All in the mind!
Saturday after the 300 BRM was spent resting. On Sunday I had decided to do a 5 km 'Our Marathon' run with my kids. The run wouldnt be the tough part, the challenge would be getting up early in the morning as needed the rest. But did the 5 km run with the kids and was happy that the daughters were able to do it without too much of negative attitude as well. Realized that if anyone puts their mind to it, anything is doable. So the same logic applies to the 400. I can certainly do it! :-) 400 BRM is in fact even tougher than the 600 is what I had in mind. As this would almost be a half to full night ride. 600 you can break up into 2 days and sleep more at night. So certainly needed the victory over mind.
The 400 km BRM was only a couple of weeks from the 300 BRM. First ride of the new year on 2nd Jan. Would be an awesome beginning to the new year for sure. But with the 3-4 holiday and new year parties I was hoping the hangover wouldnt be too much of an hindrance. Was also recovering from the 300 BRM which meant no riding in the Christmas week. So eventually did only 2 prep rides - 1 of 50 km to Katraj tunnel and second of 80 km to Kamshet.
One of the 2 items I had to take care of in the planning phase for the 400 was the battery recharge for my Polar v800 GPS watch and the phone during the ride. The ride would be approx 22 - 23 hours, so obviously the phone and neither would the V800 last for that duration. From previous experience V800 lasted only for 12 hours with accurate GPS on. I found a USB battery pack on ebay and purchased it right away after the 300 BRM and hoped it would reach in time for the 400 BRM. The 2nd item I had to take care of was the bicycle light. I had the smaller 200 lumens I had purchased in Decathlon, but that wasnt nearly enough on the road at night. So I had purchased another powerful light of 1200 lumens from amazon. I had to install it for this ride with the battery pack. The battery pack was supposed to last for 6 hours on low beam. On high beam it would last for 3 hours. So carried my earlier 200 lumens in my backpack as a backup and installed the new 1200 on the bike.
Another learning from earlier ride was that in my camelback I shouldnt need to carry 2 litres of water as that increases the load on my back. Instead just carry 1 ltr and buy water on the way. Of course I still had me 2-3 gatorade bottles I was carrying as well. On the food side, had similar items as the 300 ride - baked potatoes, dates, candies, cashews, etc.
The Ride
The day of the ride - 2nd Jan, approached. Starting point was Cafe Nook in Balewadi and end point was CCD in Chandani Chowk. Went quite late to the starting point. Reached almost at 5:55 am, just 5 minutes before the start. Got the formalities done quickly. Met Rakesh there. Kedar hadnt made it to this ride unfortunately. The other usual suspects to the BRMS - Kedar Tokekar, Dr Baban Dolas etc were missing as well. Probably new year party hangover got to most of them. ;-) So it would be me and Rakesh on this ride. There were 2 sets of rides for this one. About 6-7 riders for the 400 BRM - termed 'Kolhapur Curry', and 5 or so riders (mostly from mumbai) for the 1000 km BRM. The 1000 km BRM was supposed to go till Haveri in Karnataka (about 200 kms from Bangalore) and return. 3 days of riding. Man that would be tough!
Before the ride I had read Prashant Tidke's post on his experience on this 400 km ride. One thing that had stuck with him from his post that he used to take a 5 minute off-bike break every hour for stretching. On my 300 BRM ride, the first break I had taken was at 100 km after 4 hours. And had started cramping by then. So decided to follow Prashant Tidke's advice to see if things turn out better.
On the timing planning, the way I approached this was simple. I had completed the 300 BRM by 9:40 pm. Add another 4:30 - 5 hours for the remaining 100 and I should be able to get home by 2 to 2:30 am. Started with that goal in mind.
On an side note on some quite interesting folks I met on this ride:
This is one of the beauties of riding these BRMs. You get to see so many folks so much stronger than you that you are humbled and can stay grounded. There is always someone to look up to.
