Turbo time? I don't have a clue how to remove the white highlights. Time to migrate to wordpress, perhaps.

“The greater the suffering, the greater the pleasure. That is nature’s payback to riders for the homage they pay her by suffering. Velvet pillows, safari parks, sunglasses; people have become woolly mice. They still have bodies that can walk for five days and four nights through a desert of snow, without food, but they accept praise for having taken a one-hour bicycle ride. ‘Good for you’. Instead of expressing their gratitude for the rain by getting wet, people walk around with umbrellas. Nature is an old lady with few friends these days, and those who wish to make use of her charms, she rewards passionately.”
A beautiful paragraph, that. So true. And it made me feel so guilty for missing the training ride today. 
I have ridden through blinding heatwaves and crushing hailstorms. It's not the physical suffering that bothers me. In fact, whenever an auto putters by, or a truck rumbles past, I give them a 20 second head start, put my head down, get on the drops, clench my abs, force myself to take slow, deep breaths and shoot after them like a bat out of hell. Man against machine, meat against metal. Often they get away, sometimes they don't. A smouldering fire slowly seeps into my legs. It's a nagging, dull ache that demands to be felt. It can't be blocked. It hurts. It hurts a lot. But I love it. I'm an endorphin junkie through and through. 
What really bothers me is that I am required to share the road with a horde of multicoloured air-conditioned tin cans running on dinosaur juice, carrying obese woolly mice with alcohol oozing out of their ears (I exaggerate, but sometimes that is how it is.). I have seen Adi Kaul's scars. Didn't like the look of them. Heading out on the highway in the half-light of a cloud-covered, drizzly dawn is not the best of ideas.
 But I don't want to lose the power that took so much pain and sacrifice to build. Time to get a turbo, perhaps?

I copied the opening paragraph from The Rider by Tim Krabbe. It is often said every cyclist worth their salt should read it. Follow this link for a review of the book and some pithy excerpts from it.

I'm a prat.

"Eeeek saw keelomeeter!" (A hundred kilometres!)

  I struggle to find my poker face. 

"Haan ji." (Yes sir.)

"Thakte nahi ho?" (Don't you feel tired?)

Ufff... bhagabaaan...  I'm usually as good as new following a half-hour nap after the Sunday torture sessions, and I stopped feeling the 50 kilometres-in-one-and-a-half-hour rides several millennia ago, but I fail to muster the will to explain that at that moment.

"Nahi ji." (No sir.)

Don't say it! Don't you bloody say it!

"Pagal ho kya?" (Are you crazy?)

My poker face instantly hardens into the Mongol cold face.

"Haan ji." (If you say so.)

A memory from the BBCh ITT swims to the front of my mind.

Distance: 22.1 km, average speed: no idea, average cadence: 89 rpm, heart rate: 87% of max. HR

I shoot past the rider on the Scott Speedster, relishing the resistance the headwind offers. This has to be the twentieth rider I have crossed after I started.

"Come on, man, give me a fight!"

He scrabbles to get ahead of me, and fades.

I sigh.

 Distance: 22.9 km, average speed: still haven't got the foggiest idea, average cadence: 88 rpm, heart rate: 84% of max. HR

"Yaddayaddayadda-where-the-deuce-did-I-leave-my-God-Mode-at?"

I hover on the edge of death by boredom.

Distance: 23.9 km, average speed: I just don't care anymore, average cadence:  I just don't care anymore, heart rate: I just don't care anymore.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? SPEED UP!"

I almost jump out of my skin.

"You have got to be kidding me."

Warmth floods back into my legs as I zoom after Vinesh.

"Not fair!", he laughs. "Not drafting you!" I holler back as we both rev our engines.

Finish line.

"Awesome ride, man!" Vinesh yells at me. I clap him on the back. "Not nearly as awesome as yours!" 

We're buddies. Instantly.

It's amazing how "Brilliant ride!", "That's a beautiful bike!","That was well-written!", "What're you reading now?" get you rolling with people. It's even more amazing how these individuals invariably turn out to be absolute gems! :)
 It's a treat, watching people light up when they chatter away about things they're besotted with. It's a treat to have a flat stomach, to have your heart beat at 48 bpm, to rocket around Delhi for twelve hours a day, for one full week, without ever feeling any kind of fatigue, to be able to climb Yercaud at 45 degrees and live to tell the tale, to be able to lift yourself out of depression and get back to work when nothing seems to go your way. I'm a prat for riding my bike. Certainly. :)

Yercaud boot camp: Day 2

 It was sooo cool and cosy. I had no body, no limbs. There was only a fuzzy sense of existence, like I was floating on water. But shouldn't it be a little darker outside?

"AAARRRGH!!!!!"

8 o'clock! 8 bloody o' clock!! 

Yercaud was going to flambé us to hell today.

I had been very conservative on the descent the preceding day, my skills having rusted on account of not being within 10 kilometres of a hill since the July of 2015. I started today' s descent to Kupanoor the same way, in Scaredy Cat Mode, through a narrow forest-covered road flanked by a valley on the left and a sheer, green wall of rock on the right. The corners were tight and technical, the grades a lot steeper than the day before. One glance at the left was enough to tell me what one small mistake might cost.

"Wow! That's a long way down!"

After following Lee for about four kilometres, something clicked.

The world moved in slow motion as a deathly calm stole over me. All I saw, felt and heard were the road, the road and the road. No conscious thought was necessary as my body settled into the rhythm of the corners, as if I had been doing it for years. 
"Six-lean-turn"
I had gained thirty metres.
"Six-lean-turn"
Fifty metres.
"Six-lean-turn"
I could no longer see any of the others, and no sir, I was not going to wait. The thrill of hurtling down that slender, sun-drenched pass had gone straight to my head.

"Sage Mode: Unlocked!"

Kupanoor was incredibly beautiful and bore an uncanny resemblance to the inside of the hot-air oven in my lab.

Meesa scared.

The size of the mountain that loomed over us caught me off-guard.

"Whoa! We're climbing THAT?"

I was a little scared, to be honest, especially given my record as a climber. But I'd fired a maha-dialogue at a lady friend, a few days ago, about how cyclists are tough as nails and tenacious as lobsters; and it was partly that and rule 5 combined and the mere fact that that hill was one hardcore *insert swearword* that made me hit it hard. I'm a badass. Period.

"Two hours of agony, a lifetime of bragging rights!" was my motto that day.

Twig-man Leander prepping to eat the hill for lunch. :)

It was beyond agony. There was the heat and the pitiless sun that made me feel like I had second degree burns all over my body, there was the dehydration that made my mouth go dry in minutes, there was the boiling water in my bottles that did nothing to soothe my parched throat. There was the solitude that crushed my morale to a squelchy, gooey pulp. And then there were the worst of them all, the gradients that brought back, in a murky brown rush, all the excruciating memories of the 170 kg leg-presses at the gym. That crawl, up the tortuous grey slopes of that wild mountain, taught me new meanings of the word 'pain'.

We suffered like hell, but we were insanely happy. That's Leander on the left, followed by Ankit, Sourav and yours truly.

Here's my ride data on Strava. I'd planned to do it at SST again, but my heart rate simply refused to go up! 

Follow this link for an account of what we did on Day 1. This trip was a total success, as I surmised from the hand-clasp Sourav gave me and by the looks of how excited Leander was. Ankit took a wrong turn and had a lot more fun riding away at top-speed from a drunken man who wanted to test-ride his bike and, later, from a bull that I think wanted to test-ride HIM.

I felt a little sad while descending towards Salem for our bus back home, but I could not have asked for a better start to my holidays.

I'll return to the hill someday when it's a little cooler. And not just for riding. It'd be great to stroll down the road, find the spots where the views are the most magnificent, and just sit there quietly. There's Heaven right there in all its resplendent glory. :)

Here are some photos and  a video from the day.

Yercaud boot camp: Day 1

I'm not a climber. I'm fat, my bike weighs a ton, and it has a huge-ass crankset attached which I can barely churn at 100 rpm on a flat road. But I guess I have suicidal tendencies, because when Sourav came up with the idea of attacking the two Hors Categorie climbs at Yercaud (A HC climb in the summer heat of Tamil Nadu can easily qualify as one of the most brutal methods of destroying your heart, lungs, legs and mind.), the first reaction I had was:

"When do we start?"

The when turned out to be at 3:15 a.m. on the 19th of March, which coincided beautifully with the beginning of my two-week exile from the lab (Boohoo! I'm weeping! NOOOTTT! I'm finally on a vacation!) Ankit turned up at the bus station bang on time, but where was our twig-man with the Dura-Ace Di2?

We called and messaged and swore and stamped our feet (almost), but there was no sign of life on the other side.

 "LEANDER WHEATLEY, YOU'RE DEAD TO US!!"

Well, not so dead. He woke up the following morning, realised (with horror, I hope.) that he'd kept his phone on silent mode, profusely apologised to us, called his girlfriend to a snappish "WHAT ARE YOU CALLING ME FOR? GO GET ON THE NEXT BUS!!", and did as he was 'advised' (Lee, you lucky dog, you! *sniff*). All the better, since Ankit, Sourav and I could use the time it took him to get to Yercaud to squeeze in some extra hours of sleep. I had stayed awake the preceding night following a nearly popped vein in my brain, thanks to the bus conductor demanding 6000 rupees for the transport of our three bikes (He'd actually meant 600 but jumbled up the hundred and the thousand in translation. He can't have been all that bright at school! Whoof!)

I had had a good look at the Salem-Yercaud climb from the auto to our guest house and, frankly, I was already in love with what I saw. My 'skill' at prose is insufficient to describe it, and I couldn't possibly compose any form of poetry to save my life, so I'll let the photos and videos do the speaking for me. 

To be perfectly honest, you have to be there physically to feel the majesty of what lay before our eyes. The inadequacy of my vocabulary keeps grating against my ego.
The descent to Salem from Yercaud was exhilarating beyond anything I had ever experienced before, but there would be a steep price to be paid afterwards. :)

We began climbing back to Yercaud latish in the afternoon. I felt like I was being slowly roasted on a spit (Recall Bibhutibhushan's description of an African summer in 'Chander Pahar'. Imagine the boiler room of a steam ship if you can't.). I could see Sourav and Lee about 500 metres ahead of me for eight kilometres, after which they were swallowed up by the folds of the switchbacks. I was now alone in my battle against gravity. Ankit was locked in his own struggle somewhere behind me. The heat was incredible. The water in my bidons had become scalding hot. Small sips followed by tiny squirts over my neck at regular intervals kept me going.

"Should I engage God Mode?" (I've described my God Mode elsewhere. It wipes my mind blank and brings my feeling of pain down to a minimum.)

I toyed with the idea for a while, and took a good, long look around me.

"Maybe not."

I'd be doing a great injustice to the place if I fled within myself to escape the pain. So, amidst that heaven of craggy hills, refreshing verdure and sloping grey tarmac, fully aware of my screaming legs and burning chest, I climbed on.

Follow this link for an account of our shenanigans on Day 2. It was a lot harder and a lot more rewarding.  My apologies for the histrionics. I've been reading classics lately.

Here's my ride data on Strava. I rode at the sweet spot of my power output, with occasional bursts on the hairpins. I'm happy that I never stopped, never panicked when half a dozen dogs gave chase, and especially that I never cramped. I HAVE gotten a lot stronger. :)

Follow this link for some photos from the day. There are some more videos (uncut and unabridged; pitifully short on time.) on my YouTube channel.

A thousand deaths

I am a simple man. I see a good road bike, I drool. So when I saw the notification about the BAR 20 km Individual Time Trial (No team support, no protection from the wind, it's only you against the clock.) on the Manchanabele Machas facebook page (out of the friggin' blue, as usual.), there was no dilly-dallying the decision. Even the elevation profile of the course was not going to keep me away from the race.

March 13, 7:10 a.m. Distance: 0 km, Average speed: 0 kmph

 I took my position behind Demon Duggal, fighting a nervous breakdown at the sight of the veins bulging out of his ginormous calves, and consoling myself that at least I didn't have a pink ball with a smiley face dangling from my saddle. He said something about it being a lucky charm from someone (Presumably his girlfriend. I'm the only loser around here, apparently.), or something to that effect. My apologies to the dude, but it looked seriously funny.

7:12 a.m. Distance: 0.5 km, Average speed: 40 kmph

I pushed off into the block headwind rolling over the grey expanse of the road, still chuckling at the memory of Duggal's lucky charm and at Akshat's plan to pace himself using me as a reference. 

"Bad choice, mate!"

I had the most elementary of plans- get on the bike, watch the distance and hammer till I puke. Shrewd pacing strategies are simply a waste on someone with my weekly training volume.

7:20 a.m. Distance: 6.2 km, Average speed: 36.5 kmph

"What the...!!"

I watched with desperation bordering on panic as Ronny slowly went past, apparently without breaking a sweat. I bit down on my tongue (hard!) and started clawing my way back to him, but my heart rate was telling me I could not sustain this power for more than five more minutes. That left me with two choices- maintain a constant gap with Ronny without drafting him (I was not going to cheat!) and blow up within the next ten minutes, or slither back down to my threshold power level and finish the race. It stank. All of it.

"MAN I got to get stronger!" (But there's no time to train! *sighs*)

Only consolation (read excuse): the guy's Belgian! 

Meme credit: Manchanabele Machas

7:27 a.m. Distance: 9.1 km, Average speed: 33.4 kmph

"AHMAHGAWD-where-the-heck-is-that-bleddy-service-road-grrrrrr-I-hate-you-lactic-acid!!"

