As seen by Dharma Teja :
The Race :
It was the 7th day of July, 2013,
Sunday.
Stage was set for the fourth HCCC race of the season, the 55 km Medchal Road Race.Racers from different places in the city started arriving at the start point by
6 AM. From TheBikeAffair (
http://www.thebikeaffair.com)
store, a group of volunteers and racers arrived by two cars, followed
by a vehicle carrying their bikes and stationery. Few more
came riding to the start point which is about 20 km from heart of the
city.
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| Riders setting up their bike |
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| A chat on race strategies? |
Race was on open roads on
Hyderabad-Nagpur highway, which is a very nice road with moderate
amount of traffic and without any unexpected road surprises. Organizers had shortened the original distance of 55 km to 44 km to avoid a checkpost on the way. They had also moved back the finish line by 6 km to avoid the busy Medchal intersection.
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Registration Desk, Managed by Sumit and Sarita
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Registrations commenced by 5:50 am.
Inclusion of new category called GLNDY( Got Legs No Drops Yet ) for amateur racers have drawn decent number
of riders. There were 3 volunteers apart from The Bike Affair organizers
helping out registrations, taking timings and overseeing race
arrangements. Manu Balasree and Sarita were snapping the race proceedings,
capturing all the defining moments with his usual zest.
I was on my single speed - the Schwinn Madison. I
didn't get to ride or train for the previous 4 days and I had no
expectations whatsoever of outspeeding others who were on
multispeed road bikes, hybrids and mtbs. Had it not been for Krish who
persuaded me to sign up, I would have been volunteering there shooting
with Manu or helping out some way. Myself with my Schwinn Madison
was just there to see how I could time the distance under that
competitive stimulus. I had done a 200 km on the same bike at an average of 25 kph on
the same highway but that was about 10 days ago. Having not ridden
much before that day, I planned to ride 20 odd km distance from home to
start point, for warming up to the race. But Krish's message that
morning announcing that they got bike transport to race point got better
of my lazy self. I dropped at TBA store which was about 5 km from
home. Having reached the start point in comfort of Manu's car, I
thought of doing my self some favour by stretching out to do some
volunteer work. Laid out the start line and helped with some other
minor things.
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| Marking the start line |
Race started at 6:30 am
sharp, by flagging off the amateur racers first, followed by roadies. I
was standing last, behind everyone as I knew I would be struggling to
get shoes into toe clips. I didn't want hinder
any racers behind me. I put those toe clips only the previous night and
didn't even test ride them. I even took the stock platform pedals along
on bike, incase I found toe clips too uncomfortable to complete the
race- to quote 'Forrest Gump', “ stupid as stupid does”. The intention
was to prevent pedal slip during high cadence spins. As I had expected,
it took me a few moments after flag off to get my feet into clips and
get comfortable. Meantime, everyone else sprinted off the start line, it
all was like the repeat of my previous cross country in Feb where I had a
pedal seize just after flag off. But this time a bit luck was on my
side.
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| GLNDY guys, just about to start. |
With no gears to worry
about, all I did was to pedal with my strength and gradually overtook
other riders who were still getting into a proper gear suitable for the
initial gradient just after start. I was a bit surprised with that
take off and wanted to continue the lead. Until then I didn't have a
strategy but then I realized that with a dashing take off I could break
the strategies of other riders as it is natural instinct to chase anyone
going faster than us.
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| Race Started! |
Spotted a green jersey in distance and as I
sprinted past him, found him to be Srinivasa Hosamane who recently did
London-Paris challenge. He maintained a good lead till I crossed him.
Looking over my shoulder I found Magin George and Anubhav chasing me.
The race distance yet to be covered was considerable and I cannot be
sprinting at same pace all the way. Having thought so, I eased my effort
to group with Magin and Anubhav. Anubhav on his Trek MTB was leading
for some distance. Magin was keeping close on his ACT110. We rode
alternating the lead till Medchal after which road started sloping down.
Anubhav and Magin quickly outpaced me with higher gears and I responded
by spinning faster. My speed is limited by how much I can spin and I
knew the max I could do was to spin at about 120 rpm to reach 40 kph.
The road after Medchal has a moderate gradient and thats where I
overtook the duo. Sprinting up an incline is so much fun on an
appropriate singlespeed.
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| Magin George powering his way out |
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| Anubhav leading, followed by Sri, Maninder and Eswar |
Having done two long rides on
that highway previously, I had a fair idea of the terrain and road
conditions. I knew the road after turn around point is mostly downhill
with moderate climbs here and there. It is tough to shake off anyone
on a geared bike on such a fast stretch. I thought I have to give my
best while it was tough and uphills were my best bet. I kept sprinting
up slopes at speeds of 27 kph. Within a short while I had built a good
lead and to keep it intact I had spun very fast on downhills. About
half an hour into the race, my average speed was about 32 kph which was
the fastest I ever clocked on any bike. That effort tired me and
realizing atleast an hour more of race was still on, I eased effort on
uphills and kept spinning on downhills. Within a few minutes I started
recovering from that initial drain of energy and sipped a few ounces of
water. It was difficult to even gulp while maintaining cadence, had to
take a mouthful and swallow slowly over distance.