Back to the ride ... Was feeling very strong today. Crossed Katraj climb in 25 minutes - a Personal best in my 4 attempts so far. Was the first one to reach the top of Katraj. Waited after the Katraj tunnel for 5 minutes before Rakesh and Pranaya joined. Had a stretching and hydration break and then continued towards Shirwal. Reached Khandala in another hour and half - around 9 am. Rakesh was left behind (later realized that was due to a puncture). Pranaya was with me. We decided to wait for Rakesh. Had a vadapav breakfast. Rakesh joined in another 20 minutes or so. He had a flat on the way and had to change the tube. Luckily Marco was close to him and stopped to give Rakesh a helping hand to change the tube. After breakfast continued towards the Khambatki climb. Was again riding very strong and hammered the Khambatki climb in my best time so far of 25 minutes. Happy .. Pranaya was following right behind me. In his 300 BRM he had climbed the Bhor ghat and he said it was much tougher than Khambatki. (Thats one of the ghats I need to tackle soon ... nonstop!). We stopped for Rakesh after Khambatki and had another stretching and hydration break. So had 3 breaks so far in this BRM in the same patch that I had no breaks in my 300 BRM ride. Due to this I was feeling very fresh because to that. It was almost 9:45 am.
From here on out to Satara its just a steady ride with a few mini climbs just before Satara. Reached Satara (130 kms) around noon and took a 10 - 15 minute mini refreshment break on a petrol pump tapari. No lunch yet .. we decided to continue along as much as possible before the lunch break. Just after the Karad toll plaza we felt very exhausted and hungry. So took a lunch break there at a roadside small tapari. An ok quality Misal pav and wada sambar later, we were ready to move on. Rakesh got his punctured tube fixed nearby. A 30-40 minute break. The mumbai 1000 BRM gang and Marco crossed us around here. Apurv who had started about 45 minutes after us also crossed us sometime during this wait.
As is usual during this part of the day with heavy heat, it was getting tough to ride and was falling slightly behind. On top of it, I started having pain in my left outside knee and right middle knee. Before the ride I had raised my saddle as I was told that my saddle was a bit too low. To use my leg power best, it would be good to raise the saddle till my leg stretches on the paddle. Good idea ... but what I messed up on was that I did this directly on the 400 BRM without any practice before hand with the increased saddle height! A big lesson learnt ... never experiment with something new on the BRMs especially the long ones! Tried and tested approach even though sub optimal works best! So lowered the seat post and the left outer knee problem reduced. The right middle knee pain still persisted and would come back to trouble me more at night later on.
During this patch I was falling behind Rakesh and Pranaya .. Once in a while I used to catch up with them by sprinting off saddle. At around 180 kms - about 30 kms from Yelur Sai International took a roadside break again for stretching and relaxing - around 3 pm. Couldnt wait to reach Sai so the countdown to home could start.
Made it to Sai around 4:40 pm. Had completed 210 kms in 10 hours 40 minutes. Had kept good pace - average of about 20 kmph. But the real test was to start now as still had to ride back another 200 kms into the night. Had a long 45 minute break at Sai with some good food and cold coffee. Charged my V800 and the phone during the break. So was all charged up! Met the mumbai 1000 BRM gang as well. Marco was also just on his way out as we entered. Apurva had reached the control and continued on at around 3:30 or so!
Pranaya was having some trouble with his light fixture. So had to do some jugaad with it to make it stick. The journey back started at 5:30 after he was done. Sun had set so we received new lease of life and continued at steady clip till Karad. Took a Shahala + ice cream break at Karad. Around 7:30 we started again refreshed for the next 50 kms journey.
Next destination was the control point at Hotel Mahendra Executive at Satara. We planned to reach there by 10 pm. Rakesh was getting a bit tired. So stopped a couple of times before Satara. Crossed the climb entering Satara, and reached Mahendra Executive at 10:05 pm or so. Right on time. We had another 110 kms to go now .. so target of 2:30 am seemed doable.
