Once the 400 BRM was scaled at the beginning of the year, my eyes were then set to doing a 600 BRM and earn the Super Randonneur title. A Super Randonneur title means you have to complete BRMs of 200, 300, 400 and 600 kms in a ACP year (November - October).
Background and Randonneuring glossary
Some background of the whole concept of BRMs and Randonneuring. Basically Randonneuring is a long distance endurance cycling sport. About 110 years back in 1904 the long distance endurance cycling started gaining popularity in Europe and an organization called Audax Club Parisien (ACP) was formed which conducts these long distance endurance rides called Brevets aka Brevets De Randonneur Mondiaux (BRM). The distances covered in these rides are typically 200 km, 300km, 400km, 600 km 1000km and 1200 km. Upto 600 km, rider has to complete the ride with an average speed of minimum 15 kmph to be able to finish in time. e.g. 200 BRM needs to be completed in 13.5 hours. 300 in 20 hours. 400 in 27 hours and 600 in 40 hours.
Brevet is not a race, you just have to complete it in the designated times to be called a randonneur. You have to report at the designated Control Points within the designated times, where the organizers stamp your Brevet card (which you have to protect hell or high water else you are a Did Not Finisher (DNF) ). Between the control points, Brevets are completely self supported/self sufficient rides i.e. you have to either carry your own food/water or get it on the way. No maintenance or crew vehicle is allowed. In India they have added a clause that safety vehicles are allowed, but they have to shadow you from a distance i.e. you cannot touch the vehicle or anyone from the vehicle, you cannot get anything from the vehicle except at control points. Its only purpose is to protect you against bad elements on indian roads especially for female riders. Any punctures or cycle repairs are also to be managed by you. Organizers will not help in these. You can take as any breaks during these rides as you want but you have to be mindful that the stopwatch doesnt stop clicking during these breaks. So you have to manage your breaks well. Typically from my experience I have honed in on a formula of trying to maintain a speed of 22-24 kmph while riding. Breakfast, lunch, dinner breaks (and possibly sleep for overnight brevets), and stretching/refreshment breaks every couple of hours. So you should try and maintain an average of 18-20 kmph with the breaks to leave buffer for any untoward maintenance or health issue that may come up during the ride.
If a rider completes any Brevet/BRM within these times, they are termed as Randonneurs. If a rider completes 200, 300, 400 and 600 BRMs in a ACP year they are called Super Randonneurs. There are various titles beyond this, you can earn multiple SR titles in a year. You can also earn a Master Randonneur title if you have completed 5000 km in Brevets in a year.
The Preparation
When the calendar for the BRMs was out in November for Pune, I was so glad that the organizers were thoughtful enough to have setup the 4 BRMs in order of increasing difficulty for newbies like me. The first one was the Nov 15th 200 Headwinds from Hell BRM to Supe - a very simple ride with only about 1000 mtrs of elevation over the 200 km ride; second one was after a month on Dec 19th Krishna Confluence 300 BRM to Umbraj and back - a slightly harder one with Katraj and Khambatki ghat climbs for a total ascent of 2220 mtrs; the third one on Jan 2nd Kolhapur Curry 400 BRM to Kolhapur and back - same ghats as the 300 BRM with total 3300 mtrs ascent. The final one in the series was the 600 BRM - the toughest of them all on Jan 24th. This one was to go to Mahabaleshwar, then onwards to Nippani and back via NH4. Total of about 5500-6000 mtrs ascent.
So within a couple of months from Nov 15th to Jan 24th, I could theoretically become a SR! That was my original goal if all things fell in place. Was quite skeptical of the Mahabaleshwar BRM initially - termed appropriately as Sahyadri Special - it had Katraj, Khambatki and then the real killer Pasarni climb enroute. Having done Khambatki multiple times, was very comfortable with it. Just about 6 km of 4% gradient climb. Doable. Pasarni I had done once before in the PBCh race to Panchgani. Had completed the race successfully but Pasarni memories were quite bad from that ride. Long undulating climb of 5-7% gradient; very few turns on the climb but a straight climb till you could see in front of you - that kills you mentally before you start, comes after about 100 kms from the start when you are tired and before lunch break so in a very fatigued state; 10 km of 5% average climb and total of 500+ mtrs total ascent; lastly the sun is typically beating down on you by the time you get to the climb. A tough one indeed mentally and physically. With the additional pressure of getting to Mahabaleshwar (which is another 20 kms from Panchgani) before 2 pm to make it within the control point cutoff at Mahabaleshwar. So instead of this ride I was debating between the Nashik Mumbai Dhule 600 BRM and the Goa 600 BRM ride. But the Nashik 600 BRM was just a week after the 400, so no way I was going to attempt that. And the Goa meant travel which I wasnt sure of. So decided that I would attempt the 600 Sahyadri Special BRM anyways.
Next step was making sure I had company on the ride. Rakesh Kale was initially out as he had his exams. But the allure of a SR title in Pune made him postpone his exam and he was in. Kedar Joshi hadnt done the 400 with us earlier in the month, so I wasnt sure he would join this one. But he is an extremely strong rider and didnt need too much of convincing to join the 600 club. (By the way here's a link to his Maayboli blog in Marathi) So it was going to be the 3 of us on the ride. There were others namely Sudhakar Shinde and Abhishek Kulkarni, who were joining from the Peloton whatsapp group for the 300 Strawberry Fields BRM on the same day as well. So we would have good company for the first half of the day at least. Good...
Next up was planning the route and the segment timings as I usually do. The first thing was to think of this ride mentally as 2 rides on consecutive days - first day of 350 kms and second day of 250 kms with some 4-5 hours of sleep in between. That made it easier to grasp the scale of this ride. This time it was a lot more complex as the ghats enroute complicated it plus the night halt. From folks who had done this before 2 key control points that were critical were the Mahabaleshwar control point where we had to reach before 2:20 pm on Day 1, and Sai International control point on the way back where we had to reach before 9 am on Day 2. So the plan had to account for that.
So plan was to reach Mahabaleswhar (125 km) by 1:20 pm and end day 1 at Nippani (340 km) at around midnight. Then start from Nippani at 5:30 am next day to reach Sai International Yelur (405 km) before 9 am. Then the home stretch of the last 200 km and Pune by 8 pm on Day 2. Shared the plan with Kedar and Rakesh. Kedar being a very strong rider wanted the plan to be more aggressive and reach Nippani by 11 pm and back in Pune by 7 pm or so. Very aggressive for me, but we decided to give the aggressive plan a shot.
