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Enduro3 – 09

07th Feb.- Saturday 23:25hrs.

It’s damn chilly out here and every breath you take in brings out just another sore cough. We careen round the corner and happen to sight a couple of lorry drivers gambling on the roadside by the moonlight. Mallik and I park the bikes  and venture ahead to enquire how far we were from Thangaon. 18Kms is what we get in response. Almost instantaneously I spurt out – Give it a damn! I lose my patience and decide to quit. Quit a race that I’ve been mentally preparing for close to three months now. I believe in my instincts and truly live by it!Another look at Mallik and Trupti only reconfirms the decision – I was not alone.

We decide to move a bit ahead to a safer place, pedal uphill, take a left and glide down the hill. A bit ahead to the left, the rays from my head lamp happens to cause the Enduro vest of another cyclist shimmer. As we slow down we see a lady lying by the corner. A quick glance at him and he lets us know that she was finding it difficult to breathe and their third team mate had left about half an hour back to Thangaon in search of medical help. All attempts to contact the marshals out there was futile.This only strengthens our decision to leave the Enduro3-09 book open this time. Endurance is something you need to test at some point of time in life – But when you realise the odds are simply illogical and you could end up losing something more vital, you’ll know you don’t have to prove to some third person how high a bar you can jump.

That said, let’s move over to the rosier aspects of the race.

06:30 hrs. The pre-race registration begins at the University of Pune grounds. As we reach the grounds, we get to hear the Silver rock band tuning their equipment. Soon, the team leads are requested to report their teams and collect the vests, directions brochure and trash bags.As we adorn the vests and try demystifying the understandably abstract Google satellite maps, teams still scoop in to the grounds with Hercules, Atlas, Firefox, Merida’s and Trek’s. You won’t believe one lad had actually re-modelled an Atlas basic bike to sport derailleur and gears! In about an hour the vast ground is all vibrant with participants, marshals, organisers and people who’d come to cheer their peers. The ‘Silver’ band delivers a pumping performance followed by a random introductory call by the organisers. Meanwhile the teams are spread out on the ground categorically and at about 09:30 hrs. Enduro3-09 is given a flag off.  It’s  a tremendous feeling to witness the swarm of bikes flushing out of the podium.What with high bass rock songs being doled out as each category rolled out of the grounds. Man, You really need to be there to experience it!

07 Feb'09 Early hours - Prior to flag-off

Gearing up for the ride

Performance by Silver band - Prior to flag-off

The Warm-up ride

The first 10kms was a warm up ride from the University of  Pune to the NDA campus [ Chandini Chowk]. In minutes, Pune roads are taken over by the red wave. Heavy vehicular movement literally comes to a standstill and paths are made to give us a free way. Knowingly or unknowingly, the city succumbs to the green drive! At about 10:15hrs we reach Chandani Chowk.

Well, even roses wilt on the Table top

Close to Garden court is where the first ‘Time Check’ -TC begins. Right at the moment when you think all is good, the dirt track begins. Prior to the race, I had this mindset that 80 percent of the roads that we were supposed to ride on, would be proper tar roads and that ‘dirt tracks’ was only for a short patch. Little did I know, this was just the beginning.  A little before the NDA main gate we’re directed to take a left to the dirt patch. The first few minutes are rocking moments. Fifteen minutes into this and soon you get to know what really rocking is! With the mercury rising and you’re ass rising equivalently on the saddle, only time reasons out why you have that splitting head ache. The trail goes on for about half an hour and finally we reach the NDA Polo grounds passing through Table top and covering a few checkpoints.

Wish we were in the Amateur category!

The next section of the race was ‘called’ Orienteering. You’re supposed to follow the instructions, navigate using a compass and  traverse through the hills, reach a specified point and then get back to the start point. All I can comment on this section is that is was a perfectly illogical, purposeless. What sense does it make to trek in the hot sun with no specific goal? In about an hour or so we reach the start point totally exhausted. The guys in the amateur category on the other hand were asked to do paddling at Peacock Bay!