Mahendra Executive control is slightly weird. Its on the other side of the road, so had to cross the heavy traffic road at night with cycles in hand by running across the road. Unsafe ... Freshened up and ordered Dal Khichadi - which is a good high carb diet for the rides. Farhad and Ila were manning this control. Marco was already at the control finishing up his dinner. He had some chicken kebabs. Ate a few of those kebabs and the Dal khichadi ... had cold coffee again. We relaxed a lot at this control and lost almost 1 hour + here. Another lesson - control your break timings. By the time we were ready to leave it was 11:10 pm or so. The 2:30 am at chandani chowk was only a dream now. 4 am was the new target.
Challenging night ride
From here our real troubles started. Even though it was only 110 more kms to go it turned out to be a rough ride home.
It was a cold night. After the dinner it felt really cold on the ride for the first 15-20 minutes till the body warmed up. First time felt the need of a full cycling pant, and decided to visit Decathlon before the next BRM. The litres of Gatorade, Electrolytes, misav pavs, vada pavs and dal khichadi dinner got mixed up in the stomach in a bad way and I started having gases and heartburn. Continued for the next hour or so. Next issue was that my left outer knee pain and the right middle knee pain came back due to the muscles contracting during the hour long break. It took a good 15 minutes for the muscles to warm up and for the legs to get used to the grinding motion again and the pain to subside. Pranaya's cycle light batteries gave up and he had to use his backup light which was very low in power. Plus he needed spare batteries for the backup light in case the batteries ran out. Finding a store that was open in night turned out to be a quest in itself. The low intensity of his lights slowed him significantly for the rest of the ride. Lastly fatigue was badly setting in and Rakesh was really fatigued by midnight. I was doing reasonably ok, but we went together as wanted to complete the ride together. Due to all the above reasons, we were stopping almost every 30 - 45 minutes for 10 minutes or so. We covered only about 40 kms from Satara to Khambatki in 2:30 hours. So about 1:30 am we were at Khambatki.
The downhill from there to Shirwal as usual is a bliss. Night or not I went full blast ahead and reached Khandala in 15-20 minutes. Pranaya and Rakesh were a bit more careful and slow especially with Pranaya's dim lights. We decided to ride along to Shirwal and stop for a break/tea. So glad to have some of these roadside tea stalls that are open through the night. At Shirwal I found one and stopped there. It was almost 2:15 / 2:30 am now. And it was a uphill from here on out to Katraj. Only 50 kms left but a big mental and physical battle ahead of us!!
We rode along at a very slow average pace from here on out .. at most 17-18 kmph. Stopping every 10 km or so. The Nasrapur to Khed Shivapur patch seemed like a never ending climb. A very different feeling than when doing this patch during day time. Around 35 kms from Pune, Rakesh felt very sleepy as well. Almost 3:30/3:45 am now. Luckily I was not feeling sleepy at all with all the adrenaline pumping. We stopped for 10-15 minutes while Rakesh took a quick nap in a temple somewhere at top of a hillock before Khed Shivapur. Remaining ride I remember and I think I will remember quite distinctly as it indeed felt like a never ending climb upto Katraj. Fatigue had really caught up with us all. Saddle sores were also quite painful by now for me. Finally huffing and puffing we reached the flyover at Katraj and then the end was in sight. Was around 4:20/4:30 am now. Had way overshot the 2:30 am target time. Now we just wanted to get to CCD as soon as possible and then on to home for a nice quite sleep!
The downhill from Katraj leased a new life into me. Again I went really fast. Somewhere around Nasrapur, the battery in my 1200 lumens light had died. So I was left with my 200 lumens dim light. But I still rolled downhill on Katraj at the regular 40-50 kmph speed. Didnt want to waste any minute and didnt want to put any brakes on at all! The final stretch from Warje to Chandani Chowk had 2 smaller climbs. But the fatigue meant I was almost crawling on those climbs. Stopped one more time for a water break. Early Saturday morning traffic had started. Finally pedal by pedal I reached Chandani chowk and then the final burst of energy was needed to scale the climb to the overpass from the highway. Rolled into CCD at 5:15 am finally! To my surprise I saw Farhad, Ila and Marco there. This was supposed to be an unmanned control, but Farhad and Ila had stayed up the night on the road to support any rider if needed! Thank you!! Rakesh and Pranaya rode in 5-10 minutes later. Another huge surprise for me was the crowd at CCD at that early on saturday morning. Lots of college kids hanging out early in the morning. Hmm ... Relaxed at CCD till 6 am.
Called home to let folks know I had reached safely. And then rode the next 15 kms home. This was I guess the toughest patch of the ride as couldnt sit down on the saddle at all .. and the final Sus climb also killed me. Took me almost an hour to get home from Chandani chowk - my slowest ride ever I guess! :) Pranaya on the other hand was heading to the Pune station to get into a Shivneri to head back to Mumbai. Rest the remainder of saturday and then run a half marathon on Sunday!! Crazy dude!!
It took me 23 hours 15 minutes to complete this one. 407 kms. about 3300 mtrs climb overall. Should have been able to complete it in 21 or 22 hours. Maybe next attempt I will try that.
Reached home around 6:45 / 7 am. Welcomed by Sonali and Dad. They are happy 3 out of 4 of these crazy BRMs are done. Only 600 left is what they think and this craziness will end. Will it?? Or is it just the beginning?!?! ;-)
Interestingly the day after Kedar pointed out that I was leading the Gran Fondo challenges 100 and 150 km on Strava. 15 minutes of meaningless fame! :-D I probably got 30-40 followers due to this. The ride on Strava got 80+ kudos as well. hmm ... Strava is becoming a social media channel, isnt it?
The real challenging 600 BRM coming up in 3 weeks. Got to prepare for that one mentally after today's tough one! Nonetheless a good start to the new year!!
Saturday after the 300 BRM was spent resting. On Sunday I had decided to do a 5 km 'Our Marathon' run with my kids. The run wouldnt be the tough part, the challenge would be getting up early in the morning as needed the rest. But did the 5 km run with the kids and was happy that the daughters were able to do it without too much of negative attitude as well. Realized that if anyone puts their mind to it, anything is doable. So the same logic applies to the 400. I can certainly do it! :-) 400 BRM is in fact even tougher than the 600 is what I had in mind. As this would almost be a half to full night ride. 600 you can break up into 2 days and sleep more at night. So certainly needed the victory over mind.
The 400 km BRM was only a couple of weeks from the 300 BRM. First ride of the new year on 2nd Jan. Would be an awesome beginning to the new year for sure. But with the 3-4 holiday and new year parties I was hoping the hangover wouldnt be too much of an hindrance. Was also recovering from the 300 BRM which meant no riding in the Christmas week. So eventually did only 2 prep rides - 1 of 50 km to Katraj tunnel and second of 80 km to Kamshet.
One of the 2 items I had to take care of in the planning phase for the 400 was the battery recharge for my Polar v800 GPS watch and the phone during the ride. The ride would be approx 22 - 23 hours, so obviously the phone and neither would the V800 last for that duration. From previous experience V800 lasted only for 12 hours with accurate GPS on. I found a USB battery pack on ebay and purchased it right away after the 300 BRM and hoped it would reach in time for the 400 BRM. The 2nd item I had to take care of was the bicycle light. I had the smaller 200 lumens I had purchased in Decathlon, but that wasnt nearly enough on the road at night. So I had purchased another powerful light of 1200 lumens from amazon. I had to install it for this ride with the battery pack. The battery pack was supposed to last for 6 hours on low beam. On high beam it would last for 3 hours. So carried my earlier 200 lumens in my backpack as a backup and installed the new 1200 on the bike.
Another learning from earlier ride was that in my camelback I shouldnt need to carry 2 litres of water as that increases the load on my back. Instead just carry 1 ltr and buy water on the way. Of course I still had me 2-3 gatorade bottles I was carrying as well. On the food side, had similar items as the 300 ride - baked potatoes, dates, candies, cashews, etc.
