Century ride!

I was pretty close to finishing my 21 consecutive days and also coincidently one work month of office ride. It was a Thursday and I knew nothing could stop me from achieving the target. What I needed now was a good way to celebrate it. I checked with my half century buddy Anil Kadsur if he was up for the weekend ride. After exchanging a few texts we both were set for doing a 60 or 70 kms ride on kanankapura road. 100 kms was always our hidden agenda but none of us really wanted to talk about it 🙂

As expected I completed the 21 rides on the Friday. It was celebration time now! Few more last minute texts with Anil and we were set for Saturday morning. This time I was determined to be punctual and arrived at the meeting spot at 5:42 am. Anil was there soon enough not even wanting to stop to say Hi! I scrambled to resume the runkeeper app, pocketed my iPhone and stepped on the pedal!

Weather seemed to be perfect for the ride. We were hoping that Sun does not shine on us through out the way.

The first incident: Even before we rode 5 kms, we faced the first incident! A jeep parked on the left side of the road suddenly made a U turn right in our faces. I braked to a screeching stop while Anil rode around in front of him screaming B*****D! The shamelessly guy turned around and fled away. We continued.

Surprisingly we were at the Sri Sri Ravishankar Ashram in no time and also at the Guhantara right turn from where we had made a U turn to complete our half century just 2 weeks ago! Now growing strong about my century intention, We decided to target kanankapura village which would be the 50 km mark.

We made a quick stop at a small tea stall.

There’s Anil texting away someone

Well we had our tea quickly and continued on our way. We were determined to go a good long distance without breaks and we did! We were doing about 22-23kmph most of the way. The route is really very beautiful with lakes, greenary, small villages and most importantly climbs and downhills all the way. I was getting thrilled to see every climb as it would be a downhill on the way back 🙂

I was thinking there could not have been a better road for a century ride! As we completed 35 kms, the monotony started to get to me. The distance began to seem too long as every km appeared to pass very slowly. It was like time had slowed down. Anil probably realized this and started to distract me from my attention towards the passing miles! He was talking to me about the buildings, economics, politics and so on. He was also trying to get me to think about future goals after we complete this one 🙂

We kept going and kept going and finally there it was the green board “Kanakapura”! We had reached half the distance.

We pedaled around to find a decent breakfast place and narrowed down on Rathna Upahara. They served really yummy food. We hogged as much as we could and headed back. We really wanted a picture with the father of our nation in front of the local college building.

We had a strange experience taking this picture. The college kids were intimidated when we requested them to take our picture with Mr Gandhi. Then Anil was like “Why don’t you guys stand and we will take the picture” 🙂 Finally, one brave soul came forward and did us this favor!

We had refueled and also defueled by this time. We were now ready for our return journey. Weather was still holding up and looking good. It was around 8:45 and some sunshine but not very concerning. Anil told me let’s go non-stop for at least next 1:30 hrs. I nodded and got started.

Anil was already 50 meters ahead of me at the word GO! I knew I had to take it easy being my longest ride. I pedaled nice and easy working through the gears to keep my cadence constant. Anil was always in my sight but then I never really tried to reach him too. After clocking about 65 kms overall something strange happened to me. My legs felt stronger than ever and worked up the gears increasing the pace. I started inch closer to Anil and finally caught him. He asked me if I had crossed my longest ride which I had indeed. I told him that I felt like reserve energy had got released in my legs which he acknowledged. He then told me that he was constantly in 3×4 gear all the way and he did not look like he wanted to change those! I felt like all my effort in catching him suddenly looked trivial but I enjoyed it anyway!

Second Incident: After this point, we traded spots with each other for a short while. I would pass Anil in the downhills and he would get me at the climbs. We were passing a small village where we were riding together and a Good carrying Rickshaw cut me off forcing me to brake and stop instantly. Anil again taking the outside line yelled at him “Kameenay Diktha nahi hae?”. As we continued Anil tells me that he never uses his brakes unless he knows for sure he would hit something! That is an advise I’m going to ignore for a good long time to come 😉

We had negotiated a few badass climbs by now and were looking for the mother of all those by Sri Sri’s Ashram. We decided to take a short refuel break and gulped 400 ml of soft drink each. I remembered just then that I did exactly this during my school days. I was infact known for drinking pepsi all the time! Now I know why I did that. I used to cycle everywhere and would kill for a pepsi at the end of the journey 🙂

Anyway we continued our journey but only this time Anil simply disappeared out of my sight. My legs were really tired but my heart was ready for another 100! The average speed had dropped to 20’s. I did not want the overall average to drop below that but then I was more interested in clocking ONE followed by TWO zeros! This is when I had to negotiate the toughest climb of the route – The Sri Sri climb! Having negotiated this during the half century I had the confidence to take it. I think I had to switch over to 1×5 and for a brief period even 1×3 to make it through!

Third Incident: Anil was still out of my sight till now. As I got through the Sri Sri climb and rode a little more distance I thought I saw a cyclist on the side of the road messing with the chain. It was Anil. I stopped and rested by Bike against a tree or a pole. Anil tells me he had fallen down! I said WHAT!! He had actually fallen off as his bike got off the tarmac briefly and his footwear could not grip on the road to stop. He sustained minor bruises on his knee. He has actually fallen on the road fortunately no busy traffic at that very time.

His chain had slipped off the rear cogs and stuck on the side. I told him this is my area of expertise and took charge of getting it back on 🙂 From here on we cycled together. Anil and I decided that we shall celebrate our (rather MY) victory at the same place as we did our 50 – Adigas 7th block. We hit the traffic which took further toll on our averages but in the end I felt awesome that our average was still above 20’s.

When We reached Adigas we had both clocked over 100 kms in less than 5 hours. It felt awesome! The craziest thing of all was the salt remains from the evaporating sweat all over the body!

Anil as always a great ride buddy that he is was a strong moral support through out the way. He felt good for me too. We both sat around enjoyed a good kesari bath, carrot halwa and hot tea before we split!