Done with the ‘Orienteering’ we then are directed to head towards Neelkanteshwar Phata touching Peacock Bay, Khadakwadi and Mandvi.Thankfully, you get to fill your bottles with water at Peacock bay. All through the way, you get to see people popping off their bikes and crashing on the ground.Just round the corner yet another team stops over to mend their bikes, the Photographers tag behind to capture pain and emotions. It’s all a silent solemn ride. At about 17:05hrs we reach PC3.From here we’re directed to reach  Kuran fork. This stretch is a mix of flats and slopes. Another two hours of silent struggle through Dawje, Kuran Budruk, Varasgaon dam and we finally reach TC4.

It’s 19:05hrs and we’re almost ripped out. At the TC4 check point a cheerful marshal comes across and gives us directions to the last checkpoint for the cycling section. Just 18 more kms is what she says. Ride straight, keep to your right – few more kilometeres again take a right and soon you should reach Thangaon. ‘How bad are the roads?’ one of us sarcastically asks and to our timed relief she responds saying – ‘Pretty good. Just flats!’.

At 19:30 hrs we start riding towards Thangaon. The purported 18kms remains an elusive magical number. A few people that we get to meet en-route tell us we’re still 25kms away and to add fuel to fire, we get to know roads are very much under construction and they’re in a pretty bad state now. Everty turn round the corner leads you to just another uphill and the gradient always seems to be on the positive side.  To add to all this the road construction work brings about a totally different terrain. All you’re left to do is to push your bike up the gradients!  It’s damn chilly out here and every breath you take in brings out just another sore cough. We careen round the corner and happen to sight a couple of lorry drivers gambling on the roadside by the moonlight. Mallik and I park the bikes  and venture ahead to enquire how far we were from Thangaon. 18Kms is what we get in response. Almost instantaneously I spurt out – Give it a damn! I lose my patience and decide to quit. Quit a race that I’ve been mentally preparing for close to three months now. I believe in my instincts and truly live by it! Another look at Mallik and Trupti only reconfirms the decision – I was not alone. At about 23:30 hrs we take the bait. It just didn’t make sense to continue. Ideally we were supposed to reach TC5 [ Thangaon ] at least by 00:00hrs and complete the second orienteering section by 02:00hrs to remain qualified. We still had a very good chance of being in the race had we pushed a bit more. But the decision was taken considering several factors and it was best to enjoy the remaining part of the race at least.In this mad rush for the past twelve hours or so all we’ve done was to pedal madly on the roads without giving much interest to the ambience around. Only during the early hours of 8th Feb do we really take in the environs! A quick dinner(?) and we crash in our sleeping bags in one corner of the road.

The alarm hoots at 01:00am. We’d to reach the base camp by 04:00am. 18more kms to go and all that keeps us moving ahead is the fear that we may have to ride our bikes back to Pune if we happen to reach late. Just about five kms before reaching Thangaon, we take it easy and catch another nap for an hour or so. Finally at about 06:00hrs we reach Thangaon base camp. Enduro3 09 ends here for us.We leave the Thangaon base camp by the only available state transport bus at about 07:30hrs. Guess this was the only day in the whole year when the bus was filled beyond its capacity! But for a few smiling faces here and there, all you get to see is blood shot eyed faces and idle minds wondering on the day that was yesterday.As the bus winds back through the same route that we cycled, we still see teams still pushing their bikes up the slopes trying to reach the basecamp, teams lying on the sides catching sleep.

On the other hand, a few of the teams had already started the trekking post the night orienteering. Later we get to know they had to hike for about 12hrs, followed by a river crossing and a final sprint of about 40kms to reach the final destination. Two other infy teams – Team Vagabonds [Prawaal, Bani and Revathi] and Team Punctured [NIshant, Pankaj and Nikita] commendably complete the race. Team Punctured lose the second runners up to Team Vagabonds by a whisker of just about three minutes. All said, hats off to their mental endurance! And if this is for just the IT category folks, wonder what act of obeisance would the Open category folks call for!

Team Vagabonds on the podium

A few things that I guess the Enduro3 committee needs to keep in mind while organising the event next year.