The Ride
The day of the ride - 2nd Jan, approached. Starting point was Cafe Nook in Balewadi and end point was CCD in Chandani Chowk. Went quite late to the starting point. Reached almost at 5:55 am, just 5 minutes before the start. Got the formalities done quickly. Met Rakesh there. Kedar hadnt made it to this ride unfortunately. The other usual suspects to the BRMS - Kedar Tokekar, Dr Baban Dolas etc were missing as well. Probably new year party hangover got to most of them. ;-) So it would be me and Rakesh on this ride. There were 2 sets of rides for this one. About 6-7 riders for the 400 BRM - termed 'Kolhapur Curry', and 5 or so riders (mostly from mumbai) for the 1000 km BRM. The 1000 km BRM was supposed to go till Haveri in Karnataka (about 200 kms from Bangalore) and return. 3 days of riding. Man that would be tough!
Before the ride I had read Prashant Tidke's post on his experience on this 400 km ride. One thing that had stuck with him from his post that he used to take a 5 minute off-bike break every hour for stretching. On my 300 BRM ride, the first break I had taken was at 100 km after 4 hours. And had started cramping by then. So decided to follow Prashant Tidke's advice to see if things turn out better.
On the timing planning, the way I approached this was simple. I had completed the 300 BRM by 9:40 pm. Add another 4:30 - 5 hours for the remaining 100 and I should be able to get home by 2 to 2:30 am. Started with that goal in mind.
On an side note on some quite interesting folks I met on this ride:
- Pankaj Patil: This guy rides a foldie and has done the SR series on a foldie! He has very strong legs obviously. The foldie has 8 gears in the back and only 1 in the front. So you need really strong legs to ride on this bike especially on the climbs. Also the tire diameter is about 20 inches compared to about 28 inches on my hybrid. So he has to ride in high cadence just to keep up with regular cycles. Man thats tough. He was planning to do the 1000 BRM that day. Talked to him for a few minutes on the ride. Quite an interesting character.
- Dhruv Shah: he wasnt doing a BRM. But met him during his practice ride on Katraj climb. 15 year old kid ... the youngest in India to have done 1200 BRM! Whoa!
- Pranaya Mohanty: Pranaya started riding seriously in November. He started BRMs 3 weeks back and had done the 200 and 300 BRMs in the previous 2 weeks and now attempting the 400 BRM on his mountain bike. He planned to complete the 600 Nashik BRM next week. So a full SR series in 4 weeks! A couple of months after he started riding. He is also a full marathoner with sub 4 hour timing, and a 1:45 Half marathoner! He rode with me and Rakesh the entire ride, and we definitely slowed him down. Very strong rider.
- Apurv Verma: Didnt really meet him, but saw him on the ride. This guy was doing his 1000 BRM. He is a RAAM qualifier as he completed the Deccan Cliffhanger race to Goa in 28 hours in 2nd spot, and qualified for RAAM race. RAAM is a 4800 km race from west to east coast of US. 10 days or so to complete this endurance race. Crazy! Obviously a very strong rider ... eventually he was the only one amongst the 5 who started to have completed the 1000 BRM, well ahead of time that too!
- Marco Peccatori: A 50+ year old Italian guy with passing knowledge of English. He has done SRs in Europe and has been to couple of PBPs so far. He is touring India on his bike and his goal is to do a SR in India during his stay here. He has done quite a lot of rural cycling in India and on these rides also he typically rides alone. I was amazed to see his audaciousness to do this in a completely new country to him. Salute!
This is one of the beauties of riding these BRMs. You get to see so many folks so much stronger than you that you are humbled and can stay grounded. There is always someone to look up to.