The 400 km BRM had taken a toll on the body especially the saddle sores, ITB pain in left knee and inner right knee. The left ITB pain seemed more because of the saddle height. I had increased the saddle height in the 400 BRM and by the 150 km mark had developed the ITB pain on left knee. Reducing the saddle height had helped. So the lesson was not to change the saddle position without practice. Post the 400 had gradually increased the saddle height and had reasonable amount of practice at the increased saddle height. The right knee inner pain was more concerning as it was continuous and couldnt find a cure. May be a MCL tear from what I saw on the internet. So rest was the main treatment, and had only 3 weeks in between. The saddle sores after the 400 also had me recovering for more than a week. So all in all had missed the practice completely that I had before the earlier BRMs. Only reasonably practice I had was the ride with Earn Blessings group to Vinzaidevi highschool in Tamhini. Although this was a leisure ride of about 120 km in 8-9 hours with ample breaks a week before the 600. Only practice I got in this was that of riding in the increasing heat in the afternoon. So mentally prepared, physically overall ok but fear of saddle sores and knee pain.
Last part was preparing the drop bag and the regular ride preparations. Managed those a day before the ride. Had decided to carry less on me, but by the time packing was done had enough weight of at least 3-4 kgs on my back and another couple kgs on the bike again. This time I was carrying some peanut butter jelly sandwiches and ladoos in addition to the baked potatos and gatorade and other snacks. Sonali again slept very late the earlier night and got up early to help prepare the food I was carrying with me! In hindsight the peanut butter sandwiches were a blessing. Loved those much better than the baked potatoes and the rest of my snack and were very much useful carb loaders overall.
Day 1- The Killer Pasarni and ride into Karnataka
Jan 24th - the day of the BRM dawned. Averted a disaster with a key insight just the night before. I was thinking the departure point was Cafe nook in Baner, but as it turned out it was Univ of Pune. Glad that conversation happened with Kedar the night before else would have been messed up in the morning! RTFM :-) I reached University departure point at 5:50 am or so. Formalities all done by 6:05 am. Farhad and other volunteers saw us off. We were 6 of us for the 600. There were another 10 or so riders on the 300. This time the experts - Dr Baban Dolas, Kedar Tokekar were doing the 300. Strange to be doing a longer distance than them.
The ride started off in some beautiful weather. not too cold either. Glad I didnt wear the full cycling pants I had bought recently from Decathlon. Rode in tandem with Kedar and Rakesh and the 300 riders to Katraj ghat. Along the way had a mini disaster moment. I realized that I had forgotten my Polar V800 charger cable! V800 lasts only 12 hours, so the remaining session I would have to capture on the phone which would be tough. Called Sonali and told her to see if she could coordinate with the organizers and if they hadnt already left handover the charge to them. Luckily she managed to meet Farhad at Chandani Chowk and hand over the charger cable to him. I got the cable at Mahabaleshwar control point and my day was saved!
Strongest showing for me on Katraj climb yet - completed in 25 minutes. No breaks at the top this time. Kept going on the great downhill to Shirwal. Plan called for a break before Khambatki. Took a break after the toll gate and had a couple of wada pavs. While on the ride had a chance to ride with Dr Baban Dolas for a few kms. He mentioned this was one of the tough BRMs and maybe I should have tried the Goa BRM instead. Okkk .. but I was determined to complete this. So I needed to keep going through those thoughts. :) Khambatki also did quite strongly. This time just like the 400 BRM was feeling strong on the Khambatki climb. Complete the Khambatki climb in 25 minutes. Was surprised that I did it faster than Kedar as well. Top of Khambatki before 9.45 am. Good timing so far. Ride from here to Wai is quite simple - its 20 kms of flat terrain. Just after Khambatki spotted Ashwin Trimal with his family going to Mahabaleshwar. They waved and took some photos of us and encouraged us to continue along. Stopped for a minute to say hi and thank him for the encouragement and continued along.
Reached based of Pasarni around 10:40 or so. Stopped for a refuelling break here at a Cane juice stall. Bad idea. The juice was refreshing but the guy mixed some bad water in the juice. Rest of us managed it ok, but one of the riders we were with - Arjun Murali had tough time most likely due to this juice. He had some severe stomach upset end of day 1 and day 2, and had to eventually quite the ride due to this. Had some more dates and chikki at this stop and braced ourselves to face the gruelling 10-12 km of Pasarni climb. It was now 11 am and the aggressive noon target for Mahabaleshwar was not achievable, but we were still ahead of the plan. Sun had started heating up reminding me of the earlier Pasarni horror climb. This time the breaks had rejuvenated me though, so I was more confident. Kept on moving on the tough climb a pedal at a time. Main goal was to beat the 7.5 km 60 minute previous best to Harrison's Folly, and complete Pasarni upto Panchgani (10 km) in just over an hour. The views were awesome on the climb, but was in no mood to enjoy those. Kedar and Arjun had gone way ahead of me, and Rakesh was behind. The sight of Harrison's Folly still 4 km ahead was the goal. Finally reached Harrison's folly in under 49 minutes! Bested the previous attempt by 15 minutes! Though still another 3 km to go before I reached the plateau. Reached the plateau in just over 63 minutes. Done!
I had another mini to major disaster moment into the 3rd or 4th km of the climb up Pasarni. I felt a sting on my right ankle near the show and instinctively my hand went there and I shook off whatever was there. I had thought it might be some mosquito but as it turned out it was a Honeybee!! Whoa! When I saw the bee that I had just shaken off and the sting I was feeling was increasing, panicked a bit. Didnt really know what happens when a bee stings, but had heard it swells up a lot. I was having visions of DNFing at Mahabaleshwar due to the swelling in the leg! The sting was horrible, but I was climbing a gradient of 7-8% at that point, and didnt want to stop or slow down. So kept peddling and ignoring the pain in the bee sting. It kept on stinging for quite some time, but didnt swell as much as I had feared. Later I learnt that if the stinger is removed quickly from the skin, then the venom stops entering the skin and swelling is controlled. I think when I shook the bee off, the stinger must have dislodged from my skin. There was a small swelling there which had stayed stable for a couple of days. But I guess I got lucky that this didnt hamper my ride nor did it result into a DNF. Second relatively mini tending towards major disaster averted! I guess this is my lucky day after all.