7:28 a.m. Distance: 10 km, Average speed: 33.2 kmph

"Oiii speed up speed up!" I heard, or rather I thought I heard Akshat yell as he crossed me at the U-turn. It was time.

"God Mode: Engage!"

(My personal God Mode does not give me super-strength, but brings my situational awareness down to only the bare minimum required not to smash into anything or fly off the road. The results are a blank mind and almost zero pain. It usually requires a reference point to focus on to, and lasts for about an hour in a TT effort. There are other names for it like digging deep and HTFU, but I think God Mode sounds a lot cooler.)

The return leg was a blur, thanks to God Mode. I vaguely remember zipping past some other racers; drawing level with a mini-truck and leaving it behind, sprinting whenever my God Mode nexus (Akshat's back) threatened to build up a gap greater than a hundred meters, and WHOA! I was at the finish line! 

"What? Already?"

I got the shock of my life while comparing Ronny's ride data with my own. The bugger clocked an average speed of 39.7 kmph at an average heart rate of 150 bpm; while I died a thousand deaths, heart rate hovering around 177 bpm, to crawl through the 20 km course at 35.3 kmph. Heck, where do I stand in terms of fitness?   

Nevertheless, my last season of racing in Bangalore has been a lot of fun so far, and here's a picture of me in God Mode at the finish line. Heh! Uncool as always. This is starting to get tragic.

Stiff as a board....

Amazing photo, right? Believe me, it's even more amazing to be in the thick of the action. Throw in the faint hum of the tyres on the tarmac, diced up by the roar of the wind in your ears; add to it the flowing rhythm of the paceline, simmered with a splash of adrenaline, and boom! The result is beyond compare.
Well, the ecstasy was rather short-lived for me that day, owing to my spectacular six-foot shoulder-slide in a tangle of limbs, metal and embarrassment. I was embarrassed, yes. Hurt, yes. But not afraid. There's something about the camaraderie of the road that keeps you from being afraid. Crashes happen! When they do, you merely scrape yourself off the road, shoot a sardonic glance at the strips of missing skin, gingerly probe the bruised ribs, grit your teeth, tell yourself to harden the f***k up and ride back 60 kilometers in a haze of pain. A new contusion announces itself every  bleeding hour, the following morning arrives with a fanfare of pops, groans and muttered oaths of "Never again!". But what the hell! You get rolling the very next day, a little more careful, a lot wiser.That's all there's to it!
Quitting the sport is not really an option. There's too much happiness out there.

Back to science-induced blogging hibernation. And however tough I may act now, I'm reluctant to race until I've submitted my thesis. That tetanus shot hurt worse than the crash!

I AM A MONSTAH!! :P

7:15 a.m.
"Easy stretch, Shaunak. PULL!!" I heard Phani yell from somewhere behind me. I felt like chucking my bottle at his head. I was already doing 42 kmph.
"How much faster does the dude want to go?"

7:25 a.m.
My legs were on fire. I hated this ramp, hated the fact that I weigh 68 damned kilos, hated the GPS meekly showing my heart doing 180 bpm, and I especially hated the Velominati and their goddamned rule 5.

7:28 a.m.
"Oh, no, no, no, not AGAIN!!"
I watched glumly as Phani and Pavan slowly pulled away. My legs were empty.
I slowed down a tad and began my search.

7: 35 a.m.
"Picture abhi baki hai mere dost!" I cackled, neatly inserting myself into the slipstream of the huge, lumbering truck.
"Whoa! It's a lot faster than it looks!"

7:55 a.m.
"Fooooood!!!!" 
I dug into the idlis with all the ferocity of a starving wolf. Getting dropped formed no part of my plan for the ride back from Nandi Upachar, with my guns seeming to have loaded up again while motorpacing that truck.
"If only I manage to stay on their wheels till that ramp..."

8:15 a.m.
"Yes!!!"
I punched the air as Phani eased up the pace a hundred meters from the toll plaza. I'd stuck to his rear wheel like a stubborn wad of chewing gum. Chortling, I accelerated to 35 kmph for my turn at the front. My legs were burning, but it was nothing I couldn't handle.

8:30 a.m.
I cursed under my breath as Phani signaled for cover on the Decathlon Anubhaba ramp.
This was a sprint if I had ever smelled one.

8:31 a.m.
"I want to slap him when he does that!" Pavan grumbled. Neither of us had responded to Phani shooting past us, cackling like a poltergeist, in an explosion of speed.
I roared with laughter as I swung into his draft.
"Give me another two months, and you'd want to slap me as well!"