• Purandare. Thanks for anchoring this wonderful race but Chill! Out here everyone seems to be talking of your brusque attitude.I’ve not met you in person but that’s the image I’ve got!
• The Enduro3 website for the most part of it does not hold any information on the race details. For people who participate from outstation the dependency is pretty high!
• Not everyone who participates in the race is a super-human. Medical help or emergency action posts need to be setup at least every five kilometeres. Agreed, it’s a lot of overhead but at least radio contact can be arranged!I myself have come across two incidents when people needed help and would have been well off had they got it a bit earlier.
• Guys, I sincerely wonder if the marshals were asked to give wrong stats on the path and distance just to motivate people. If so, we’re highly mistaken. Details such as this just cannot be manipulated. Thankgaon-18Kms, flat, good condition roads? GIve me a break! Knowing one’s goal point is much of a necessity and all are not knowledgeable enough to judge distances based on the google maps provided.
• Agreed Enduro3 is all about endurance testing. But what if a team is miserably down and does not have water?
• Ah, for cyclists Treks, Meridas, Firefox, Hercules and Atlas are much more valuable than BMWs, Rolls Royce and Mercs. You just cannot pile the bikes as in a scrap van when getting them back from Thangaon to Pune.Gosh, a few folks would have spent 20 and 30 grand on them. Theses bikes DEMAND respect. Couldn’t you have brought them more humanly? [Let me see if I can get my friend to send across the picture of the transport truck that he had taken.]
• Teams which have completed the race deserve to be given credit. This year the only differentiating factor between a team that had participated and completed the race was a single strike on the certificate.And oh , Yes. They didn’t even have their names written on them! Next year if you need some help in filling the forms, call in a few more participants to help you out with the certificates. We’ll be all the more happy to show our respect for them!

And a few things commendable about the event this year:

• Awesome flag off ceremony! The red wave on Pune city roads caught quite a few surprised.
• Cool night reflector caps and vests.
• You marshals deserve a heartfelt thanks for those motivating words.[ Probably it was we who construed them wrong ]

All in all, it was a tremendous experience. Enduro3-09 has taught me to defy the saying – Never Quit! and equate it to – ‘Weigh your options!’ and I’m sure when I hit for Enduro3-’10 I’ll be a sharpened diamond with this years experience!

All pics courtesy: Ayush [Team SubZero ]

The Charminar ride

The moment I signal and move to the right towards the English and Foreign languages university , I realise I’m in for trouble. In moments, a speed breaker comes in my vision scope and the mud guard rattles on the front tires. The Lumala pivots instantaneously on the front tire and even before I make amends, I’m on the ground – Chest first, arms spread out. I quickly look back to get a picture of the vehicles behind me and pull off the road on to the pavement. Thankfully, I’d signalled the Radio cab that was following me to move ahead! Thanks to the protective gear I’d bought a week back. but for a minor bruise on my left arm there’s not much that this freak incident has caused.I take a glance at the bike.The handle bar and the brakes have taken the impact. Five minutes of quick repair and tightening and I’m all set to ride. Just another example when things are just not in your control when biking!

I take a look at the cyclo-computer. 05:45 hrs. Adi and I had planned to reach Charminar by dawn break to have a peek at the monument at early hours. I reach Vidyanagar at about 06:00 am. We leave at 06:12 hrs from here and head towards Afzalgunj through Chaderghat. Heavy vehicular traffic at the Imlibun bus stand delays us and we finally reach Charminar at about 06:40am. Boy, I never knew Charminar was so close to my place!

Riding through the narrow roads that lead to the monument at early hours gives you a heavenly feeling. Indeed interesting to see the city come to life here -Newspaper hawkers stacking up the sheets, tea-shops brimming with activity, people walking over to the masjid for namaz, beggars setting up their sheets, an old couple hastening up their pace for some unknown emergency, the smell of Athar slowly sinking in, the orange hue slowly setting in to usher in just another day across the most prominent symbol of Hyderabad.

07:12 hrs, after a few photo shots we decide to leave and head back home. Riding back through the old city roads via the High court, Moazzam Jahi market, Lal Bahadur Stadium, Liberty junction and finally touching HImayatnagar we reach Vidyanagar at about 07:35 hrs. Three cups of Irani chai at the roadside ‘chai’ shop and I head back to Habsiguda.