The challenge now was to continue to ride along for another 20 km of rolling terrain till I reached Mahabaleshwar. Again beautiful scenery which I did enjoy a bit this time around. Red muddy soil, great valley views, nice shanty towns enroute from Panchgani to Mahabaleshwar. Had slowed down a lot in this patch though. Rakesh who was about 15 minutes behind me on the Pasarni climb in fact caught up with me near Mahabaleshwar. Crossed Arjun on the side of the road fixing his puncture. Finally was so glad to reach Mahabaleshwar control point around 1 pm. Made it well within time and within our original plan timing. Farhad was there to welcome us. Kedar had already reached there 10-15 minutes back and was waiting for us to turn up. Yes!! The toughest part of the BRM was now done. Katraj, Khambatki and Pasarni all done within the cutoff time for the control. Now only 475 kms left to go! (Whoa .. what another 475 to go after this much fatigue!! hmm .. ;-) )
The control point was just at the side of the road so no place to sit.. ate some bananas, strawberries, drank enerzal. stretched on the side of the road. And decided to move on around 1:30 pm. We were initially hoping to find a dhaba in mahabaleshwar for lunch, but didnt find anything near where we were. So we figured its all downhill to Medha - lets just reach there and we will eat. Bad choice as we later realized. Anyways after a couple of more kms of climb in Mahabaleshwar, the downhill portion started and it was simply awesome!! 15 kms of twists and turns on the continuous downhill. Was so glad that we didnt climb from this Ghat! :-) Took a photo stop on the way down ..
40 minutes and about 20 kms later I climbed down all the ascent I had climbed in the 2 hours from Wai to Mahabaleshwar! The road ahead was very treacherous to Medha. We were hungry, energy levels low, road condition was bad, on top of that it was a really bad rolling road. Continuous ups and downs. We finally reached Medha gaon around 2:30 or so and found a reasonably ok place. Had a misal pav and chaha to refuel. Next destination was Satara control which we had to reach before 5 pm. The rolling terrain continued, with the sun boring down on us, was quite a difficult patch. We met Mr. Arun Thipsay kaka on the way here who has done a tons of BRMs in the past in the last 4 years of his cycling career at his age of 58! Wow!
As we approached Satara control, I jokingly said to Kedar and Rakesh a thought that had stuck with me a few days before I started the ride. "At Satara, should we turn left and head back to Pune". Would have been a simpler choice as if we turned right - towards Nippani, it would have meant an additional day of cycling before we reach that point again! Turning left in turn woul dhave meant quitting the 600 BRM. Didnt have any serious thought of quitting in acutality, was meant as a joke ... but the comment had some unforeseen repercussions. Rakesh seriously started considering quitting here. Kedar eventually convinced him to continue. Lesson learnt ... jokes can be misconstrued after you are so fatigued! :) At Satara, we met Dr Dolas and a couple of other 300 BRM riders who were heading to Pune ... said our goodbyes to them and exchanged best wished before we headed on our journey.
From here on now we were 5 of us in our group instead of the 3 we had originally started with. One takeaway from this BRM is that more the people in your group, the longer the breaks and slower the ride. As generally the speeds dont match and inevitably someone stays behind and rest have to wait. So a rule of thumb in my opinion should be ride in groups of 2 or 3, anything beyond that can be dicey. At Satara we were about 30 minutes behind our scheduled plan of reaching Nippani by midnight. We thought we could pick up pace and still manage the midnight landing. But faced some hurdles of riding in the group which slowed us down significantly. We stopped for an unscheduled stop after Satara as Thipsay kaka hadnt had any lunch yet. Now we were 1 hour behind. We picked up speed from this point on as the sun had set and mind and body were feeling fresh once again. But given we were riding in a group, pace doesnt match for all irders... so we decided to stop for one of the slower riders after every 20-30 kms. At one such halt we waited for about 30-40 minutes. 2 hours behind now. We still had hopes of reaching by 1 am and getting good 3 hours of sleep. Had dinner at Sai International at 10 pm. Then reached Kolhapur - about 30 km from there by midnight. Only 30 more to go now. Another long wait. Now the muscles were acting up as well. With every halt, my knees started paining. It took a good 10-15 minutes of riding before they warmed up enough and stopped paining. So it was getting tougher. Plus the longer we were on the road, meant lesser the sleep prospects. More frustration all around. Part of riding in a group I suppose. :-) From Kolhapur to Nippani we decided to ride together as the road goes through a reasonably lonely stretch around the Karnataka border and through some jungle.
Crossed Kagal and then finally crossed the border! Yay!! I had cycled all the way from Maharashtra to Karnataka. A milestone to remember for sure! Nippani was another 10-15 kms. The road from Kolhapur to Nippani has quite a bit of rolling terrain. While going to Nippani it seemed that we were climbing a lot. The upside was that next morning on the way back it would be all downhill. (I would realize how mistaken I was the next morning). We were going at a speed of hardly 16-17 kmph as we were going together. Finally we reached Nippani control point at 2:45 am!! The downside was that we would have to miss eating and try and grab an hour sleep before getting ready to leave by 4:15 or 4:30.
Day 2: Only 260 kms to go!
With hardly 45 minutes of lying down time, sleep was hard to come by. Was only lying down but body wasnt ready to sleep. Probably slept all of 10-15 minutes overall during this time. Got up at 4 am, had to take a cold water quick shower to get fresh as I dont think I would have been able to ride without the shower. Changed the clothes from my drop bag. Applied the Saddle sore cream Buttr liberally as since yesterday evening the saddle sores problem had started reappearing. Had a couple of laddus and peanut butter jam sandwiches and as a group we left by 4:45 am. We had decided we would keep the second day on track to our original plan at least and ride our own ride instead of getting shackled by the big group. I think 'Riding our own ride' is a big learning to keep the ride an enjoyable ride, else frustration starts creeping in.