8:50 a.m.
I whooped as I rolled to a halt at the base of the flyover at Hebbal. I'd stuck with the monsters all the way through, and the GPS showed an average speed of 35.7 kmph!
"Wait! Doesn't that make me a monster as well?"
 From Pavan's grim assertion that he'll take no more shit from me and the thumps on the back from Phani, HELL YEAH!! :D

I'll ask the question again, what's the best thing about road biking? I had left it hanging last time without providing a solid opinion of my own. I had not known back then what gave ME the high. After the ride last Sunday, I think I know. :)

The memories...

Some time in late 1999...
This was just about how I felt as I extricated myself from the drain. The very next moment I was  hopping on one foot, trying my utmost to to swallow the lump in my throat as angry tears forced their way through. Aiming that kick at that old steel beast of a bicycle had not been a smart move. 

The next day...
The 'half-pedal' technique looked like a lot of fun, but apparently I had neither the talent nor any of the guts that these boys do! Attempting it on my Photon had given me a spectacular set of bruises.

"Alright, one last shot."
I clambered on to the saddle and tensed for the pain as my father gave the bike a push. I could almost taste the hard asphalt on my knee as I wobbled precariously towards the dirt path sloping down into the football ground on the right. If I HAD to land flat on my face, I would rather do it on the grass. I placed my feet firmly on the pedals and...
"Wheeeeee......" 
Words fail me here. How am I supposed to describe something as wonderful as that? It was something close to flying, the wind rushing in my ears, through my hair, over the throbbing welts on my knees and elbows; to an eight-year-old boy, it was nothing short of a miracle! I tried to turn the handlebar and... SPLAT! The grass rushed up to greet my face with all the grace of solid concrete. That stank, but I just could not stop grinning! The beast had been tamed. 

2000-2011
In the following eight years, I had graduated from the narrow, short lane our house overlooked to the  broader and busier roads that led to my school and to the homes of my various tutors at the various ends of the town. It had taken a considerable amount of ingenuity on my part to wheedle the permission out of my mother, mind you. (Weave your way through the traffic of Burdwan for eight years, and you would never need to work on your bike-handling skills again. You can take my word for it.) But despite the speed limit of 5 kilometers per hour and the distance limit of 4 kilometers imposed on me, I had sneaked to the outskirts of the town enough times and breathed in enough fresh air to sorely miss the bike during my three years in college... until when it came back to me at Bangalore.

January 2013
I huffed, puffed and heaved on the pedals of my Schwinn Sporterra. The three of us had managed to reach only the edge of Kanakpura after five hours of riding. The Bheemeswari fishing camp was still a mind-numbing 50 km away. The sun was merciless, the gradients unrelenting; the straps of my backpack were cutting into my shoulders. "Why was I doing this? I could be chilling at home playing video games or something!"

We took a pitstop just outside Kanakpura. That's me on the left. I definitely look happier than I felt. It was a dumb idea to carry such huge backpacks, as we found out to our cost!

I could barely move by the time we rolled into Kanakpura. My T-shirt clung to the front of my torso, the outline of a massive white crust just starting to make itself visible. I could see white streaks on the sun-browned faces of my two friends, and realised my own face could not have looked much better. We stopped at the first baker's we could find on the side of the road and shakily pointed at a couple of cakes and a large can of Red Bull energy drink. THAT-WAS-THE-BEST-MEAL-EVER!! Did it help? Hell yeah!

The Red Bull effect!

 I felt no pain in the following 40 kilometers, but only a numb sense of euphoria. The views helped, too!

 

Our second pitstop was 10 kilometers from our destination. How could we not take a moment to absorb the enormity of this stunning vista? I cannot recall exactly how I felt when we crawled into the fishing camp an hour later. The world was a haze; all I wanted to do was drop everything, go to sleep  and not wake up even if the apocalypse chose that day to arrive. But sleep had to wait.

My legs quivered like a newborn kitten as I lowered myself into the freezing current of the Kaveri. I relaxed and floated on my back, feeling the lively thrum of the river as it washed over me. I closed my eyes. Time stopped.

THIS, ladies and gentlemen, was what we had been carrying on our backs. It had been a proper demented murder on the shoulders, but it added the finishing touches to our great adventure. Sometimes even I have a hard time believing we had  managed to pull it off.

All the pains of the journey were forgotten when we woke up to this the following morning. Every bit of that suffering had been worth it, just to see the sun rise over the Kaveri. Four hours after this photo was taken, we hitched a lift on a Bangalore-bound truck at Kanakpura and came back, nursing severe sunburns and terribly aching legs. But we had realised that the limits lay only within our own minds. We had suffered like never before, but we would jump at the very next chance of doing it all over again!