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| Vishu and Abhimanyu |
I never realized when Krish's
car overtook me but I saw them down the road waiting with cameras to
snap riders racing. The second time I met them, I faintly heard Krish
screaming that I had about 30 sec lead over Maninder. Looking over shoulder
I saw no one in distance and wondered if I heard Krish right. After
all, Maninder didn't turn up at the start and maybe it was Magin whom
Krish was referring to. Thinking I might have lost too much time, I
increased my effort to better the pace and maintain good lead. Kept
looking back and still saw no hint of any other rider. Was also
wondering why it took so much time for road bikers to catch up, later
learnt that road bikes were flagged off some 15 minutes after our take
off. Sensing that am going overboard again, I eased my effort to
maintain a much more comfortable pace. After all, it is still better to
finish race in any position than to carry a DNF flag. I was anticipating
that any moment, roadie jets would zoom by firing on all cylinders.
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| Jetharam, Richard and Aditya |
Road bikers eventually zoomed
past me. It was JeethaRam, Richard and Aditya in a tight pace line. A short while later, I
saw Chitti Babu going past me and chasing them. I heard
later that initially all roadies were in a single pace line
but couple of riders pushed the pace to shatter the group. Eventually it
was that trio I saw who kept close to one another dropping everyone
else behind. Chasing those guys would have been like trying to catch a
running train, so I kept riding at my own pace, happy about having lead
in amateur category.
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| Maninder speeding past other riders on his aero MTB |
That was until Maninder overtook me. That was a
shocker. He was drooping so low that I thought he was trying to pickup
something on road while riding. I had no clue how he managed to ride
like that on MTB with wide handle bars. (Later learnt that he was riding
holding front suspension!!) And the fact that he didn't start with us
also meant he too must be riding at his limits to make up for the lost
time. So I thought even though I may not overtake him immediately, by
trying to tail him as close as possible, I may get a chance to sprint on
uphill somewhere close to finish line. Having set my radar on him, I
tried to keep a constant distance between us. He was riding off the
saddle on uphills where I was comfortable sprinting still on the saddle,
that's where I used to reduce the gap. He gained back that lead on
downhills.
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| Anubhav taking the corner at the turn around |
It continued that way
till turn around point after which I had to slow down to get hydrated. I
still couldn't manage to drink while spinning. At the turn around point
Krish, Manu and others were taking snaps of the riders. A short while
after turning around, Gokul overtook me on his classic Canondale
road bike. Didn't knew why his carbon lady was left out. I maintained
as much speed I could on every little uphill that came by because on
downhills I had a clear speed disadvantage. Kept going like that with
Gokul and Maninder in my sights. After going over one such uphill, I
saw only Gokul and wondered if Maninder has used some unseen jet pack
to vanish. Going down that slope, I suddenly realized Maninder has pulled over
and was inspecting his tires. I screamed out asking if he needs any
help, to which he nodded negatively. Knowing he was self sufficient, I
continued my effort. For about a few kilometers it was a very fast
downhill as I expected earlier and I topped out spinning at 41 kph. All
road bikers including Gokul vanished off. Knowing that less than 10 km
to finish line are left, I kept pacing without stretching myself to
limit. Having lost Maninder, with a good lead already built up, I then
tried to get the best timing for myself. The last 2.5 km to finish line
was a gradual ascent which tested rider's mettle and mattered a lot in
the finish timings.
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| Me at the finish line |
Close to Medchal, at the finish
line, I spotted the volunteers and roadie group and was thrilled to
experience my first ever podium finish. It was even more special
because it came so casually. I was not even wearing cycling outfit save
for the helmet. Didn't have any pain some butt discomfort because of
intense spinning. Thought it was time I got a good set of bibs.
Magin George came second in
amateur category followed by Abhimanyu Pamulapati. Abhimanyu started
slowly but amazingly maintained a consistent pace to outrun everyone
else on hybrids and MTBs. Maninder fixed his flat and finished after
Abhimanyu. Learned that the first three finishers in road
bike category came close at each other heels, literally. Also heard
there were some confusion as some of the road bike riders spotted the finish line pretty
late resulting in a very late sprint.
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| Post race banter |
The Support :
After all the riders finished their race, we proceeded to
start point, which was about 8 km down the road to attend podium
celebrations. A big thanks to Ozone ventures( Distributers of Bergamont bikes, Schwalbe tires and
Vincita bags) and
HappyEarth (Distributor of polar bottles, park tools, night rider lights and many more) and Sphere Fitness and Sports( distributor of sigma lights and computers, Ridley bikes, Vredestein tires) for chipping in with the goodies.
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| Me, Magin and Abhimanyu on the podium |
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| The complete group. |
The Result :
Timings of podium finishers in each category:
