One night to remember, One
night to forget
Nights have an odd lure to us humans. The darkness creeps in a sense of
fear, the lurking danger of unknowns, of delusions and hallucinations. But when
you live the night through, when dawn breaks; you are awake to a little more of
yourself, awake to a little more of your partner of the night. And by that I
mean both - the nights you want to remember and the nights you want to forget!
Pre-read
The Start
Despite plenty of preparation for the Bangalore-Hiriyur-Bangalore 300k
Master Brevet, I came up short at the start. Venkat & I are both growing
old, evident from the fact that we troubleshot the headlight problem to the
batteries, completely missing out the faulty LEDs.
End result: I don’t have a strong head light for a night nide!
With the Brevet starting at 11pm on 22nd Saturday night, I
had to do with a weak commute headlight. No lights meant I had to quickly
collaborate with fellow riders for the most needed commodity during a night
ride – light! Arvind I had met on the CAM
ride to Bekal fort. Yogesh was the other one with the brightest lights. And
Arun, coming from Chennai had no idea what rolling hills meant, I had no
lights. We were a team!
 |
| At finish, with Arun and Yogesh |
Arun stuck around with me till we got out of the city on to Tumkur
road. The roads were well lit till Nelamangala and I was making good progress.
By now my head light was totally dead, and guess what, Mr. Genius did not even
carry AA batteries!
With no light but only the Supermoon on the perigee
cloudy night, I waited for Arvind and Yogesh to lead kindly light amidst encircling gloom. Luckily after about 12km
or so, I was able to find a “fancy store” (yeah, in the middle of the night, making
brisk business to truckers) and picked up batteries. Now, I was an equal
partner in the crime of ‘drafting the winds’. The 3 of us got into some rhythm
till we reached a Café Coffee Day just before Tumkur. We had done about 55k in
2.5hrs, time 1:30am. It was a longish break – coffee, cakes, chapattis were
gorged down.
Arvind was sure he had seen a biker head in the opposite direction, we
dismissed the only possibility of a 1000km Brevet rider returning. But if only
we knew Karthikeyan had whizzed past, on target to finish 1000k in about 59hrs!
All about the Paceline
For the uninitiated, Paceline riding at a set pace in a straight line.
The idea is to slice through the wind like a knife through butter. The rider in
the lead, breaks the wind for the others to follow in his/her slip-steam. Effective
when the gap between one riders back wheel is scarily close to the next riders
front.
From 2am to about 3:45am, the 3 of us stuck to a paceline and covered
quick ground. We hit Sira tollgate by 3:45am, with 106km done in about 4h:45m.
Arun joined us here, having stopped earlier for refreshments.
Sometime between 4am till the break of dawn, somewhere on the highway
some 100kms from the comfort of home, a single paceline of 4 riders,
noiselessly knifed through the still night. The only sound was the hiss of the
tires on tarmac. When the lead said
“watch out”, it snapped me back to reality.
During my turn to be the lead rider, I would put my head down and try
to keep a steady pace. I was constantly riding into my own shadow cast by
either Arvind / Yogesh’s brighter lights. And then when the uphill was conquered,
a fair distance done, I would signal to the next rider to take over and move
over to the left, wait till all 3 had passed and join them at the back.
When the lead rider's turn at the
front is over, he (or she) does a shoulder check for oncoming traffic, then
peels off TO THE LEFT and begins to soft pedal in such a way that the rest of
the line overtakes him on his RIGHT side. As the last rider in line passes by,
the erstwhile leader accelerates enough to fall in behind, thereby becoming the
caboose. Now that rider can recover, take a well-earned drink, scratch his nose
and grope for a broken cookie in his jersey pocket. As other riders complete
their turn at the front they will fall back to the end of the line in turn and
our original 'leader' (now hopefully well recovered!) resumes his place at the
front once again. In this fashion the entire line recirculates continually as
it moves down the road somewhat like a bulldozer's caterpillar tread. Except
lighter, quieter, faster, and more graceful.
I was actually using the caboose time to sit up and ride, drink off my
camelback, sip from the electoral supply (scratch my nose?), etc. The Supermoon
coming out of the shadows, it was an awesome night for riding – no winds, no
rains.
At day break, 6:20am we were at the U-turn ATM (yes, a mini statement
taken at the ATM from your debit card is time stamp in a brevet ride) at
Hiriyur. 161k done in 7h:20m, well within the 10.5h cut off. At the only hotel
open that morning, we had breakfast of chow-chow bath and coffee, spending
40mins.
The Return
The plan was to keep to a paceline, but with no winds on empty
highways, there was little motivation. Arvind and Yogesh fell behind while Arun
was getting stronger. Arun and I maintained a decent clip till the Sira toll
gate. Having done 215km in about 10h:15m or so, we rested under a shamiyan, the
only shade we could find.
Quiver full of chapattis - (the luggage I had carried)
10 chapatti rolls, 3 chocolate bars, 3 sachets of electoral, 2 ltr
camelbak, 1 liter bottle in the bottle cage, 3 spare tubes, mini pump, puncture
kit, Allen key set, 1 spare garmin, cue sheets, phone, wallet
My quiver was still churning out chapattis non-stop, Arun & I had
one each.
Next stop was outside Tumkur, 250k in 12hours by then. Arun dozed off
when we stopped for chai, sleep was catching up and we didn’t waste too much
time. Ashwani, a 600k rider, zoomed past, while I had to take mini massage
breaks to keep the cramps at bay.
 |
| Yogesh and Arvind. Photo courtesy -Yogesh |
The Finish
It was awesome to see the Garmin show up 300k in 14h:14m, I was riding
ahead on one of the flyovers on the toll road and bang on top of the flyover, I
get that “here it goes” feeling. I had a flat. I urged Arun to go ahead and
finish, but he wouldn’t have any of that. He happily power-napped on the
flyover leaning against the parapet; while I set up my puncture shop. It took
me 2 tries before I was able to fix it – 35mins gone!
The good thing the flat did – it took care of my cramps and Arun’s
sleep & when we got off the flyover, Yogesh had caught up with us. He led
us to the finish point, another ATM where we swiped our cards.
We then made our way to the Café Coffee day at Hesarghatta to hand over
our brevet cards, ATM slips and have that well deserved Mango shake with double
ice cream!
309km in 15h:30m
… and that, ladies and gents, is the story of the night I like to
remember...
