Palamaner (300 Kilometer Brevet)
Date: 14 May 2016
Total distance: 303 Kilometers
Start Time: 3:00 pm
Return Time: 9:20 am
With: -
Altitude Profile:
Lavelle Road – Palamaner – Lavelle Road
Bangalore Randonneurs are organizing the 300 kilometer brevet ride, Bangalore – Palamaner - Bangalore on 14 May 2016. After completing the 200 kilometer brevet, this was the next ride that I was looking forward to. The route was Bangalore - Palamaner - Bangalore, a route which I have not done, more than not done it is a route on which I have not covered any part so there is no knowledge about what to expect on this route. I have gone to Kolar, however, that was through Chikka Tirupathi - Malur and not on Old Madras Road. The ride is going to be on the Old Madras Road all through.
I have not made any preparation for this ride. It's just been office commute on a daily basis for 2 weeks covering 14 kilometers every day. I have covered 300 km in a day when I did the ride to Mysore, however, I did not complete that route within the brevet time limit of 20 hours. I have my doubts and am relying on mental preparation this time. Theoretically, I should be able to do this ride in 15 hours with about 2 hours of rest amounting to a total time of 17 hours. I am quietly confident of being able to do it.
The day before the ride, I was getting the cycle ready when I noticed that a spoke on the back wheel was very loose. I did not want to try to fix it by myself and instead took the cycle to RR cycles where they trued the wheel. I had heard that the spokes need to be tightened on a regular basis, however, I had not encountered it till now. This was my first experience with the spokes and I was relieved that I had noticed it before the ride and not during the ride.
The day of the ride is on me, I want to avoid the back pack for this ride and so going light on the snacks and accessories. Will be trying to fit everything into the handle bar bag and the saddle pouch. 2 spare tubes, first aid kit, 8 AAA batteries, 3 AA batteries, 5 snickers, 5 Electral sachets, Wi Fi dongle, Power Bank and Phone were fit into the handle bar bag. The Saddle pouch had the puncture repair kit and tool kit. I had managed to avoid the back pack. Stuffed the reflective vest into the track pant pocket and left for the starting point.
As we started the ride, the first thing that we encountered was a traffic jam on St Marks Road and MG Road. As we were on cycles, we squeezed and weaved our way out without losing too much time and ran into more traffic on Old Madras Road. The traffic signals was getting irritating since I had to stop and restart the ride. As soon as I made it past the KR Puram flyover, I encountered flyover after flyover; by the time I made it out of city limits it was well beyond 4. As soon as I made it out of the city, I ran straight into a very strong head wind which automatically slowed things down. Since it was going to be a general downward gradient during the first half of the ride, I had expected to do speeds in excess of 30 kmph, however the head winds took its toll and I was barely able to keep the speed above 20 kmph.
My exit from the city was slow and I had been left behind by the fellow riders. As I approached Hoskote, I began to see a few riders who were beginning to fall off the pace. This was encouraging as I knew that I was not the only one who was struggling. As I passed a few, a few late starters caught up with me and passed me. I tried to keep pace with them and then had to back off since they were going too quick for me. I made it past Hoskote and took my first stop to refill on water since I had already exhausted my supply. I stood and watched as a few riders passed me and in spite of telling myself to remain calm, I hopped onto the bike and tried to catch up with them. I tried in vain to pull up with the riders and realised that I was not gaining any time on them and rather was unnecessarily tiring myself. I stopped at the first sight of Coconut water and as I sipped on the refreshing water, I calculated that I was already an hour behind the planned time and that if I chased the riders I would only end up tiring myself. I decided that I would ride at my pace and try to do 20 kilometers every hour so that I would remain within the time limit.
Resumed the ride and was passed by Kandappa who was riding at a nice steady pace. On first glance, I was pedaling faster than him, however, he was covering more distance than me. Moreover, my speed was not steady as I would constantly take my foot off the gas and he was pedaling at a constant speed. In about 10 minutes I lost sight of him. It was a learning experience for me of what can be achieved with constant cadence. As I was in awe of him, I caught up with Nikhil Kamat who had stopped for a tender coconut break. We pedaled together for the next 20 kilometers and discussed about the head winds. I was hoping that the head wind would not cease so that I could take its help on the way back since it would be a tail wind. Around 5 pm I was feeling hungry and by the time I munched on a snicker, Nikhil was gone. A little further up I had to stop again for water and another Snicker.
