Krishnagiri (200 Kilometer Brevet)

Date: 20 May 2017

Total distance: 200 Kilometers

Start Time: 5:30 pm 20 May 2017

Return Time:  6:30 am 21 May 2017

With: Mansukh Soni (First 100 kms), Sapna Aggarwal (Next 100 kms)

Altitude Profile:
Lavelle Road – Krishnagiri - Lavelle Road

It had been a while since I had ridden a brevet, 3 months to be precise. Had been touring and going for day rides in the past 3 months. A 200 kilometer ride was scheduled for 20 May 2017. I waited till the last minute and contemplated whether I should go for the ride. I checked with Rajkumar and he was not very positive on being able to join. On the last day for registration I decided to ride and went ahead and registered. I informed Rajkumar and he said that he would also register and decide on the day of the ride if he can join.

I made the online fee payment for the event. Rajkumar did not as he was still tentative. The day before the ride we got to know that Rajkumar's registration for the event had been cancelled as he had not made the fee payment. Rajkumar had a lot of discussions with the organisers, however, the organisers were adamant and did not allow him to ride the brevet. I was disappointed that they had not allowed him as the purpose of the event was to encourage people to ride, instead they were setting the precedent that we should be able to decide in advance about being able to ride and make the fee payment in advance.

I was keen to ride the MTB in a brevet. I was apprehensive about the tire holding up after the twin punctures on the Nandi Trail ride and wanted to change the tires. However, I decided to risk it and tested the tires by inflating the tubes the day before the ride and checked the air loss the next day. There was hardly any air loss which was an encouraging sign. I decided against changing the tires and got the MTB ready for the ride. Doubts persisted, however I knew that I had to ride it to know if the cycle would take the load and also if I could take the load.

I reached Airlines hotel at 5:15 pm. There were a lot of riders and the start formalities were yet to be completed. Knew that it would be a delayed start. However, the organisers managed to get the job done and it was only a 10 minute delay. The route briefing was given and the ride was flagged off.

As expected the traffic was heavy. I was not in a hurry and so were the other riders as well. A few riders managed to get past the signal and rode away, the rest of us got stuck but waited patiently. We followed traffic rules and rode safely out of the city. Fortunately there was not much traffic from the silk board junction to electronic city and we made brisk progress.

I was riding with Mansukh who happens to be a very fast rider on a single speed cycle. I told him to ride ahead as I knew that I could not keep pace with him on the MTB, however he was riding slow and waiting for me. I had planned to have a relaxed ride on the MTB, however with Mansukh slowing down for me I had to increase my speed. I rode as fast as the MTB allowed me to, on occasions I had to coast since I could not push for more speed. Even though I was slow for Mansukh, I was riding close to my road bike speeds on this stretch.

All the pushing resulted in reaching the Karnataka border in 90 minutes. The legs were beginning to feel the effects of the speed. However I knew that I could recover as the gradient was downhill from Hosur. In spite of pushing hard we had not caught up with any of the riders who had gone ahead. Mansukh kept asking where the other riders were and why we hadn't caught up with any. It reminded me that although we were fast we were not quick enough and it would take more time to catch up with the riders ahead.

We had a discussion before the start of the ride about the rain and had hoped that it would not rain during the ride. It was wishful thinking since the cloud cover was heavy. As we got past the border rain threat was looming large. As we went past Hosur, it became very windy. Head winds and cross winds made it very difficult to ride. It was like a confirmation that rain was imminent. I told Mansukh that we had to stop to pack the phone if the clouds open up. We had begun to catch up with the riders in front of us and speculated about how many more were ahead.

We could see the night sky being lit up by lighting in the distance. Although I hoped that the rain would hold up, or at least not rain in our route, it was very unlikely. We covered a few more kilometers and we had a few drops falling on us. Then it turned into a steady drizzle. I stopped and packed the phone by which time Mansukh had ridden ahead. The ride speed was down a little, however it helped that it was downhill and the speed was not reduced too much. It was windy and I had to pedal on the downhill's as well to keep the pace up. It began to rain heavily and I was drenched in a couple of minutes. I did not want to stop since I did not want the body to cool down which would make things very difficult as I would be freezing in the rain. I continued in the rain and rode and in a few more minutes I had water inside the shoes as the water was accumulating on the road. Water on the road meant that the speed was also effected as it added to the rolling resistance.

The sight of the first control point brought along with it good news that it had stopped raining. I did not go to the service road and stayed on the highway since I did not plan to make this a long stop. I pulled up alongside the McDonalds hotel and saw that Mansukh had reached along with 3 other riders. It was 8:15 pm. The other riders stopped for a break. I had covered 60 kilometers in 2.5 hours.

I took the selfie and started the ride. Mansukh and I were riding together again. The road was bone dry as it had not rained here at all. It took a few kilometers and I was dry. It was like I had not ridden through rain, or rather that even if I had ridden in the rain it would have been a few hours ago. Just as I was speculating that I had seen the last of the rains for the ride there was bad news in the form of lighting in the distance. It only spurred me to ride quicker and I had forgotten all about having a relaxed ride and was pushing as hard as I could.