We had to reach Sai International before 9 am else we would have missed the control deadline. We covered the 67 km distance quite rapidly. Reached Maharashtra border in double quick time, then onto Kolhapur and then onto Sai. We stopped only once for a quick snack break with whatever we were carrying as none of the hotels were open yet. The one false expectation I had from yesterday night was that it was all downhill from Nippani to Kolhapur was squashed right away though. Frm Kolhapur to Nippani rolling terrain makes you feel that we were climbing a lot and downhill was smaller. But there were quite a bit of downhills that we had actually done. So coming from Nippani to Kolhapur there were a lot of those climbs we had to do. Kolhapur to Yelur was slightly better and bit more downhill. Made it into Sai International at 8 am. So about 3 hours 10 minutes for the 67 kms ride in the morning. Not bad. This was the second toughest control to make. After this the time pressure just vanished as had to do the rest of the 200 kms in 13 hours. Way too much time left. Kedar as usual had reached 15 minutes ahead of me. Rakesh was riding really strong in this BRM compared to the previous 400 km effort. I guess the newly acquired Shwalbe marathon tires on his Fuji had increased his confidence a lot. He had reached 5-7 minutes ahead of me.
While at Sai International, sent some whatsapp messages home, the Peloton group and the Bike bros group to let them know my progress. Charged my Polar V800 for the duration of the stop. Had a hearty breakfast and took almost an hour break here till 9 am. Arjun came in around 8.30 and we were glad he made it in time, only to realize that unfortunately his stomach upset had flared up and he was completeyl dehydrated fatigued due to that and decided to give up. Poor guy ... he is an excellent and strong rider even on his hybrid. Tough luck, but am pretty sure many more successful ones to come for him ahead. Just about when we were leaving we saw Thipsay kaka pull in. He also had made it in time at the control. Kudos to all of us. Rest of the journey is a countdown from 200k.
Kedar raced ahead as usual from Sai International to Karad. I think I was quite dehydrated at this point or he was too fast. I didnt have my usual gatorade with me neither did I have enerzal. Water running out as well. I was going going at a leisurely 20-22 kmph, couldnt increase my speed beyond this. I was just counting down kms to Karad. About 10 kms from Karad stopped at a roadside shop to refuel water. Wasted almost 10 minutes there with the wait and the questions from curious onlookers. At Karad I was hoping to catch up with Kedar and Rakesh again. They were waiting for 15 minutes already. I had a thumbs up to refresh myself. Renergized again with the sugar dose. It was around 11:30 am, and Satara lunch plan seemed too distant as Satara was another 50 kms away. Luckily we found a Kamath just before we reached Umbraj. Stopped for a nice Uttappa, and Dal Khichadi. And Sol kadhi. Satisfied we left there around noon or 12:15.
The next patch was not easy at all with the sun burning down. From Umbraj to Satara - a distance of 35 kms there are a few climbs and rolling terrain. Especially the Khind climb before Satara. Before the climb entering Satara, I had to take a pit stop at a roadside Dhaba, plus needed to replenish my water supply. So took a 10 minute break. Till then I had Rakesh in my eyesight. Luckily with the break I got some cloud cover during the climb. Was able to do the climb strongly and then the downhill following was fun. Got a message from Kedar that they were waiting for me at Big Bites in Satara. Reached there at 2:15 - about 15 minutes behind Kedar, due to the earlier pit stop. Quick coffee there and on our way towards Khambatki. Kedar was going quite strong, told him to go ahead instead of waiting for us. But he being a gentleman wanted to wait for us. He could have reached a couple of hours ahead of us if he didnt wait for us!
We had planned to originally reach Khambatki by 4 pm which was about 35 kms from Satara. The patch from Satara to Khambatki has few climbs, but is mostly a boring stretch. Continued with Rakesh counting down villages from here on. Rakesh had cramps around half way to Khambatki and we had to take a 15 minute break there. Kedar reached Khambatki on schedule at 4. But we reached there by 4:40 pm. Had another Uttappa and tea. Left at 5 pm. An hour behind plan. At this rate we would probably reach Chandani Chowk by 8 pm instead of 7 pm, which was still a couple of hours ahead of the cutoff of 10 pm. Rakesh somehow missed Kedar and headed down Khambatki downhill and went ahead.
From here on out we were 70 kms from our destination. The Khambatki downhill to Shirwal was pure bliss as usual. Managed that distance of 20 kms in 40 minutes or so. At Shirwal my battery on the GPS watch and the phone ran out again. The extra USB battery pack I had was out of power as well. I had done well to recharge my phone and GPS watch on day 1, but had mismanaged it on day 2. Before the battery ran out called Sonali and asked her to come to Chandani Chowk CCD to pick me up around 8 pm as I dont think me or my bum bad the energy to ride the last 15 kms from CCD Bavdhan to home!
Was at Shirwal around 5 pm. Only 50 kms to go now, and an climb upto Katraj. The saddle sore was still troubling, but luckily no knee pain. It might come back as it got colder in the evening. But the evening cool air induced a breath of fresh air as well. Somewhere around Shirwal I saw Ramakant from Rohan Seher. He was coming back from some bird photography session with his friends. He encouraged me to hammer along. Much needed encouragement in that stretch. Also the Cymour support vehicle crossed me at this point. Yogesh and Ravi took a couple of snaps while I was riding. Nice ones.
Kept on burning the rubber on the tires .. keeping up good pace till I hit traffic around Nasrapur. It was around 6 pm and a lot of traffic returning home after the weekend I guess. Really bad traffic from here on all the way to Chandani Chowk. Made the way through the pollution. Met Kedar around Khed Shivapur around 6:45. Only 30 kms to go now! Didnt stop at Khed Shivapur for any breaks as was feeling reasonably fresh and wanted to reach CCD by 8 pm else Sonali would be waiting unnecessarily. Apparently crossed Rakesh somewhere around Khed Shivapur where he was taking a refuelling break, but didnt hear his call. Finally finished the Katraj climb around 7:20 pm. Really the home stretch now with 20 kms to go. Blissful downhill at Katraj for another 10 kms ... and then hit a horrible traffic jam around the Warje. Somehow weaved through the bumper to bumper traffic here and went through the final 2 mini climbs at Warje and Chandani chowk. Again spotted Kedar and Rakesh. The final stretch at Chandani chowk ... the final climb and started imagining the glory at the end!