When I resumed the ride, I caught up with Deep Singh who was riding a Fuji single speed. I was struggling to ride a geared cycle and here was guy who was riding a single speed and was easily touching speeds in excess of 25 kmph. As the clock ticked past 6 pm, I still had about 10 kilometers to go to Kolar. Although I was not doing too badly on the time front, the legs were hurting and were cramping as well. I was in a catch 22 situation, could not stand and cycle since the legs would cramp and neither could I stay on the saddle as I had a saddle sore. I tried to manage the situation and was at the same time keeping pace with Deep. We crossed Kolar and then made it to the Coffee Day. The Coffee Day is at Tamaka, which is 7 kilometers from Kolar, as we crossed Kolar and I did not see Coffee Day, I was worried that I had passed it and would have to ride back. However, Deep said that we had not passed it and that it was further up the road. This is the first time that I am coming across a situation when Coffee Day has not been advertised, usually they put up boards stating that there is a Coffee Day within a few kilometers; no such boards led to quite a bit of tension. It was 7 pm when we were at the Coffee Day; we quickly took selfies and were on our way.
It was dark and we switched on our lights. Deep was clearly faster than me and was opening up a gap. However, every time the gap opened he would wait for me to catch up with him. I found that to be a very kind gesture. I dragged myself behind him and reached Mulbagal at 8:15 pm. Surprisingly I had made up for the lost time and was just 15 minutes behind the planned time of 8:00 pm to reach Mulbagal. Karthik Rustagi, Deep and Nikhil Kamat along with Arpit were near a dhaba just after Mulbagal. Arpit was fixing a puncture. Aravind and Rajkumar caught up and this group of riders were the ones that I rode with for the rest of the brevet.
I refilled on water and sat on the grass and was wondering if I could complete the ride and felt a little better when I checked the time and realised that I had almost made up for the lost time. Also, the ride from Mulbagal to Palamaner is going to be downhill and that would help to make up more time. All of us started from the Dhaba and within no time the riders had left me behind and I was taking on the wind by myself. It helped that there were long descents and I was able to catch up with Rajkumar and we rode a bit together before I had hit the sweet spot and was able to ride away from him. At the next town, I passed Karthik and Arpit as they had stopped for a water break. I had lost track of the time, however, as I was riding well, I felt like I had covered 40 kilometers of the remaining 50 kilometers and would reach the mid-point in the next hour. I saw Aravind signaling frantically at a hotel to stop for dinner. I was not very hungry and also was thinking that it would be better off to ride on since I would be at the mid-point within the next hour and can have dinner at Coffee Day. However, I do not know why I stopped pedaling and went to the restaurant. When I looked at Strava, it showed that I had completed 113 kilometers and still had 37 kilometers to go and realised that it was good that I had stopped as I was 2 hours away from the mid-point. It was 9:15 pm when I stopped for dinner and by the time I was done with the South Indian meal, it was 10 pm and again I was an hour behind schedule.
I started out with Aravind and Rajkumar, we started a little earlier than the others who were still wrapping up the bill formalities at the restaurant. Within a kilometer from the hotel we crossed the border and entered Seemandhra and the road narrowed down to a two lane road from the tolled four lane highway in Karnataka. It took approximately 5 minutes before Aravind and Rajkumar vanished from my line of sight and in a further 10 minutes, the rest of the group had also passed me and vanished. I was riding at my pace and was taking on the wind again which did not show any signs of stopping. There were no mile stones showing the distance to Palamaner, however the mile stones showed the distance to Chitoor; by this time I had calculated that the mid-point was approximately 25 kilometers before Chitoor and also that the mid-point is about 10 kilometers after Palamaner.
The thought kept hitting me that I would be doing 150 kilometers of uphill riding on the way back and that physically I might not be able to do it. Moreover, with time pressure building up I might not be able to reach back on time. I was clearly an hour behind my plan, although I will reach the control point in time, the time required for the return would not be sufficient to get back. I dwindled with the thought that I might have to call it a day and call off the ride. Every time I passed a highway hotel with a board stating 'Lodging Available' I would think of it as a probable location to spend the rest of the night. The completion of the ride was looking bleak, however, I decided to keep riding because of two things, one being that I was still within the required time and another was that I had still not seen any riders returning. I decided that I would ride as long as I was within the time limits and only stop if I could not complete the ride before 11:00 am.
As I played with these thoughts Palamaner drew closer. The road is a busy road and all the trucks, buses and cars passing by kept me busy and alert. I made it to Palamaner which was crowded as there was a festival going on. The festivities had just ended and people who had thronged the festival were on their way home.