Back to the ride ... Was feeling very strong today. Crossed Katraj climb in 25 minutes - a Personal best in my 4 attempts so far. Was the first one to reach the top of Katraj. Waited after the Katraj tunnel for 5 minutes before Rakesh and Pranaya joined. Had a stretching and hydration break and then continued towards Shirwal. Reached Khandala in another hour and half - around 9 am. Rakesh was left behind (later realized that was due to a puncture). Pranaya was with me. We decided to wait for Rakesh. Had a vadapav breakfast. Rakesh joined in another 20 minutes or so. He had a flat on the way and had to change the tube. Luckily Marco was close to him and stopped to give Rakesh a helping hand to change the tube. After breakfast continued towards the Khambatki climb. Was again riding very strong and hammered the Khambatki climb in my best time so far of 25 minutes. Happy .. Pranaya was following right behind me. In his 300 BRM he had climbed the Bhor ghat and he said it was much tougher than Khambatki. (Thats one of the ghats I need to tackle soon ... nonstop!). We stopped for Rakesh after Khambatki and had another stretching and hydration break. So had 3 breaks so far in this BRM in the same patch that I had no breaks in my 300 BRM ride. Due to this I was feeling very fresh because to that. It was almost 9:45 am.
From here on out to Satara its just a steady ride with a few mini climbs just before Satara. Reached Satara (130 kms) around noon and took a 10 - 15 minute mini refreshment break on a petrol pump tapari. No lunch yet .. we decided to continue along as much as possible before the lunch break. Just after the Karad toll plaza we felt very exhausted and hungry. So took a lunch break there at a roadside small tapari. An ok quality Misal pav and wada sambar later, we were ready to move on. Rakesh got his punctured tube fixed nearby. A 30-40 minute break. The mumbai 1000 BRM gang and Marco crossed us around here. Apurv who had started about 45 minutes after us also crossed us sometime during this wait.
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| Myself, Pranaya and Rakesh just past somewhere in Satara |
During this patch I was falling behind Rakesh and Pranaya .. Once in a while I used to catch up with them by sprinting off saddle. At around 180 kms - about 30 kms from Yelur Sai International took a roadside break again for stretching and relaxing - around 3 pm. Couldnt wait to reach Sai so the countdown to home could start.
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| Relaxing on the road side for a break |
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| At Sai International control at 210 km. With Rakesh and Pranaya |
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| Karad ice cream break |
Mahendra Executive control is slightly weird. Its on the other side of the road, so had to cross the heavy traffic road at night with cycles in hand by running across the road. Unsafe ... Freshened up and ordered Dal Khichadi - which is a good high carb diet for the rides. Farhad and Ila were manning this control. Marco was already at the control finishing up his dinner. He had some chicken kebabs. Ate a few of those kebabs and the Dal khichadi ... had cold coffee again. We relaxed a lot at this control and lost almost 1 hour + here. Another lesson - control your break timings. By the time we were ready to leave it was 11:10 pm or so. The 2:30 am at chandani chowk was only a dream now. 4 am was the new target.
Challenging night ride
From here our real troubles started. Even though it was only 110 more kms to go it turned out to be a rough ride home.
It was a cold night. After the dinner it felt really cold on the ride for the first 15-20 minutes till the body warmed up. First time felt the need of a full cycling pant, and decided to visit Decathlon before the next BRM. The litres of Gatorade, Electrolytes, misav pavs, vada pavs and dal khichadi dinner got mixed up in the stomach in a bad way and I started having gases and heartburn. Continued for the next hour or so. Next issue was that my left outer knee pain and the right middle knee pain came back due to the muscles contracting during the hour long break. It took a good 15 minutes for the muscles to warm up and for the legs to get used to the grinding motion again and the pain to subside. Pranaya's cycle light batteries gave up and he had to use his backup light which was very low in power. Plus he needed spare batteries for the backup light in case the batteries ran out. Finding a store that was open in night turned out to be a quest in itself. The low intensity of his lights slowed him significantly for the rest of the ride. Lastly fatigue was badly setting in and Rakesh was really fatigued by midnight. I was doing reasonably ok, but we went together as wanted to complete the ride together. Due to all the above reasons, we were stopping almost every 30 - 45 minutes for 10 minutes or so. We covered only about 40 kms from Satara to Khambatki in 2:30 hours. So about 1:30 am we were at Khambatki.