The Bheemeswari sufferfest, as it turned out, was to be the first of our many adventures. The last two years have been rather eventful.

I fell in love with this beautiful machine the instant I set my eyes upon it! It has been a faithful companion through several brevets and numerous other century rides. And yes, the painful rite of skinning knees was duly performed when the shift was made to clipless pedals. This bike is the cause I am a Strava junkie now.

As someone who likes to spend a lot of time in the TT-tuck, I regularly smash up my mother's distance and speed limits these days (I don't tell her! I would much appreciate it if you did not, either!). I have lost count of  how many times I have struggled up that accursed hillock past Devanahalli with my mates. The BBCh races are next on the bucketlist.   

I also hold a record for having a higher number of flats than anyone I know! Could be plain bad luck, or something could be wrong with my tyres. Any advices?   

And to top it all, we IISc peeps even have our own jersey now!

Riding can become suffering in its purest form when done with a fitter and faster group of people. You can only marvel at how fast your childlike joy can mutate into paralysing horror when you are stuck with a swarm of gym rats and Peter Sagan wannabes. But what makes it all worth it, is the rare chance you are offered to find out how much pain you can actually take. (Remember the rules!!) And of course as side-benefits you get to take photos like these,

and show off your tan lines (a badge of honour) and have awesome recovery drinks aaand offer a legitimate excuse for shaving your legs!
I am really glad the bike came into my life when it did!

Pilgrimage on race day.

What's the best thing about road biking? The wind in the hair (What a load of baloney! Wear a  helmet for Heaven's sake!)? The thrill of the descent?  Parading around dressed like a vacuum packed sandwich despite your age and constitution?  Or is it simply the sadistic pleasure of dishing out some pain?
   Ask this of the 100-odd riders who showed up for the Nandi epic race on the 19th of July, and I am sure all of them would have a different thing to say. But I can tell you with all my supremely annoying self-assurance that they all have one thing in common-  they are gluttons for punishment down to the last weedy chap, intrepid hardasses that in spite of knowing in full what the last BBCh race of the season has in store for them, are capable of looking like children about to rip the wrappings off their birthday gifts.

 
7:15 a.m.
I noticed a tiny kid of six years take his position beside the MAMILs and YMILs and felt a sharp stab of regret at not having registered for the race. The look of focus on his face was identical to this little girl's. "Oh no you ain't getting away this time, Peter!" Priceless! :)

  "Maybe there is some hope for us after all..." I thought with a chuckle.

8:15 a.m.
  I leaned my bike against the Nandi arch, wiping sweat off my sunglasses and reaching for the banana in my pocket. It never gets easier, and I did not seem to be getting much faster either. However, the climb through the thick cloud cover over the last three kilometers had been something else!

"They would probably be past the U-turn by now."

8:45 a.m.
"Brrrrrr...."

9:15 a.m.
I regretted my decision the instant I hit Nandi 2 for the second time, but I was deliciously warm and sweaty again.
"Definitely better than freezing to death! "
I could hear a car coming up from behind.
"Faizan!"
Whoever was leading the race had to be on the climb right now! Anxious not to get in the way, I slowed down and veered to the side of the road.Sure enough, five minutes later, a scrawny and bespectacled boy from the Giant sponsored team from Chennai effortlessly danced past me. He would go on to win the race in the amateur category by over two minutes.
"Now where has Phani gotten himself to?"
There he was, with a minuscule U-18 fighting hard to hold on to his wheel. One look at his face, and I knew the whole story.
"Now THAT'S what I call a mask of pain."

Need I say more?
He would shake the U-18 off his tail at the last corner to take his third podium finish of the season, at second place behind the twig-man from Chennai. Well done, mate!

All of this, the blood, the sweat and the agony, the gritted teeth, the contorted faces, the fights through the red haze of pain, THE RULES, and above all the community of determined badasses- all embody the things that are amazing about racing a bike. Oh, and the outdoors, too! I mean, how can you not want to ride with the knowledge that you could be exploring places that look like this?

 Or even begin to appreciate Froomey putting the hammer down if you don't ride yourself?

And last but not least, Kapil saar, you're my main man! Thanks for the lift!! :)

P.S. The three best things about riding a bike, in my personal opinion-
1. Casually lifting the sleeves of my T-shirt and marvelling at how quickly people's eyes grow to the size of dinner plates on seeing my tan lines. It's ten times funnier when done at home.
2. The recovery drink (Fruit juice! Fruit juice!).
3. The license to shave my legs with impunity (Cold water running over bare skin= Heaven. You should try it.).