As I passed the town I saw a board which said that there is a ghat ahead. It was a little disappointing to see it as I was not very keen on having to climb back up a ghat. Even though it said ghat, it was not downhill all the way. There was a little climbing to do before I hit the downhill section. The cycle gained momentum and as I was speeding down the hill the handle began to vibrate. I tried to control the cycle, but the vibration was only getting worse. I feared that I had suffered a puncture, braked and brought the speed down to a crawl. I did not fancy changing tubes in the dark and was hoping that nothing was wrong. Allowed the cycle to roll a bit and got to know that there is no puncture. It was just that I was tired and did not have to strength to handle the speed on the downhill. As I went down further, I spotted the first cyclist returning. Shanmugan was climbing up the hill at the speed at which I was descending with Anshuman a few meters behind. Probably a kilometer behind, Omkar was making his way up. I made my way past the ghat and there were no further riders returning, I was beginning to feel good that I was not too far back. However, the Coffee Day was not anywhere in sight and it was playing on my mind, I had already covered 151 kilometers and I did not know how much further to go. Finally after another 2 kilometers I saw the Coffee Day, Nikhil came up behind me at the same time, since he had stopped for water. There were 8 riders at the Coffee Day, with Kandappa making preparations to start his return.
It was 11:20 pm when I reached the control point, I got my brevet card signed before heading to the organiser's car and gulped down mango juice and ate bananas. I sat and rested and the rest of the riders other than Kandappa were not showing any signs of restarting. Rajkumar had a fall just before reaching Coffee Day and had patched himself up. I was surprised that he was ready to continue and was busy working on the brakes to set it up for the return. I had originally budgeted about an hour's rest at the mid-point, however, given that I had reached late, I had to cut it short to just 30 minutes. The other essential news that I got at the control point was that there would be no wind. We were told that generally it is windy till 12:00 am and then there would be no wind till 4:00 am. My hopes of being assisted by a tail wind evaporated.
I restarted the return trip with Aravind and Rajkumar at 12:00 am. I was apprehensive about the climb and was hoping that I would not come down with cramps. I was able to keep pace with Aravind and Rajkumar till the climb began. As soon as I hit the climb, my speed dropped and they were gone although they remained in my line of sight. I concentrated on pedaling constantly and was not worried about the speed. I was riding on the left and counting down the kilometers left to reach Palamaner when a truck began honking behind me. I was not too concerned as I was already on the left and did not want to lose the rhythm of pedaling. I had settled into a nice little rhythm, as the truck pulled up alongside, the helper in the truck kept signaling to me to go more to the left. Being on a road cycle I did not have the luxury of getting off the road and neither was I going to stop, I signaled back that I could not heed his request. He very politely cut across the road and I had to back off the pedaling and slow down to allow him to pass. Sai and Nikhil were right behind the truck and as I was getting back to my rhythm they went past me. By the time the truck saga was done, I was almost done with the climb and it took just a little more effort to get past the climb. I was very excited that I had made it past the climb and I had not been hit with cramps. I was feeling very good about myself and sped past Sai and Nikhil and caught up with Aravind and Rajkumar. I was flying and was feeling very good about myself.
The speed though lasted for about 10 kilometers before hitting the next uphill section where the speed automatically came down and Aravind and Rajkumar once again opened up the gap. After a further 10 minutes of riding, Aravind and Rajkumar had stopped for a break. I also stopped and as we chatted about the road ahead, Arpit, Deep and Karthik went past us. We sat for some more time before resuming the ride.
It took just 2 minutes after the restart for Aravind and Rajkumar to leave me behind. I had to get to Mulbagal before 5:00 am if I wanted to finish the ride in time and was targeting to get there since the ride till Mulbagal has steep climbs. The first target was to get across the border into Karnataka and every kilometer that I passed made me feel better. It was like the energy levels were increasing with every kilometer that I had completed. I had expected that the ride from the border to Mulabagal was about 10 kilometers, however the actual distance was 20 kilometers and I was a little disappointed that I had reached the border earlier than expected.
As I crossed the toll at the border, the entire group of riders had stopped at a tea stall and they beckoned to me to stop. I had to refill on water and since bananas were available, took to opportunity to get 2 bananas down. The organiser's caught up with us on their way back; they had closed the control point and had caught up with us and offered us snacks and food which was remaining in the car. We had a little chikki and then after a brief chit chat, resumed the ride at 3:00 am.
As was the case till now, the riders rode ahead and within a few minutes I had lost sight of them. I rode steadily and was looking forward to completing the climb to Mulabagal by 4:30 am. I wanted to cover as much distance as possible before the sun comes out since it would be difficult to keep this pace once the heat comes into play. Surprisingly, I had pedaled well enough to get to Mulabagal by 4:00 am. It was a pleasant surprise and also this was the point when I knew that I would be able to complete this ride. I continued to pedal in the same way and the speed kept hovering around the 25 kmph mark. I had about 25 kilometers to go to Kolar when I got hungry and weakness started creeping in. I was cursing myself for not eating some rice which was available in the organisers car just after crossing the border. I gobbled up a snicker and was longing for some hard food. Knew that I would have to make it to Coffee Day to be able to get something. I rode on and with some 10 kilometers to go for Coffee Day, I caught up with Rajkumar who had stopped at one of the road side shops since he was hungry as well. I said that I would prefer eating at Coffee Day rather than eating savories at the stall and we decided that we would head to CCD. Took us about 30 minutes to get to CCD and as we got in, Arpit, Deep, Karthik and Aravind were sitting around. It was almost 5:00 am when I reached.