The downhill from there to Shirwal as usual is a bliss. Night or not I went full blast ahead and reached Khandala in 15-20 minutes. Pranaya and Rakesh were a bit more careful and slow especially with Pranaya's dim lights. We decided to ride along to Shirwal and stop for a break/tea. So glad to have some of these roadside tea stalls that are open through the night. At Shirwal I found one and stopped there. It was almost 2:15 / 2:30 am now. And it was a uphill from here on out to Katraj. Only 50 kms left but a big mental and physical battle ahead of us!!
We rode along at a very slow average pace from here on out .. at most 17-18 kmph. Stopping every 10 km or so. The Nasrapur to Khed Shivapur patch seemed like a never ending climb. A very different feeling than when doing this patch during day time. Around 35 kms from Pune, Rakesh felt very sleepy as well. Almost 3:30/3:45 am now. Luckily I was not feeling sleepy at all with all the adrenaline pumping. We stopped for 10-15 minutes while Rakesh took a quick nap in a temple somewhere at top of a hillock before Khed Shivapur. Remaining ride I remember and I think I will remember quite distinctly as it indeed felt like a never ending climb upto Katraj. Fatigue had really caught up with us all. Saddle sores were also quite painful by now for me. Finally huffing and puffing we reached the flyover at Katraj and then the end was in sight. Was around 4:20/4:30 am now. Had way overshot the 2:30 am target time. Now we just wanted to get to CCD as soon as possible and then on to home for a nice quite sleep!
The downhill from Katraj leased a new life into me. Again I went really fast. Somewhere around Nasrapur, the battery in my 1200 lumens light had died. So I was left with my 200 lumens dim light. But I still rolled downhill on Katraj at the regular 40-50 kmph speed. Didnt want to waste any minute and didnt want to put any brakes on at all! The final stretch from Warje to Chandani Chowk had 2 smaller climbs. But the fatigue meant I was almost crawling on those climbs. Stopped one more time for a water break. Early Saturday morning traffic had started. Finally pedal by pedal I reached Chandani chowk and then the final burst of energy was needed to scale the climb to the overpass from the highway. Rolled into CCD at 5:15 am finally! To my surprise I saw Farhad, Ila and Marco there. This was supposed to be an unmanned control, but Farhad and Ila had stayed up the night on the road to support any rider if needed! Thank you!! Rakesh and Pranaya rode in 5-10 minutes later. Another huge surprise for me was the crowd at CCD at that early on saturday morning. Lots of college kids hanging out early in the morning. Hmm ... Relaxed at CCD till 6 am.
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| Tired but victorious smiles at CCD!! Pranaya, Rakesh, Marco and me |
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| The brevet card |
Called home to let folks know I had reached safely. And then rode the next 15 kms home. This was I guess the toughest patch of the ride as couldnt sit down on the saddle at all .. and the final Sus climb also killed me. Took me almost an hour to get home from Chandani chowk - my slowest ride ever I guess! :) Pranaya on the other hand was heading to the Pune station to get into a Shivneri to head back to Mumbai. Rest the remainder of saturday and then run a half marathon on Sunday!! Crazy dude!!
It took me 23 hours 15 minutes to complete this one. 407 kms. about 3300 mtrs climb overall. Should have been able to complete it in 21 or 22 hours. Maybe next attempt I will try that.
Interestingly the day after Kedar pointed out that I was leading the Gran Fondo challenges 100 and 150 km on Strava. 15 minutes of meaningless fame! :-D I probably got 30-40 followers due to this. The ride on Strava got 80+ kudos as well. hmm ... Strava is becoming a social media channel, isnt it?
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| Strava Gran Fondo 150 leader for almost 10-15 days in Jan 2015!! |
The real challenging 600 BRM coming up in 3 weeks. Got to prepare for that one mentally after today's tough one! Nonetheless a good start to the new year!!