hebbal, and the KIADB estates at Hebbal, Hootagalli, Belagola and Belawadi draw shift workers in from every side of town. For a lot of them that's 8 to 15 km each way, often with a stretch of the 42.5 km Ring Road thrown in. Trucks use it too. Hug the left edge.

Students make up the other big crowd. Manasagangotri, the University of Mysore's main campus, plus the National Institute of Engineering, JSS Science and Technology University and Yuvaraja's College keep young riders shuttling between hostels, classes and canteens all day. Shared cycles aren't new to them either: Trin Trin, launched in June 2017 as India's first city-wide public bike share, put 450 cycles at around 50 docks. Pedalling's already a habit. A motor just takes the sweat out of it.

Weather? Kind, mostly. April's the hottest month and its average high is 34.3 °C. Rain arrives in June, hangs about till October and adds up to roughly 830 mm over the year, with October the soggiest at close to 163 mm. That's when you'll want mudguards and a covered spot to park.

And then the hill. Chamundi Hills tops out near 1,060 m about 13 km east of the centre, so the road up climbs close to 300 m above town. Pilgrims take the thousand-odd stone steps. You'll take the road, in a low gear, with the assist turned right up, and it's the one ride here where a geared, suspended frame really pays off.