As soon as I got in I ordered 2 egg wraps for myself, Rajkumar had one egg wrap and Aravind just had coffee. All of us collectively rued our mistake of not eating up at the border when we had the chance. We collected the time bill from Coffee Day as evidence of us passing through the place. We were discussing that we should try and cover as much distance as possible before day break since it would get difficult to cycle after that. That's when we noticed that it was already day break and we should get going.
When I got back on the saddle, I realised that the saddle sore had gotten worse and I was struggling to sit on the saddle. The gloves had not done their job and the palms were hurting as well. Every bump that I went into was a very painful experience since the butt and palms were bearing the brunt of the impact. I knew that this was only going to get worse as the Sun would be up in an hour and that I would need to be close to Hoskote if I wanted to complete the ride well within time. I put the body aches on the back burner and concentrated on pedaling and bringing the distance down. It did not help that the Sun rose at 6:00 am, it did not help that a light head wind had started and neither were the climbs helping. I just kept my head down and kept pedaling. I crossed Kolar, the smaller towns were also gaining prominence as they helped me set smaller targets, Narsapur, then Tavarekere and then Hoskote. As I ticked off the towns and made it to Hoskote, the clock ticked to 8:00 am and I had brought the remaining distance down to 25 kilometers.
By this point I was exhausted, the body was barely holding up and 3 fingers in the right hand had lost sensation. I was unable to change gears and had to use the thumb to change gears. I had a long list of steep flyovers to complete and it was very tempting to go below the flyovers. By the time I reached near KR Puram, I was desperate for coconut water and when I did find a stall, it did not matter that there was no shade around. I plonked myself on the kerb and had 3 coconut's water. I was still not satisfied with it and wanted more, I managed to get up and get on the cycle, if not I would be finishing the vendor's supply of coconuts.
I had less than 10 kilometers to go and I had the long hanging bridge at KR Puram to complete. I rode into the Bangalore traffic and tried as much as I could to stay away from their line and made it to the hanging bridge. I put my head down so that the altitude of the bridge would not discourage me and kept pedaling. The legs kept pumping the pedals at a slow constant speed and I was preparing for the moment when I get to the top and relax on the way down from the bridge when I heard a fellow commuter shouting. I looked up and it was too late, I was too close to him. He had parked his bike on the bridge and my last minute maneuver to avoid him failed. Fortunately for me, only the pedal hit his bike and I was able to arrest the fall. I said my sorry's and restarted and made my way to the top.
I counted down the number of ups that were remaining and cursed the traffic signals where I had to stop and wait in the Sun and finally when I turned from MG road towards Lavelle Road, the feeling was fantastic. I reached Airlines Hotel where Mohan Subramanyam, Vikas Ruperelia and Alok Shotri waited for the riders. I had completed the ride at 9:20 am and was elated that I had managed to complete the ride. Although I would have preferred to complete a little earlier, just 20 minutes off the original budgeted time is not too bad. I was disappointed with my physical condition at the end of the ride, however, was happy with my resolve and determination to complete.
It was a very difficult ride because of the head winds which sapped my energy by the 100 kilometer mark. However, it was very satisfying to have completed the ride and more importantly to have not given up. Thanks to Sushanth who kept messaging and motivating me to complete the ride which was a big push to keep going.
Ride Details:
From
|
To
|
Distance
|
Ride Time (hrs)
|
Total Time
(hrs) |
Departure Time
|
Arrival Time
|
Avg Speed
|
| Lavelle Road | Kolar |
73
|
3.50
|
4.00
|
15:00
|
19:00
|
20.86
|
| Kolar | Mulbagal |
34
|
1.25
|
1.25
|
19:00
|
20:15
|
27.20
|
| Mulbagal | Palamaner |
46
|
2.25
|
3.25
|
20:15
|
23:30
|
20.44
|
| Palamaner | Mulbagal |
46
|
3.50
|
4.50
|
23:30
|
4:00
|
13.14
|
| Mulbagal | Kolar |
34
|
1.25
|
1.25
|
4:00
|
5:15
|
27.20
|
| Kolar | Lavelle Road |
70
|
3.75
|
4.08
|
5:15
|
9:20
|
18.67
|
303
|
15.50
|
18.33
|
19.55
|
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