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400Kms in a week, the milestone

I wanted to celebrate by Bday in style this time. So i set myself a target of 400Kms for the week including the distance that i cover commuting to office.Till friday i covered 210Kms as for 5 days commuting to office, 42 Kms to and fro. So half of the target was achieved. In remaining two days i had complete remaining 190 Kms at-least. So i decided to go Nani from my house and be back, whcih in all is 160 Kms.
Saturdays Ride:
Saturday morning @ 5 Me and Ashish (Pocha) started from my house to Hebbal where we were suppose to meet other road bikers Venki, samim, Rushi, Deepankar. We started from Hebbal by 6:30 and on the way i had an injury in my calf. However i wanted to complete the 160Kms. I toughest part was to clomb the Nandi 450 meters of altitude gain in 5 Kms with my injured calf. We headed back from there it was easy till highway, but after we took the highway major headwind stuck us and it was difficult to keep pace of 25KMPH also. But finally reached hebbal, the bad part of this stretch was the traffic. After the new BIA has opened up the traffic is really bad here. I did not have anything to eat since morning other than one small piece bread. So i was feeling hungry by now, but i wanted to eat only the special thing coocked by my wife that day @ home. So finally slowly but without any stop i pedalled to my house.
The problem was that i had just completed 155.6 now, so i went 2.5Kms ahead of house and came back which made the cyclemeter read 160 for that day .I reached home by 1:15 and at home i ate like i was eating anything first time in my life.

Sunday Ride / My Bday ride:
I was still short of 30Kms so had planned of going for a shorter off-road ride. Rekha turned-up bang @6 at the meeting point, and Mayank was 22 Mins late. We three decided that we will not do much off road as it will be too muddy/slushy. So made our ride through some small roads avoiding the traffic on Sarjapura Road. We took one of the small roads which initilly looked not so paved and but going down it was rally bad and untarred.
Somone had to take the B'day bums (which was earned by me, by completting another year), and the strong nature chose poor Rekha for it. She had a fall directly on her bums (That reminded me of the "humpty dumpty" ryhm, because my son keeps singing it) . She is a brave old lady (That is how me and Mayank teased her), said i am not heart and we carried on and completed out ride 36Kms on cyclo-computer. This was Mayank's first ride, he did quite well in the ride.

With this i complteted 210+160+36 = 406 Kms for the week.

And happy celebrated my Bday on sunday with my family at home

Thanks and Regards,
~ Ravi

Celebrating Bday in style

Yah, I want to celebrate my Bday in style. Before i can turn 33 (That means that the day before my Bday) i will pedal for 160K that is five time my age. And on the day of my Bday i will pedal anything more than my Age (In years, mind you!) on that day. So who plans to join?
On saturday (31/05/2008)
Ride to Nandi and Back = 160KMs
on my Merida-880

On sunday (1/06/2008)
Ride off road Near Sarjapuar. Ne thing more than 33Kms (Yah tha will be my age then) :-)

So join in ... and celebrate with me ...
~ Ravi

Ride-plan .. toughest in southern inida

Yah .. the toughest you can do in southern india
Plan:
When do we start Bangalore:
4th late-evening/night from Bangalore to Masinagudi
Mode of Transportation:
Personal/rented to be decided based on number of ppl joining.
Ride:
Starts @ 7AM or earlier on 5th. Madhu's car can also act as Aid station. through the Kalahatti ghat (Segur ghat) from Masinagudi. According to Srinath it is the toughest ride we can do :-) .. Challenging ..huh?
Reach Ooty:
By lunch time (or a lil later .. i hope 5 hrs should be fine for this ride), and meet Srinath and fellow bikers. Have lunch together @ Ooty golf club.
Ride to:
The Srinath's place (Kunnur),Which is 18km of downhills (according to Srinath) of easy ride. Ppl can also opt to come back from this point. As there is no hard and fast rule (They shall take care of transportation back)
Over-night stay:
@ Srinath's place Two options:
in Srinath's House (8 rooms) ... yes E ... I ... G ... H ... T :-)
Those who wanna tent-out can use the lawn are :-)
6th whole day and first half of 7th I would prefer Srinath and ppl who know the area well to decide about.
7th after lunch we head back to Bangalore.
Budget: Spend and divide

So waiting for somthing better ... keep waitin .. you will never get :-)
~ Ravi

nandi-betta .. The Ride :-)

How did it start :

Got a mail from Roahn on Bangalore Biking Club (BBC) about the ride to Savandurga on sunday (09/03/2008). I suggested if we can do it on sunday as we have runs organized by RFL/Hash on sundays. Rohan tried his best but looks like there were more takers for Sunday rides that saturdays ... However i was ditermined to not to miss either the ride or the run, so shot a mail on BBC about the ride on saturday. I got confirmations from Kuldeep and Donald (Of TDH fame). Friday evening i left early from office to pick-up my new-road-bike.

Difficult to get-up early:

We had decided to meet @ hebbal by 5AM. I thought it may not take more than 1 hr so planned to wake-up at 3 and start by 4. But by the time i started it was 4:15 and i had 45 mins to cover 32KMs (Which i discovered later). Well i had no option to paddle as fast as possible on my new beast. By the time i was @ KR-puram 4:45 i got a call rom Kuldepp that they have reached. Well, that was a chock to me that i will have complete the rest of the 14K in 15 mins mostly uphills. So i tried my best and was there by 5:17 .. and guess what i covered 32K in 1:02Hr.

