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.

A caveman's holiday: The plans

Wow! Someone +1'd that last post where I'd complained about people pretending I'm a lamppost! Do I have a regular follower? Cheers, mate!
There are roughly two weeks to go before my two-week holiday starts. I'm probably, definitely, absolutely, being selfish, but I don't want to visit my parents this time. Going home would mean endless forced visits to the homes of relatives, endless interrogations about how my PhD is going (Ohmigod!!!) and when I would land a job (Soon! Soon! Now give me an effing break!), and whoosh would go in a puff of smoke any chance I had of dumping all the misery I've accumulated here. Being introverted is such a pain! (I need a hug!)
What am I going to do, then? Well...

Week 1:
A. Avoid all human contact (I AM A LAMPPOST!).
B. Ride. A lot. Like a hundred kilometers each day. I'm not the strongest rider out there, but I'm tough. I think. Or maybe it's just the immortality of youth speaking. :P
 I have the routes charted out, with the bakeries marked with little pink hearts (kidding about the pink hearts.) and will be writing about them if all goes well.
C. Walk around Bangalore. I keep hearing about these prehistoric bookshops. It'd be great to visit them and be weird all by myself!
D. No science-shmience. I probably should have studied literature, or history, or engineering. Ah, crap!
E. Maybe sit quietly in a quiet corner of a cafe and read. The list's grown long with all these Bengali writers I've been reading lately.
F. Write. Maybe. If in the mood. Unlikely. Or likely? Dunno.

Week 2:
Ditto as week 1, only point B involves my portable gymnasium (read resistance tubes) and point C happens in New Delhi. Would I be writing about Delhi? Maybe. Maybe not. Nobody reads the rubbish I spew anyway!

Next on the list: Get cracking at those final thesis requirements! Maybe being treated like a lamppost won't smart so much after the holiday.

Don't read it. Loads of misery here.

I have a superpower. I excel at listening. But when my friend tried to chat me up on how what you read impacts how well you write, a couple of weeks ago, all that kept running through my head, to my abject horror, was "Maaf kar de bhai!! Mera dimag aur mat kha!"
One and a half years of headbanging over thesis work, combined with the departmental seminar and listening to the troubles of all those people, have elevated me to that level of misery where the mere sight of a human face has started to seem intolerable. It's AHMAZING! There are manuscripts in queue, but no will to write them; experiments are planned, but executing them seems too much trouble; there's no zeal to get out on the bike and train, no ardour to crunch weights in the gym, no will to read, none whatsoever to write, attempts to make new friends result in being treated like a lamppost, it's all perfect! Juuuust perfect. I feel exactly like that lawyer who goes to live in an ancient mansion in Munger and falls in love with a ghost. It doesn't end well. (Ref. Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay)
Heck I could use a holiday! 

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!

A book I'd not read since high school: Check!

I don't need a stupid reading challenge! Half my day is spent poring over obscure crystal packing diagrams and dubious interaction parameters in tediously written research papers (got to rant about them someday); while the other half goes into plotting world domination. It's bloody hard. The hour with my Kindle before drifting off to sleep is what keeps me ticking. (Yeah, yeah, I'm a total loser.)
The checklist did one good thing, however. It got me thinking. Which book have I always wanted to pick up again in the eight millenia since I passed high school? The answer was clear as daylight- I wanted to study the three laws of robotics again.

'The Complete Robot' is about as science fiction-y as it gets, minus spectacular space battles with the pew-pew-pew, zap-zap, booms and crashes.
I can sum the book up in a single word: logical. It's brimming over with logic and delightful reasoning that titillates the scientifically inclined mind. Even more delightful, perhaps, is that the reader gets to follow the gradual evolution of  robots from children's playmates to beings possessing genius-level intellect that far surpasses that of their creators'.
I have not decided which story I like the best. 'Victory unintentional' had me chuckling to myself for one full hour. Again.
Poor Powell and Donovan deserve a special mention. I mean, almost being fried to a crisp under the cruel Sun of Mercury? Seriously? I would have quit my job the moment I got out of that fix. But these guys? They stay on; and get zapped through hyperspace to somewhere near Orion, in a spaceship packed with nothing but baked beans and milk, remotely controlled by a thinking machine with a ghastly sense of humour! Willingly! They are my heroes!
Then along comes the frigid Susan Calvin. I keep wondering how the book would have turnrd out if Asimov had not thought of her character. I don't like the conclusions I arrive at.
Overall, the book draws a wistful picture of a Utopia where the Earth is not the dying planet we know, but home to a vibrant civilisation and neatly balanced ecology. The problem of interstellar travel has been solved and possibilities of interplanetary war have been nipped in the bud; all thanks to the robots. Despite the terrible, terrible Frankenstein complex that plagues humanity throughout the book, our mechanical analogues continue to serve us selflessly, working for the betterment of life on Earth without expecting anything in return. For, thanks to the three laws of robotics, they're indistinguishable from the very best of human beings.

The taste the book left in my mouth was somewhat bittersweet. I have plodded through more than my fair share of fairy tales and fantasies, but this is the only fantasy I honestly wish were real.

P.S. I'm scrapping that idiotic reading challenge. I like the looks of the previous years' Man Booker prize shortlists a lot better. I'll read whatever the heck I want.

And rest easy, friend, this will be the last entry in my bothersome blog for some time to come. I've got to unleash my writing skills on the unsuspecting scientific community. Pity them.
<end/rant>

Electronic versions of the book are available for download and viewing if you're interested; but do yourself a favour- buy the hard copy. :)

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. :)