Finally reached CCD at 8:15 pm to awesome thunderous welcome from Sudhakar and Abhishek who had done the 300 BRM the day before! Sonali and Aryaa were also there and was greeted with warm hugs from them. An ice cream Frappe refuelling, gappa with the gang and Sonali and Aryaa. Half an hour or rest later and a photo session later, made our way home in the comfort of a really wide seat of the Jetta!! :-D
So 38 hours 15 minutes, 604 kms, 14000 calories, 5500 mtrs ascent since I started from the University, I reached back!! Made it!! 600 km BRM done and dusted. Super Randonneur title! Wow what an experience! A lifetime of memories for sure! A quest and a dream that had formed shape in October of 2014 ... which had seemed quite unreal and just a dream was now complete! I was in the elite company of the SRs from Pune. Still admire them for their tenacity to continue doing this continuously.. but I am step closer to them now. :-) Feeling quite proud.
Background and Randonneuring glossary
Some background of the whole concept of BRMs and Randonneuring. Basically Randonneuring is a long distance endurance cycling sport. About 110 years back in 1904 the long distance endurance cycling started gaining popularity in Europe and an organization called Audax Club Parisien (ACP) was formed which conducts these long distance endurance rides called Brevets aka Brevets De Randonneur Mondiaux (BRM). The distances covered in these rides are typically 200 km, 300km, 400km, 600 km 1000km and 1200 km. Upto 600 km, rider has to complete the ride with an average speed of minimum 15 kmph to be able to finish in time. e.g. 200 BRM needs to be completed in 13.5 hours. 300 in 20 hours. 400 in 27 hours and 600 in 40 hours.
Brevet is not a race, you just have to complete it in the designated times to be called a randonneur. You have to report at the designated Control Points within the designated times, where the organizers stamp your Brevet card (which you have to protect hell or high water else you are a Did Not Finisher (DNF) ). Between the control points, Brevets are completely self supported/self sufficient rides i.e. you have to either carry your own food/water or get it on the way. No maintenance or crew vehicle is allowed. In India they have added a clause that safety vehicles are allowed, but they have to shadow you from a distance i.e. you cannot touch the vehicle or anyone from the vehicle, you cannot get anything from the vehicle except at control points. Its only purpose is to protect you against bad elements on indian roads especially for female riders. Any punctures or cycle repairs are also to be managed by you. Organizers will not help in these. You can take as any breaks during these rides as you want but you have to be mindful that the stopwatch doesnt stop clicking during these breaks. So you have to manage your breaks well. Typically from my experience I have honed in on a formula of trying to maintain a speed of 22-24 kmph while riding. Breakfast, lunch, dinner breaks (and possibly sleep for overnight brevets), and stretching/refreshment breaks every couple of hours. So you should try and maintain an average of 18-20 kmph with the breaks to leave buffer for any untoward maintenance or health issue that may come up during the ride.
If a rider completes any Brevet/BRM within these times, they are termed as Randonneurs. If a rider completes 200, 300, 400 and 600 BRMs in a ACP year they are called Super Randonneurs. There are various titles beyond this, you can earn multiple SR titles in a year. You can also earn a Master Randonneur title if you have completed 5000 km in Brevets in a year.
The Preparation
When the calendar for the BRMs was out in November for Pune, I was so glad that the organizers were thoughtful enough to have setup the 4 BRMs in order of increasing difficulty for newbies like me. The first one was the Nov 15th 200 Headwinds from Hell BRM to Supe - a very simple ride with only about 1000 mtrs of elevation over the 200 km ride; second one was after a month on Dec 19th Krishna Confluence 300 BRM to Umbraj and back - a slightly harder one with Katraj and Khambatki ghat climbs for a total ascent of 2220 mtrs; the third one on Jan 2nd Kolhapur Curry 400 BRM to Kolhapur and back - same ghats as the 300 BRM with total 3300 mtrs ascent. The final one in the series was the 600 BRM - the toughest of them all on Jan 24th. This one was to go to Mahabaleshwar, then onwards to Nippani and back via NH4. Total of about 5500-6000 mtrs ascent.
So within a couple of months from Nov 15th to Jan 24th, I could theoretically become a SR! That was my original goal if all things fell in place. Was quite skeptical of the Mahabaleshwar BRM initially - termed appropriately as Sahyadri Special - it had Katraj, Khambatki and then the real killer Pasarni climb enroute. Having done Khambatki multiple times, was very comfortable with it. Just about 6 km of 4% gradient climb. Doable. Pasarni I had done once before in the PBCh race to Panchgani. Had completed the race successfully but Pasarni memories were quite bad from that ride. Long undulating climb of 5-7% gradient; very few turns on the climb but a straight climb till you could see in front of you - that kills you mentally before you start, comes after about 100 kms from the start when you are tired and before lunch break so in a very fatigued state; 10 km of 5% average climb and total of 500+ mtrs total ascent; lastly the sun is typically beating down on you by the time you get to the climb. A tough one indeed mentally and physically. With the additional pressure of getting to Mahabaleshwar (which is another 20 kms from Panchgani) before 2 pm to make it within the control point cutoff at Mahabaleshwar. So instead of this ride I was debating between the Nashik Mumbai Dhule 600 BRM and the Goa 600 BRM ride. But the Nashik 600 BRM was just a week after the 400, so no way I was going to attempt that. And the Goa meant travel which I wasnt sure of. So decided that I would attempt the 600 Sahyadri Special BRM anyways.
Next step was making sure I had company on the ride. Rakesh Kale was initially out as he had his exams. But the allure of a SR title in Pune made him postpone his exam and he was in. Kedar Joshi hadnt done the 400 with us earlier in the month, so I wasnt sure he would join this one. But he is an extremely strong rider and didnt need too much of convincing to join the 600 club. (By the way here's a link to his Maayboli blog in Marathi) So it was going to be the 3 of us on the ride. There were others namely Sudhakar Shinde and Abhishek Kulkarni, who were joining from the Peloton whatsapp group for the 300 Strawberry Fields BRM on the same day as well. So we would have good company for the first half of the day at least. Good...
Next up was planning the route and the segment timings as I usually do. The first thing was to think of this ride mentally as 2 rides on consecutive days - first day of 350 kms and second day of 250 kms with some 4-5 hours of sleep in between. That made it easier to grasp the scale of this ride. This time it was a lot more complex as the ghats enroute complicated it plus the night halt. From folks who had done this before 2 key control points that were critical were the Mahabaleshwar control point where we had to reach before 2:20 pm on Day 1, and Sai International control point on the way back where we had to reach before 9 am on Day 2. So the plan had to account for that.