This I guess would be my last long ride before I head to Pune on 5th Feb for Enduro3. Overall the total distance covered would be around 30kms . But the ride to the heart of the old city itself was so very rewarding that I’ve no regrets for not having covered the targeted 50kms.

Below is the route marked up in Google Maps:

View Larger Map

Golden drops…

As a school kid, I was taught 70% of Earth is water. It takes me 23years to learn that 97.5% of that is saltwater.

What’s your Salary?

Borrowed Bones

Thursday at about 10:30hrs, I get a call from Varun informing apologetically that he would have to break from the team. He was warming up for the terse activity that was to happen in the next few days by playing football and happened to sprain his ankle pretty bad. Bed rest for a couple of days was mandated by the doc. and there went our plans to be a part of Enduro3 ‘08 into thin air.

Looking back, I guess it all happened for good! Through the year, as I build my endurance and stamina through those several treks in the Sahyadris, I realise what fools we would have been had we participated in Enduro3 ‘08. Then, we were a team of three – none really exposed to high levels of physical strain; neither of us had a complete picture of what we were to pass through and more importantly we had no idea of either team mates strengths and weaknesses – something I guess that’s quite an intrinsic aspect of the spirit of Enduro3.

This year we’re on an altogether different rung on the ladder and as we head to participate in Enduro3 ‘09 this Feb 07th and 08th we’re there with a spirit not to win but to live the moment. Winning would come in its own stride…

Here’s a video log that would give you a glimpse of the race:

Team Members [ Team - Borrowed Bones]:

Trupti Bhosale: She’’s been a hard core trekker for quite sometime now and been lucky to rappell down the mammoth Malshej ghat [ lucky , coz that's one thing I've always wanted to but couldn't get to Pune when it was organised ]. Of late she’s caught up on biking on her la sovereign, at times covering 130kms in one go!

Abhijeet Mallik: One of the founding members of Deccan Highlanders – The infy pune trekking club, with an amazing stamina and a hard core ‘give a damn’ attitude to anything in life. Roped him in the moment we got to know he was heading back to India post his short stint in UK. Though not much into cycling, one week of practise should get him in form.

Myself: Pretty comfortable trekking long distances on rationed resources. Started biking a couple of months back. 80kms in one go on the Lumala is all that I’ve managed to do till now. Bani says that would equate to 100kms on a high end bike and that’s what I’m banking on for confidence.

Back there in Pune, the teams in Pune [ at least, those I know of ] have been training for this event like crazy. Bani [ Founder of the Infy Pune biking club - Thunderbolts] has been doing a stupendous job in getting people spruced up for the event by getting them on their bikes every successive weekend. Forms have been submitted yesterday and all that’s left now is to play safe in the last few days and avoid playing football !

Of things that you chose to miss…

I happened to check the AP tourism site yesterday. Believe me. I literally dropped my jaws seeing the first intro page. I guess finally the government has realised the tremendous potential tourism has and decided to tap on it. AP tourism and development corp. is now having the facility of customised tours. Can you beat that? The site lists most of the places in AP and has been developed with the traveller in mind.You can plan your travel and the places that you want to visit and just drop them a request. They’d soon get back to you on that. Such a drastic change is highly commendable! We’re a bit late on this front but thankfully, there’s at least noticeable progress.

It’s a shame to the third degree that we Indians, do not have the interest to explore our own homeland before we proceed to cross the seas during our vacations.There’s so MUCH that there’s to see in India, that believe me you wouldn’t cover one eighth of it in even a two month long vacation.You could have a much more memorable vacation here than shelling out thousands of rupees on an Hawaiian beach or Mauritian visit.Agreed each place has got it’s own splendour and inviting features, But how sane is it to look for paradise thousands of miles away when you have one right in your backyard?

I would primarily attribute the influx of tourists to India to word of mouth than to the publicity campaigns by the government. We’ve a long long way to go to reach the international standards in tourism and that definitely is a mammoth challenge. It’s high time we pull our socks and get things rolling.

I was lucky to be posted in Pune for close to six months last year and am myself shocked to see the stats in front of me at the end of the stay. I’ve never stayed home a single weekend all through my stay there but still, I’ve not even covered 30 percent of the sight-seeing spots close to the city! If a small city like Pune in the western region of India has so much to offer, I leave it to you to judge what whole lot of things we’re missing out in ditching our own boat and jumping over to the ship sailing past us.

Click on the image below to have a peek into a few places that I’ve covered during the last year. [ 90pc of the pictures in the second half of the presentation are taken in places around Pune. ]

The Lumala!

Ah! and for those of you who haven’t had a glimpse of the LUMALA! Here you go.. .The lady in red !

Features:

• 21 Gears
• Disc Brakes [ front and rear ]
• ~18kgs

Accessories:

• CycloComputer

Pros:

• Cool gear shifting mechanism
• Brakes are real powerful

Cons:

• Heavy weight
• Front shock absorbers aren’t that powerful
• Disk brakes make maintenance a bit difficult

Tank bund ride

Jan 11th ‘09

04:45 hrs. My cell hoots in the other room. Days of getting back under the rug and sleeping cozy are gone. I’m on my toes and in less than five seconds I silence the phone. Dad’s on the comp. checking out some stuff. He’s up early these days [well before me at times!]. Guess age gets the better of you when you age.

I quickly get ready, service my bike and by 05:50am I’m all set to leave. The plan was to head towards Qutub shahi tombs – Towlichowki, touching Necklace road en-route. Adi was to join me at Fever hospital. I place him a call before I kick off and then head towards Vidyanagar. By 06:05am I reach Adi’s residence.A brief stop over at his place and we leave at about 06:30am from his house. As we slowly pick up pace, the consistently rising whizzing sound of the spokes cutting across thin breeze as we speed up-slope acts as just another motivating factor. Pedalling through Fever hospital, Himayatnagar, lower tank bund, Prasad’s we reach Necklace road at about 06:50am.

A bit ahead of EatStreet we park our bikes on the footpath and Adi gets out his D60. For ten whole minutes he’s busy focussing and capturing the rising beauty of the city. At 07:10am we decide to leave and push over to our respective destinations. Adi had to head back home and I to Qutub Shahi. As we near the Imax circle, to the left we notice a group of people with Infosys badges. It takes a while for me to recollect that there was this rally that was jointly being organised by the ECO club in Infy and the IYCN today morning at 06:30am. We turn around and have a quick chat with the folks out there. There’s a change in plan almost instantly and we join the rally.

The central idea of the rally was to move in a group and spread word of ecologically friendly ways of commuting. The ICYN team join on their Revas in a few minutes.A set of school students join the group and the rally kicks start. Adi and I move with the group initially but not able to match the slow pace in which they were moving speed across on the road to the destination point of the rally – Sanjeevaiah park. The team takes close to twenty minutes to reach the park.A quick breakfast there and we have a set of games.

One thing about the IYCN rally was that, I don’t think it really served the purpose. Though their concept of the road tour was unquestionably reasonable, the rally I guess didn’t drive home the point. 07:30 hrs in the morning on a Weekend expecting to cut across a message to the public is definitely tad bit difficult and logically unreasonable.. Besides, instead of covering the Tank bund stretch we should have headed to the internal roads so as to reach out to more people. Anyway, That’s just a take away from the first meet.

At 09:45 hrs, I decide to head back home as I had to sort out a few isues with my Axis account. I take a U turn and pedal back towards Ranigunj.Touching Patny, Paradise, St. Ann’s, Sangeet X roads and finally Taranaka I reach Habsiguda at about 11:00hrs.

All in all, it was a cool but tiring ride back for some reason.Distance covered would approximately be around 30-35kms.But given the frequency of breaks and the time taken there’s one thing I need to work up on – Building my stamina. Most importantly keeping myself mentally prepared for long rides. Guess, I need to hit on the roads more frequently.

