Ride report of the 600 Km BRM done on 30 Nov/1 Dec 2013
1:30 PM Tumkur Tollgate.
Just 50 Km left to the end point, nearly six hours to do it, life was looking good.
BLAST...
My rear tyre rolled over a metal shard, and the tube burst with a loud
bang. The metal piece had cut a nearly 2 inch gash in the tyre, pierced
through the Tuffy tire liners, and cut the tube beyond repair. Took the
spare tube, and a rubber patch and somehow booted the tyre. Tried
inflating it, and it was bulging badly even at 60 psi, finally dropped
to 35 PSI where it was still bulging but somewhat rideable, with the
tire liner keeping the tube from protruding out of the gash. Gingerly
got on, and watching the road like a hawk, slowly rode on, afraid of
even blinking, lest I miss some debris or bump which would mean the end
of a long hard ride just short of the finish line. Did not even stop to
eat or drink (and another key thing which I realized at Dinner that
night), just pedaled steadily like a crazed man, not sure if I was going
to complete this ride. Being a Randonneur, I was trying to tell myself
"When the Going gets tough, the tough get going" etc inspirational
stuff, but what came through in the black mood was "When the Going gets
tough, Life gets miserable".
The ride planning started with me worrying about the lights.
During the previous weekend Huliyurdurga 200 BRM, my LED headlight had
started flickering , and I suspected a loose contact. Given the nearly 2
nights of riding on the 600, I wanted to make sure the lights are not
dodgy. So the ride bike prep for this ride started with a strange set of
biking tools- Multimeter and soldering iron. Managed to fix the light,
but given the hectic work week, could not look at the rear wheel, there
were some clicking sounds I had heard couple of times during the
Machinabele dam climb the previous weekend, but did not hear on the flat
stretch later in the ride. Took a quick spin on friday evening, lights and the rear wheel seemed to be fine, and I was all set.
Eight of us started off on Saturday 3 am,
and we pedaled steadily and quickly got to Tumkur, and stopped for a
stretch and pee break. After a minute I was ready to leave, Chiddu says
"Damn, forgot I am wearing bib shorts, and a Jersey on top", and then
had to do a big exercise rearranging his clothing to do his business,
while Sandeep,Sohan etc caught up with us. He had to endure a lot of
good natured ribbing from the group about the bib shorts for the rest of
the ride. As we neared Sira, the intermittent clicking sound started
coming again from my rear wheel, I slowed down a couple of times to
figure it out. It seemed to be from the rear hub, I was not carrying a
cone wrench so was not in a position to open it up and check. I kept
worrying about the sound through the ride, it got worse, till Tumkur
when the worry vanished from my radar.
Learning- Quit worrying, what
you worry about is not what really hits you.
Second thoughts-
Worrying
is good - the Lights worked properly, and on opening the rear hub this
weekend, I found a scratched Ball bearing, replacing it in time has
hopefully saved the hub.
Got to the Hiriyur control at 11:30 where
a procession was going on the road . As we stopped at the ATM, we were
surrounded by hordes of curious onlookers, most of them had abandoned
the procession, to talk to these strange looking characters. We were
peppered with the usual questions- Is this a race ? Is the cycle driven
by a battery ? Do the bottles contain petrol ? We quickly got our slips
and headed off to a restaurant where the 6 of us had a long and
leisurely lunch, the highlight being the Shahi Lassi. Post Hiriyur , the
group split up, with bunches of people riding at different paces, and
taking breaks to cope with the terrible heat and humidity.The Ranebennur
600 is yet another example of a ride made harder by Chiddus Contrarian syndrome.
Just before we started , he famously opined, this ride would be much
easier than the monsoon ride ( I did that one too, so I have some basis
for comparing). Cyclone Lehar and its aftermath proved how terribly
wrong he was.Intense heat and humidity, and strong headwinds on the
return journey made it comparable in toughness to the June ride, just
the wind was in the opposite direction, and we only had to fight our way
out to the halfway mark back then. During the ride, in the mid
afternoon, Chiddu and I were asking ourselves the usual question, "Why
do we do these rides and suffer" with no good answer, till I heard
Sheila Dikshit's post election conference statement "Bewakoof hain na".