So plan was to reach Mahabaleswhar (125 km) by 1:20 pm and end day 1 at Nippani (340 km) at around midnight. Then start from Nippani at 5:30 am next day to reach Sai International Yelur (405 km) before 9 am. Then the home stretch of the last 200 km and Pune by 8 pm on Day 2. Shared the plan with Kedar and Rakesh. Kedar being a very strong rider wanted the plan to be more aggressive and reach Nippani by 11 pm and back in Pune by 7 pm or so. Very aggressive for me, but we decided to give the aggressive plan a shot.
The 400 km BRM had taken a toll on the body especially the saddle sores, ITB pain in left knee and inner right knee. The left ITB pain seemed more because of the saddle height. I had increased the saddle height in the 400 BRM and by the 150 km mark had developed the ITB pain on left knee. Reducing the saddle height had helped. So the lesson was not to change the saddle position without practice. Post the 400 had gradually increased the saddle height and had reasonable amount of practice at the increased saddle height. The right knee inner pain was more concerning as it was continuous and couldnt find a cure. May be a MCL tear from what I saw on the internet. So rest was the main treatment, and had only 3 weeks in between. The saddle sores after the 400 also had me recovering for more than a week. So all in all had missed the practice completely that I had before the earlier BRMs. Only reasonably practice I had was the ride with Earn Blessings group to Vinzaidevi highschool in Tamhini. Although this was a leisure ride of about 120 km in 8-9 hours with ample breaks a week before the 600. Only practice I got in this was that of riding in the increasing heat in the afternoon. So mentally prepared, physically overall ok but fear of saddle sores and knee pain.
Last part was preparing the drop bag and the regular ride preparations. Managed those a day before the ride. Had decided to carry less on me, but by the time packing was done had enough weight of at least 3-4 kgs on my back and another couple kgs on the bike again. This time I was carrying some peanut butter jelly sandwiches and ladoos in addition to the baked potatos and gatorade and other snacks. Sonali again slept very late the earlier night and got up early to help prepare the food I was carrying with me! In hindsight the peanut butter sandwiches were a blessing. Loved those much better than the baked potatoes and the rest of my snack and were very much useful carb loaders overall.
Day 1- The Killer Pasarni and ride into Karnataka
Jan 24th - the day of the BRM dawned. Averted a disaster with a key insight just the night before. I was thinking the departure point was Cafe nook in Baner, but as it turned out it was Univ of Pune. Glad that conversation happened with Kedar the night before else would have been messed up in the morning! RTFM :-) I reached University departure point at 5:50 am or so. Formalities all done by 6:05 am. Farhad and other volunteers saw us off. We were 6 of us for the 600. There were another 10 or so riders on the 300. This time the experts - Dr Baban Dolas, Kedar Tokekar were doing the 300. Strange to be doing a longer distance than them.
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| The flagoff from Pune University |
The ride started off in some beautiful weather. not too cold either. Glad I didnt wear the full cycling pants I had bought recently from Decathlon. Rode in tandem with Kedar and Rakesh and the 300 riders to Katraj ghat. Along the way had a mini disaster moment. I realized that I had forgotten my Polar V800 charger cable! V800 lasts only 12 hours, so the remaining session I would have to capture on the phone which would be tough. Called Sonali and told her to see if she could coordinate with the organizers and if they hadnt already left handover the charge to them. Luckily she managed to meet Farhad at Chandani Chowk and hand over the charger cable to him. I got the cable at Mahabaleshwar control point and my day was saved!
Strongest showing for me on Katraj climb yet - completed in 25 minutes. No breaks at the top this time. Kept going on the great downhill to Shirwal. Plan called for a break before Khambatki. Took a break after the toll gate and had a couple of wada pavs. While on the ride had a chance to ride with Dr Baban Dolas for a few kms. He mentioned this was one of the tough BRMs and maybe I should have tried the Goa BRM instead. Okkk .. but I was determined to complete this. So I needed to keep going through those thoughts. :) Khambatki also did quite strongly. This time just like the 400 BRM was feeling strong on the Khambatki climb. Complete the Khambatki climb in 25 minutes. Was surprised that I did it faster than Kedar as well. Top of Khambatki before 9.45 am. Good timing so far. Ride from here to Wai is quite simple - its 20 kms of flat terrain. Just after Khambatki spotted Ashwin Trimal with his family going to Mahabaleshwar. They waved and took some photos of us and encouraged us to continue along. Stopped for a minute to say hi and thank him for the encouragement and continued along.
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| Captured by Ashwin after Khambatki |
Reached based of Pasarni around 10:40 or so. Stopped for a refuelling break here at a Cane juice stall. Bad idea. The juice was refreshing but the guy mixed some bad water in the juice. Rest of us managed it ok, but one of the riders we were with - Arjun Murali had tough time most likely due to this juice. He had some severe stomach upset end of day 1 and day 2, and had to eventually quite the ride due to this. Had some more dates and chikki at this stop and braced ourselves to face the gruelling 10-12 km of Pasarni climb. It was now 11 am and the aggressive noon target for Mahabaleshwar was not achievable, but we were still ahead of the plan. Sun had started heating up reminding me of the earlier Pasarni horror climb. This time the breaks had rejuvenated me though, so I was more confident. Kept on moving on the tough climb a pedal at a time. Main goal was to beat the 7.5 km 60 minute previous best to Harrison's Folly, and complete Pasarni upto Panchgani (10 km) in just over an hour. The views were awesome on the climb, but was in no mood to enjoy those. Kedar and Arjun had gone way ahead of me, and Rakesh was behind. The sight of Harrison's Folly still 4 km ahead was the goal. Finally reached Harrison's folly in under 49 minutes! Bested the previous attempt by 15 minutes! Though still another 3 km to go before I reached the plateau. Reached the plateau in just over 63 minutes. Done!