Sufferfest

It was cold and slightly breezy, but I had sweat streaming down my face into my eyes and my mouth. The hoods, slippery from the long contact with my moist palms, compromised my grip. I could have kicked myself for not wearing gloves. At least I had had the sense of wearing the full-zip jersey, the absence of the wind cooling my core would have guaranteed a stop long before. I was already at the steepest hairpin, heart doing 190 bpm- well over three times the resting rate of 56, and incredibly, I felt strong.enough to rise out of the saddle and push. I was not going to stop. Not today. It was only 27 minutes into the climb with one km  to go. I was looking at something around 30 minutes if I could keep it up a little longer. 'The boys are going to be surprised', I thought with a chuckle. Only two of them have done the climb in less than half an hour! I swerved along the wider curve of the road, where the rise in the gradient was slightly gentler, so that it would be easier to survive. The gradient was around 16% here, and even with all the strength of my legs, my pace threatened to drop below 10 kph. It had better end soon- my chest was starting to hurt a little. I struggled up the ramp to the next hairpin and miraculously, it became easier to push. I had forgotten that the incline was less punishing here. The bike sped up explosively, allowing me to slacken my muscles and recover. I turned up the power on the next curve and saw Rishav hurtling down from the other direction. His surprise was obvious from the way his eyes widened on seeing me. I tried to smile back, but couldn't manage anything more than a grimace. The watch showed 29 minutes, and I put on another burst of acceleration. The top of the climb could not be far. I had to take the next curve smartly if I were not to lose speed. I swerved, and time stopped! There was the gate right there, standing serenely just 20 metres away, and the watch showed  30 minutes and 5 seconds! For the next 15 glorious seconds it took to roll through the gates onto the gravel within, I was Chris Froome, Alberto Contador and Nairo Quintana all rolled into one. This was my best climb timing ever, better than most of the others! I unclipped and sat down on the top tube. The effort had been colossal and I recognised the first signs of bonking. Not eating anything substantial before starting and riding at a blazing 34 kph to the Nandi foothills was going to cost me dearly on the way back. I had already exhausted all my glycogen reserves. But I was not going to let the thoughts of the suffering to come spoil my moment. Not. At. All. I emptied the contents of one of my bottles on my head and grinned involuntarily as memories came back of the looks of open-mouthed astonishment on the faces of the college kids at seeing me zipping past at 20 kph doing the Contador dance on those slopes, the words of comfort and encouragement from the descending riders; and the euphoria I felt at finally being able to do those speeds on the hardest climb around Bangalore. At that moment, slumped on the handlebars and waiting for the chest pain to subside, I understood completely, for the first time, what Patrick Brady meant in The Seduction of Suffering ( http://pelotonmagazine.com/pages/from-inside-peloton-the-seduction-of-suffering/ ).
Pushing your limits transforms every aspect of you and steels your resolve in the strangest of ways. The trait that is the most obviously common to ALL of my fellow riders is an utter, absolute refusal to give up, be it on a punishing ride or in anything they do. I do not know if I possess that particular ability, but I most certainly would like to.

Nandi race.

I have been wanting to see a real bike race from up close since for ever and ever; so when the opportunity presented itself in the form of an invite from Naveen John, of the Specialized Kynkyny Cycling Team, to participate in the Nandi Epic 100K, I thought I might as well turn up for the party. To be perfectly honest, I had some fairly strong misgivings about actually PARTICIPATING in the race, having ridden some distance with the SKCT (super)men on Airport road only a couple of weeks ago, and doing a Nandi 2X seemed to be a more inviting prospect than trying to keep up with the peloton. I have very realistic views about my capabilities as a rider- I am no racer by a long shot, the only thing I can do is not fall off the saddle after a multiple-hundred  on the bike. But some lengthy councils of war on Ghost Riders had me fully charged with adrenaline and it was with some excitement that I clipped in on Sunday. 