Just short of Chitradurga, Sandeep, Sohan and I took a nice break
under a tree, saw Chiddu and Karthik go past at good speed. After the
break, Sohan wanted to take the bypass, I wanted something cold to
drink, so I went through the town, and I did not see any of the others
till late evening. At 5 I got to a nice looking "Golden Punjabi " Dhaba,
stopped and messaged the others, but got a response from only Sandeep
who was just behind me. I saw Sohan go past, but he did not hear my
shout, and the Dhaba owner told me he saw two others go past while I was
washing my hands (Chiddu and Karthik probably). We had a long break
over scrumptious Aloo paranthas, Bhurji and Lassi, in true Punjab style.
The Dhaba owner had moved here from Punjab 30 years ago, but they have
not lost the authenticity of the food, or the dialect, speaking rustic
Punjabi among themselves. I told him about my having done some schooling in Chandigarh, and
ability to converse a bit in Punjabi.
Sandeep and I and started off at 6:30,reached
the Ranebennur control at 8, and joined the rest of the gang for
dinner. Karthick and Chiddu took power naps, the rest were just relaxing
over the nice homestyle Khanavali dinner of phulkas and sprouts usal.
It was a relaxed and happy group, of all the starters, only Ravindra was
not there, and it looked like all of us would finish the ride
comfortably by early morning since we were a good 4 hours ahead of the
schedule, with Karthik even planning to go finish some work in office
after the ride.
Post dinner we started off in a group, till the first
Dhaba break for Chai and food. After that the group split up. Karthik
and Chiddu were feeling sleepy and kept nodding off, and Silvester who
was riding with them kept trying to find alternate company, but we were
far ahead of them. Sohan, Sandeep and I rode together and took a power
nap on the cement floor outside a closed shop around midnight and then continued on. Sandeep and I reached Chitradurga around 3 Am,
had a snack at the bus stand, then another Chai break at the Guilalu
toll plaza, and on to Hiriyur, getting there at 6. Took the ATM slips,
and rode on to Kamat Sira for a hearty breakfast. It was hot and humid
and completely sapping doing all the climbs towards Tumkur. I tried a
wet handkerchief, it would dry in minutes, but at least it was shielding
the face from the scorching sun even in a dry state. Sandeep took a
quick power nap by the roadside, I could not, and got spooked by a bus
that went pretty close to Sandeeps head, so I hauled him up, and we
started off again. Luckily the long downslopes near Tumkur made the pace
get better, along with with a cooling breeze, and we stopped for snacks
and water in Tumkur just before 1. With plenty of time, we were in a
relaxed mood, intending to just slowly pedal in the heat and get done
with the ride. Started off, crossed the Tumkur Toll gate and BLAST.....
Pedaling like a madman, I was watching only two things,
the road surface, and the number of Km left to the end control. Finally
at 4:40 got
to the CCD, and realized I had made it, and even more surprisingly, I
was the first one to arrive. In the next two hours,
the rest of the gang also made it, except Karthik who dropped at
Chitradurga, and Ravindra who quit at Hiriyur. Slowly pedaled back home,
and got drenched in the rain as I went past Lalbagh, the same rain
which had tantalized us with its promise throughout the ride, but only
delivered humidity to torture us when we were desperately looking for a
hint of coolness in the afternoon slogs, and finally when it came, was an unwelcome
cold torrent mucking up my clothes and bike.
At dinner, Son (glad to turn the tables on me) "Papa This is cheating"
Look at you, I am always told "Please wash your face before eating"
The slow slog after booting the blasted tyre was anything but brief,
And I had forgotten to use Sunscreen and my trusty Handkerchief,
No wonder the Sun had given my Nose(Red),Cheeks(Black) a terrible beating.