The Bidar ride

03-Jan-08

04:30hrs  – After a quick jog,  as I stand at the APSRTC bus stand in Tarnaka, I’m reminded of the two years I effectively wasted preparing for the IITs. This was the place where my brother and I used to board the bus to reach Vidyanagar for the morning classes. Every day spent trying to learn concepts with no real implication on my life. Losing sleep over Irodov, Resnick and Halliday, Sarin and Sarin just to win that extra mark in an examination given by the so called ‘Cream academia’ of India. I was running a race, a marathon in fact and suddenly somewhere at the fag end, I realise I was blindfolded and was only following the bandwagon. A honk of the 3k gets me back to my senses and I hop into the bus. Waking up early and getting things on the string is no more an issue. That’s the only thing I guess I’ve learned from two years of IIT preparation. And I’ve no regrets!

I hop down at Vidyanagar and lurch to the other side of the road. I pay the idly vendor ten bucks for a plate of steaming Idlies. In the frosty wind as I gobble the hot idlies  and wait for Abhishek, I  try to do some stats to see the average amount the vendor could be earning each day. Looking at the crowd that his roadside shop was pulling  that early in the morning there’s no second guess to the profits he was making!

Abhi joins me in a couple of minutes and we ride down to JNTU where the remaining folks had been waiting. By 06:30hrs almost every one arrives. 10 bikes [ Animesh and Sujanya on a Discover, Dhana and Jiddu on an Apache, Sunil and Majid on a Thunderbird, Vishnu and Jeevitha on a Pulsar, Deepthi and Loknath on an Avenger, Riyaz and Swathi on another Thunderbird, Jemshed and Sadique on an Avenger, Phani and Prasanna on a 200cc Pulsar, Amol and Ranjit on another Pulsar, Abhi and I on the Unicorn ] finally rev up from BHEL and head towards Bidar. We have a brief stop over at a filling station about 40 minutes into the ride and then head directly to the destination. Roads for the most part of it are tarred and you have a comfortable ride almost all through the complete stretch.

We reach the Bidar city outskirts by around 10:00 hrs. We first head to the Choubara [ Watch tower ] and from there proceed to the Mehmood Gawan Madarsa. Just as many of the monuments in Bidar, the madarsa is now ASI protected. Not much remains of the building, but what is left by itself outrageously talks of the historical prominence. Classes are still conducted in a section of the Madarsa that faces the road. We then head to the Bidar fort. Purported to date back to the 8th century this massive fort, now in ruins still has an aura of power emanating from its barren grounds. With not many visitors in this area , You feel totally lost and at the same time surprisingly comfortable walking along the Burjs. A museum in the fort contours maintained exceptionally well by the government boasts of the history and the life of the Bahamanian people and their ancestors. Gardens are maintain beautifully well in complete persian style and they don’t charge you a dime for entrance! Hats off to the ASI!

After exploring a few more areas of the fort we head to the Guru Nanak Jhira Gurudwara. We spend some quality time here by the Amrit Khund after a decent lunch at the langar [free kitchen] and then head to the Narasimha Zarna temple. This is believed to be the only Narsimha temple in south India and one is supposed to wade through 350mts of chest deep water in a cave infested with harmless bats and cockroaches  to reach the sanctum sanctorum . Though quite a few arrangements like lighting and air duct ventilation has been provided, there’s still scope for a lot of development here. The entrance to the temple is badly maintained and very little care has been taken to keep it clean. With no regulation really in place and the huge crowd coming, it’s a pity a place of worship such as this is in such a bad state of affairs.

We leave from Bidar at about 16:20 hrs targetting to reach the Hyderabad city outskirts at least by 6:30pm. An awesome ride with the speedometer notching 100kmph at times on the highway and the thrill of riding in a group gets us to the city skirts  BHEL by around 19:00hrs. It’s close to 21:00hrs by the time I reach home. Close to 320 kms on the bike, heavy traffic once in the city limits finally takes its toll and I crash on the bed, the moment I reach home and have dinner.

Photos courtesy: Animesh Kumar Hazra – [http://picasaweb.google.com/trulyani/Bidar#]

Interesting links on Bidar

• The Tribune
• Kaladarshana