  We started from campus a little later than I would have liked, but I had had the opportunity to squeeze in a few extra minutes of sleep- a rare treat with the ongoing schedule- and felt fresh and confident as we hit Airport road. Vijay had missed out because of a blocked throat- I rather thought he sounded like a gramophone record playing in slow motion- and Rishav was supposed to meet us at a spot around 17 km from campus. We missed the rendezvous by several minutes, and I knew as the distinctive shape of Rishav's helmet bobbed into view that with still around 15 km to go, we would make it to the start point by the skin of our teeth, if at all. Still acclimatising to my new Zaffiros- the transition from the old Pro Slick tyres has not been pleasant- and felt the frustration start to bubble as I punched it to keep up with my mates. At this rate, I was sure I would be dropped from the peloton before even five kilometers had passed. Anyway, I am a brevet rider through and through, and I was not going to let the opportunity to practise for the Master BRM next Saturday slip through my fingers. The weather was perfect for riding- clear blue skies with scattered white clouds and a gentle breeze now and then.The roads were beautifully dry with good traction. Corners would not be too tricky. Even if I dropped out of the bunch early, I most certainly was going to enjoy today. I felt the excitement mount as we crossed the toll plazas near the airport and noted with a grimace that it was already time for flag-off. We would not have much time to get organised.
  Sure enough, I saw the riders kick off immediately as we drew up to the start point, and realised that there was no time to stop and recover. I saw NJ pull away on his gray Tarmac and Sourav start to punch it out of the saddle as the peloton started rolling at speeds I would not have believed possible unless I had seen them with my own eyes. Phani was nowhere to be seen. Underestimating the speeds at which the racers would start was the mistake that cost me the chance to ride with them even for a short distance. I started sprinting out of the saddle as soon as I realised what was going to happen, and watched with a feeling close to utter helplessness as the racers drew away slowly but inexorably. By the time I had reached the Nandi crossing, the peloton was a distant shadow on the horizon and within two more minutes, they had vanished out of sight  Heart pounding and feeling slightly crestfallen, I settled back into the saddle and dropped into a steady pace I could maintain all day. I was not here to win, so I might as well enjoy the views. The slower riders were spread over a long distance behind the peloton and were mostly riding alone, a mistake, in my opinion, because the gentle breeze I had been feeling on the way to the start point had by that time swollen into something resembling a solid but invisible wall, with abrupt changes in direction that made me struggle to keep my front wheel steady. The sleep of previous night had helped, and I enjoyed the fight against the wind to get ahead of the stragglers, keeping an eye out for someone I could share the work with. Sadly nobody seemed willing to ride in a paceline! I had a guy on a red Bianchi tailing me for several kilometers through some huge climbs and descents, but he seemed reluctant to return the favour. I exchanged a few words with a guy on a touring bike and started tailing a man on a Suncross. Apparently he was from Kerala and was finding the rolling terrain and the strong headwinds hard to cope with.He dropped out behind me after a while. The day was bright and sunny, and the views were stunning, several small mountains looming in the distance on the left side amid lush greenery. We would have been able to cover more kilometers in a much shorter time if not for the headwinds. Although there was not much fatigue, I had to eat every 20 kilometers and keep taking a gulp of water every 10 to keep going at the same pace. However, I could feel myself becoming dehydrated at an alarming rate, and fantasies of a good, solid breakfast kept nagging at the back of my mind. I just wanted to finish the route and be done with it. The peloton charging past like a herd of bull elephants  5 kilometers before the U-turn did nothing to cheer me up, but the prospects of the climbs I was going to face just after cornering at the U-turn soon drove everything else from my mind. The climbs were not too much of a trouble, but by this time I was down to my last banana and 100 ml of water, which were soon gone. The winds were not helpful. A particularly strong gust of crosswinds almost drove me into another rider, momentarily giving me the unreal sensation of cornering while going straight. It was as if the wheels were going to be knocked out from under me. I suppressed a chuckle as an image of Sourav flying on the winds swam to the front of my mind, and kept hammering on.
  3 hours from the start, absolutely famished ( I do not have enough fat to burn in emergencies now!) and dehydrated, I rolled through the Nandi crossing, hopeful that I would be able to pick up the pace now that the Nandi hills might block the winds. I waved at a couple of riders as I passed them, rose out of the saddle,  and AAAARGH!! A sharp, searing pain shot through my left leg like a flash of lightning. The quadriceps had cramped. I pressed on, but soon the calf of the same leg had started to scream in protest. I most definitely could not climb Nandi like this. Stopping at the base of the climb seemed like a good idea, and I decided to do just that. I met Rishav at the base after sometime ( For reasons I could not fathom, he had decided to descend just before the final kilometer.) and hung around till the prize distributions. Phani had climbed to the top with cramps on both legs and seemed unable to walk (Bad position of the cleats? ). That really put my suffering on perspective. Maybe I ought to take the HTFU rule more seriously. Anyway, plenty of chances to work on that in the coming Master BRM. Can't wait!
Although I did not finish the race route, I thoroughly enjoyed the views on the Hyderabad highway and experienced some tough riding conditions. The headwinds and crosswinds, especially, combined with the impossibly rolling contours of the route, made it all worth it. I do wish I were a stronger rider, though.