I had another mini to major disaster moment into the 3rd or 4th km of the climb up Pasarni. I felt a sting on my right ankle near the show and instinctively my hand went there and I shook off whatever was there. I had thought it might be some mosquito but as it turned out it was a Honeybee!! Whoa! When I saw the bee that I had just shaken off and the sting I was feeling was increasing, panicked a bit. Didnt really know what happens when a bee stings, but had heard it swells up a lot. I was having visions of DNFing at Mahabaleshwar due to the swelling in the leg! The sting was horrible, but I was climbing a gradient of 7-8% at that point, and didnt want to stop or slow down. So kept peddling and ignoring the pain in the bee sting. It kept on stinging for quite some time, but didnt swell as much as I had feared. Later I learnt that if the stinger is removed quickly from the skin, then the venom stops entering the skin and swelling is controlled. I think when I shook the bee off, the stinger must have dislodged from my skin. There was a small swelling there which had stayed stable for a couple of days. But I guess I got lucky that this didnt hamper my ride nor did it result into a DNF. Second relatively mini tending towards major disaster averted! I guess this is my lucky day after all.
The challenge now was to continue to ride along for another 20 km of rolling terrain till I reached Mahabaleshwar. Again beautiful scenery which I did enjoy a bit this time around. Red muddy soil, great valley views, nice shanty towns enroute from Panchgani to Mahabaleshwar. Had slowed down a lot in this patch though. Rakesh who was about 15 minutes behind me on the Pasarni climb in fact caught up with me near Mahabaleshwar. Crossed Arjun on the side of the road fixing his puncture. Finally was so glad to reach Mahabaleshwar control point around 1 pm. Made it well within time and within our original plan timing. Farhad was there to welcome us. Kedar had already reached there 10-15 minutes back and was waiting for us to turn up. Yes!! The toughest part of the BRM was now done. Katraj, Khambatki and Pasarni all done within the cutoff time for the control. Now only 475 kms left to go! (Whoa .. what another 475 to go after this much fatigue!! hmm .. ;-) )
The control point was just at the side of the road so no place to sit.. ate some bananas, strawberries, drank enerzal. stretched on the side of the road. And decided to move on around 1:30 pm. We were initially hoping to find a dhaba in mahabaleshwar for lunch, but didnt find anything near where we were. So we figured its all downhill to Medha - lets just reach there and we will eat. Bad choice as we later realized. Anyways after a couple of more kms of climb in Mahabaleshwar, the downhill portion started and it was simply awesome!! 15 kms of twists and turns on the continuous downhill. Was so glad that we didnt climb from this Ghat! :-) Took a photo stop on the way down ..
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| Ready to roll downhill |
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| Beautiful Mahabaleshwar |
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| On the Medha ghat downhill |
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| Kedar Joshi on the Medha downhill |
40 minutes and about 20 kms later I climbed down all the ascent I had climbed in the 2 hours from Wai to Mahabaleshwar! The road ahead was very treacherous to Medha. We were hungry, energy levels low, road condition was bad, on top of that it was a really bad rolling road. Continuous ups and downs. We finally reached Medha gaon around 2:30 or so and found a reasonably ok place. Had a misal pav and chaha to refuel. Next destination was Satara control which we had to reach before 5 pm. The rolling terrain continued, with the sun boring down on us, was quite a difficult patch. We met Mr. Arun Thipsay kaka on the way here who has done a tons of BRMs in the past in the last 4 years of his cycling career at his age of 58! Wow!
As we approached Satara control, I jokingly said to Kedar and Rakesh a thought that had stuck with me a few days before I started the ride. "At Satara, should we turn left and head back to Pune". Would have been a simpler choice as if we turned right - towards Nippani, it would have meant an additional day of cycling before we reach that point again! Turning left in turn woul dhave meant quitting the 600 BRM. Didnt have any serious thought of quitting in acutality, was meant as a joke ... but the comment had some unforeseen repercussions. Rakesh seriously started considering quitting here. Kedar eventually convinced him to continue. Lesson learnt ... jokes can be misconstrued after you are so fatigued! :) At Satara, we met Dr Dolas and a couple of other 300 BRM riders who were heading to Pune ... said our goodbyes to them and exchanged best wished before we headed on our journey.
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| A beautiful sunset around Satara on day 1 |
From here on now we were 5 of us in our group instead of the 3 we had originally started with. One takeaway from this BRM is that more the people in your group, the longer the breaks and slower the ride. As generally the speeds dont match and inevitably someone stays behind and rest have to wait. So a rule of thumb in my opinion should be ride in groups of 2 or 3, anything beyond that can be dicey. At Satara we were about 30 minutes behind our scheduled plan of reaching Nippani by midnight. We thought we could pick up pace and still manage the midnight landing. But faced some hurdles of riding in the group which slowed us down significantly. We stopped for an unscheduled stop after Satara as Thipsay kaka hadnt had any lunch yet. Now we were 1 hour behind. We picked up speed from this point on as the sun had set and mind and body were feeling fresh once again. But given we were riding in a group, pace doesnt match for all irders... so we decided to stop for one of the slower riders after every 20-30 kms. At one such halt we waited for about 30-40 minutes. 2 hours behind now. We still had hopes of reaching by 1 am and getting good 3 hours of sleep. Had dinner at Sai International at 10 pm. Then reached Kolhapur - about 30 km from there by midnight. Only 30 more to go now. Another long wait. Now the muscles were acting up as well. With every halt, my knees started paining. It took a good 10-15 minutes of riding before they warmed up enough and stopped paining. So it was getting tougher. Plus the longer we were on the road, meant lesser the sleep prospects. More frustration all around. Part of riding in a group I suppose. :-) From Kolhapur to Nippani we decided to ride together as the road goes through a reasonably lonely stretch around the Karnataka border and through some jungle.
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| 5 of us at Sai International with some stranger who wanted to take photo with us |
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| At Kolhapur ... Mi jara padato! ;-) a small rest break |
Day 2: Only 260 kms to go!
With hardly 45 minutes of lying down time, sleep was hard to come by. Was only lying down but body wasnt ready to sleep. Probably slept all of 10-15 minutes overall during this time. Got up at 4 am, had to take a cold water quick shower to get fresh as I dont think I would have been able to ride without the shower. Changed the clothes from my drop bag. Applied the Saddle sore cream Buttr liberally as since yesterday evening the saddle sores problem had started reappearing. Had a couple of laddus and peanut butter jam sandwiches and as a group we left by 4:45 am. We had decided we would keep the second day on track to our original plan at least and ride our own ride instead of getting shackled by the big group. I think 'Riding our own ride' is a big learning to keep the ride an enjoyable ride, else frustration starts creeping in.