30 minutes later we were in the rain again. It was a heavy downpour. There were puddles on the road and on most occasions the puddles were on the left. We were taking  a little bit of a risk by getting onto the right to avoid the puddles when we could. On the few occasions that puddles were on the right we were getting bathed by the vehicles passing by when they splashed the water onto us. The wind not only slowed us down, it was making me freeze as well. Kept churning the pedal, not for speed now but to keep the body warm. The advantage of churning the pedals continuously was that the distance was getting covered in spite of the rain and the wind.

As we rode through heavy rain and kept wondering when we would get dry weather we had edged close to Krishnagiri. Although we knew that we had to ride about 10 kilometers after Krishnagiri to reach the mid-point, mentally Krishnagiri was the mid-point. The last 3 kilometers to Krishnagiri took time as the rain picked up and since mentally Krishnagiri was the mid-point we had begun to relax a bit. After we crossed the Krishnagiri toll and started riding the flyovers in Krishnagiri the rain backed off a bit and the heavy downpour turned to a steady drizzle. As soon as we got past Krishnagiri the pace picked up again and in the next 15 minutes we were pulling up at Arya Bhavan hotel. Just before reaching the mid-point we had been reminded that we should ride on the left lane and not venture into the middle by a car driver. I was not too concerned as we had pulled up at the mid-point.

I saw Alok waiting for the riders. I was surprised to see Gururanjan also at the mid-point. He was volunteering and was helping Alok. We were the first to reach the mid-point and got our brevet cards signed and refilled on water. We were told that they had ordered tomato rice for the riders and it would be ready in a few minutes. They had not expected us to reach so soon and hence the order had just been placed. They had expected riders to arrive only after 30 minutes due to the rain. Alok did tell us that the tomato rice might take some time and that we could have anything else that was readily available if we did not want to wait.

I checked with the hotel staff and they said that it would take only 5 minutes and the tomato rice would be ready. We decided to wait. The 5 minute wait soon became 20 minutes and the rice had not arrived as yet. The other riders began to stream into the hotel by then. In the next 10 minutes we had about 20 riders sitting in the hotel waiting for the rice to arrive. The hotel did have other customers coming in and they were served Parotta and Dosa's before us which added to the frustration. It took 40 minutes for the tomato rice to arrive. The wait was not futile as we were served hot tomato rice freshly made and it was very tasty. The hot food warmed me up as well as I was freezing in the wet clothes.

It was 11:00 pm when we started the ride. The wait for the food had killed my desire to ride hard and I was back into the relaxed mode. 5 of us had started from the mid-point. Mansukh, Keshav, Saigiri, Sapna and me. I rode slowly and waited for the body to warm up by which time Saigiri, Mansukh and Keshav had ridden ahead. I was riding with Sapna.

As the night wore on the speed kept coming down. The drizzle was not letting up and I was reminded of the Chinese torture method of water dripping on the head. It was a similar experience when by coincidence a droplet of water would hit the head through the gaps in the helmet at regular intervals. The exciting part of the ride was the lighting which was very frequent and it looked like it was tearing the sky apart every time. I got to see all kinds of silver lines being drawn in the night sky.

Just as we hit the first climb after Krishnagiri the wind picked up and made it difficult to pedal. It was a small climb, only 1.5 kilometers but the wind was making it look like more. Even though we were done with the climb, the gradient was uphill and riding was slow. We made it close to Shoolagiri and stopped for a break. A cup of hot lemon tea for me and hazelnut coffee with french fries for Sapna and we were back on the saddle.

It was 2:00 am when we started from the Coffee Shop. In the next 15 minutes we were at Shoolagiri. The climbing was not done as yet and I knew that we had to make it to Hosur for things to ease out. The riding was slow and as the kilometers trickled by Alok and Guru passed by us and stopped and enquired if we wanted to refill on water. I was stocked on water but was hungry and was grateful for the chikki slab that I got as it was sufficient to keep me going for the rest of the ride. Sapna refilled on water and we were back on the road.

It took close to 20 minutes for us to get to Hosur. When we reached the Hosur temple turn I knew that the continuous climbing was done and that we had rolling terrain ahead. We had to ride 40 kilometers and we had 3 hours to do it. We were averaging around 12 kilometers per hour on the return till Hosur. Although it looked like we would be running the clock close, I knew that the speed would increase from here as we would have rolling terrain. The ride through Hosur was quicker than the earlier pace and we made it past the border and entered Karnataka.

The ride from the border was done at a steady pace. No significant increase in pace, but was done at a pace where the alarm bells did not start ringing on the time front. We made it back 45 minutes before the closing time.

Another brevet ticked off. I felt good as I had ridden the MTB and had managed to do a very quick 100 kilometers on the MTB. Although the finish time was the slowest that I have ridden a 200km brevet, the time is not comparable to my earlier rides as I was not pushing on the time front on the return.