We had to reach Sai International before 9 am else we would have missed the control deadline. We covered the 67 km distance quite rapidly. Reached Maharashtra border in double quick time, then onto Kolhapur and then onto Sai. We stopped only once for a quick snack break with whatever we were carrying as none of the hotels were open yet. The one false expectation I had from yesterday night was that it was all downhill from Nippani to Kolhapur was squashed right away though. Frm Kolhapur to Nippani rolling terrain makes you feel that we were climbing a lot and downhill was smaller. But there were quite a bit of downhills that we had actually done. So coming from Nippani to Kolhapur there were a lot of those climbs we had to do. Kolhapur to Yelur was slightly better and bit more downhill. Made it into Sai International at 8 am. So about 3 hours 10 minutes for the 67 kms ride in the morning. Not bad. This was the second toughest control to make. After this the time pressure just vanished as had to do the rest of the 200 kms in 13 hours. Way too much time left. Kedar as usual had reached 15 minutes ahead of me. Rakesh was riding really strong in this BRM compared to the previous 400 km effort. I guess the newly acquired Shwalbe marathon tires on his Fuji had increased his confidence a lot. He had reached 5-7 minutes ahead of me.
While at Sai International, sent some whatsapp messages home, the Peloton group and the Bike bros group to let them know my progress. Charged my Polar V800 for the duration of the stop. Had a hearty breakfast and took almost an hour break here till 9 am. Arjun came in around 8.30 and we were glad he made it in time, only to realize that unfortunately his stomach upset had flared up and he was completeyl dehydrated fatigued due to that and decided to give up. Poor guy ... he is an excellent and strong rider even on his hybrid. Tough luck, but am pretty sure many more successful ones to come for him ahead. Just about when we were leaving we saw Thipsay kaka pull in. He also had made it in time at the control. Kudos to all of us. Rest of the journey is a countdown from 200k.
Kedar raced ahead as usual from Sai International to Karad. I think I was quite dehydrated at this point or he was too fast. I didnt have my usual gatorade with me neither did I have enerzal. Water running out as well. I was going going at a leisurely 20-22 kmph, couldnt increase my speed beyond this. I was just counting down kms to Karad. About 10 kms from Karad stopped at a roadside shop to refuel water. Wasted almost 10 minutes there with the wait and the questions from curious onlookers. At Karad I was hoping to catch up with Kedar and Rakesh again. They were waiting for 15 minutes already. I had a thumbs up to refresh myself. Renergized again with the sugar dose. It was around 11:30 am, and Satara lunch plan seemed too distant as Satara was another 50 kms away. Luckily we found a Kamath just before we reached Umbraj. Stopped for a nice Uttappa, and Dal Khichadi. And Sol kadhi. Satisfied we left there around noon or 12:15.
The next patch was not easy at all with the sun burning down. From Umbraj to Satara - a distance of 35 kms there are a few climbs and rolling terrain. Especially the Khind climb before Satara. Before the climb entering Satara, I had to take a pit stop at a roadside Dhaba, plus needed to replenish my water supply. So took a 10 minute break. Till then I had Rakesh in my eyesight. Luckily with the break I got some cloud cover during the climb. Was able to do the climb strongly and then the downhill following was fun. Got a message from Kedar that they were waiting for me at Big Bites in Satara. Reached there at 2:15 - about 15 minutes behind Kedar, due to the earlier pit stop. Quick coffee there and on our way towards Khambatki. Kedar was going quite strong, told him to go ahead instead of waiting for us. But he being a gentleman wanted to wait for us. He could have reached a couple of hours ahead of us if he didnt wait for us!
We had planned to originally reach Khambatki by 4 pm which was about 35 kms from Satara. The patch from Satara to Khambatki has few climbs, but is mostly a boring stretch. Continued with Rakesh counting down villages from here on. Rakesh had cramps around half way to Khambatki and we had to take a 15 minute break there. Kedar reached Khambatki on schedule at 4. But we reached there by 4:40 pm. Had another Uttappa and tea. Left at 5 pm. An hour behind plan. At this rate we would probably reach Chandani Chowk by 8 pm instead of 7 pm, which was still a couple of hours ahead of the cutoff of 10 pm. Rakesh somehow missed Kedar and headed down Khambatki downhill and went ahead.
From here on out we were 70 kms from our destination. The Khambatki downhill to Shirwal was pure bliss as usual. Managed that distance of 20 kms in 40 minutes or so. At Shirwal my battery on the GPS watch and the phone ran out again. The extra USB battery pack I had was out of power as well. I had done well to recharge my phone and GPS watch on day 1, but had mismanaged it on day 2. Before the battery ran out called Sonali and asked her to come to Chandani Chowk CCD to pick me up around 8 pm as I dont think me or my bum bad the energy to ride the last 15 kms from CCD Bavdhan to home!
Was at Shirwal around 5 pm. Only 50 kms to go now, and an climb upto Katraj. The saddle sore was still troubling, but luckily no knee pain. It might come back as it got colder in the evening. But the evening cool air induced a breath of fresh air as well. Somewhere around Shirwal I saw Ramakant from Rohan Seher. He was coming back from some bird photography session with his friends. He encouraged me to hammer along. Much needed encouragement in that stretch. Also the Cymour support vehicle crossed me at this point. Yogesh and Ravi took a couple of snaps while I was riding. Nice ones.
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| Cruising along after Shirwal |
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| 550 - 560 kms into the ride .. Home stretch!! |
Finally reached CCD at 8:15 pm to awesome thunderous welcome from Sudhakar and Abhishek who had done the 300 BRM the day before! Sonali and Aryaa were also there and was greeted with warm hugs from them. An ice cream Frappe refuelling, gappa with the gang and Sonali and Aryaa. Half an hour or rest later and a photo session later, made our way home in the comfort of a really wide seat of the Jetta!! :-D
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| The 600 km Finishers - myself, Rakesh and Kedar! |
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| The Super Randonneur pose! Realized my bike was extremely heavy!! |
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| The Brevet card |
So 38 hours 15 minutes, 604 kms, 14000 calories, 5500 mtrs ascent since I started from the University, I reached back!! Made it!! 600 km BRM done and dusted. Super Randonneur title! Wow what an experience! A lifetime of memories for sure! A quest and a dream that had formed shape in October of 2014 ... which had seemed quite unreal and just a dream was now complete! I was in the elite company of the SRs from Pune. Still admire them for their tenacity to continue doing this continuously.. but I am step closer to them now. :-) Feeling quite proud.