Nice Slow and Easy Ride:

Noticed that Navdeep had also joied us, and we were 4 now. We started ... and i started slow on road-bike which was faster than otheres :-) ... On the way saw the sun-rise.

We were there @ the foot-hills by 7:20 ... Had break-fast and Navdeep was down .. he said he cant as his leg was aching. He offered me his MTB and chose to stay back. I was happy, because on the road-bike it would have been difficult to clib-up. Well, we starte and initially and F2R3 (Front Gear @ 2 and Rear Gear @ 3) ... That was fine.. later we were @ F2R1 and towards the end we were @ F1R1 yahh.. the garnny gear (As per Roahan) ..

We reached there in one hour ...

On the way back it was fun ... and @ the base we all said that for the kind of High that we get while coming back it was worth climbing-up.

Coming Back:

We decided to go to Dewanahalli and take a bus from there ..., we started and after around 10k Navneet had a flat. I told to my-self that now the ride is successful :-) .. We repaired it. Went ahead and just near Devanhalli he had a flat again, this tim he borrowed Donalds Tube and used that. Finally we reached the bus-stop and waited for the bust tom come. Bus came full of ppl, we pushed our bike on top and me and Navdeep climbed up to tie our bikes to the bus cariier .
We stayed there for 15mins ... that was funnnnnnm....

And the boring bus journey ended and KR Market @ 1:20 from where rode back home and rached @ home @ around 2PM

Stats:

Fun Meter : 100KMPH :-)

Averge speed : No Meter/GPS .. Sorry!

Max speed : 65KMPH .. we gueeswd .. while coming back from hill

Total ride distance : 120 K (For me)

This was fun .. Have a look @ the snaps @

http://picasaweb.google.com/raviranjan.kumar/NandiRide8thMarch2008

My New Road-raced bike

I already have Trek-4300, Not that i did not like it. But i wanted to try somthing different. On the ride of 23rd March off Sarjapura Road, i saw Rishi's road bike. And i was sure that i want to try my hands on a road bike. Called-up many friends, every one said dont buy Firefox-2200. Thiough it is cheap but not worth the mony, go for Trek. But the Trek ones will start @ INR36000/-. I really did not have that kind of mony to spend on this.
That evening i was just browsing through and came across this write-up on bikeszone. Goth the number of Mr. Ashwath Kapoor from that and called him up, he directed my to Venkat who has the direct dealership of Marida in Bangalore, i got Venkat's (9844020861) number from him and fixed on one 2nd of march to meet-up. I went there biking on Trek-4300 and went to his place with Sri (Of TDH fame).
The shop itself is in a 1BHK house on 1st floor, but mind you dont go by the size of the shop. He has all the kind of bikes and accessories. Yup, Prove me wrong if you can .. i challane you this ... every thing he has .. name it ....
Fixed on the entry level road-bike from Marida called Marida-880. I got a really cool deal for this bike along with the Paddles (with the shoe-clips) and bottle cage and biking t-shirt and ...... all for freeeee
Rode that back home.
Well ... The next day i was going for a long ride to Nandibetta :-)
And i will take my new beast ......

The Advanture takes over (Enduro3)

I feel on top of the world after completing n securing 3rd position in Amature All Men catagory in Enduor3 the only advanture race in india. We (Me and the team) has amazing experiances from the race.

How did it start:

I always wanted to do somthing different from other ppl around me. But i think i was not alone to think that way, there are ppl in from BBC (Bangalore Bikers Club), RFL(Runners For Life) and HASH (BH3), they think the same way that i think. Completed Bangalore-ultar, not very happy with what i did .. because there were ppl who did 78/104 and i did just 26k!!

In Jan, i see a mail from someone on RFL about Enduro3. I liked the idea of participating in this and proving my self thins time.

Finding the TDH (Tom Dick and Harry) :

I knew, i will go and i booked my tickets to Pune for the race. Now i had to look to form a team (Team of 3 needed), i was short of 2 ppl in the team. I sent many a mails on RFL and BBC, but no one was ready to come along. Once Gauthaman called-up but he said, his preferance would be his colleague, who has not decided as yet, if he says NO i can take you in....

Meanwhile i started surching on web n bumped on Mansi's Blog, she had Won silver in the Enduro3 last year, and had asked to mail her if any-one wanted some info or help. I mailed her about my problem, and she encouraged me and asked me to continue my practice. Two days later i get a call from a friend of mine (Gagan Deep Singh) and tells me that he was also looking for a partner and Mansi gave him my pointers. We were amazed by the coincidance. He has one more guy to prticipate with, and his name is Donald k{is}sing [Mind you the {is}is invisible there, so dont read that]

Preparation:

We decided to meet one morning @ Gagan house. I paddled from my house to Gagans house early morning. I met Gagan, he was amazed to see my Bike (TREK4300). Donald came in a little later, i saw both of them quite Fit. The only issue was they did not have Bikes, and any recent experiance with that. I recomended them to buy their bikes ASAP, and recomended them TREK and BOTS. By now i was sure that i will participate in the event and compete and not help them being a Marshall.

Bad news and Good News:

We filled up the form sent it accross to go in the IT catagory. Race was on 8th of fab, and Gagan calls me on 1st of fab and says he may not be able to come, all my dream to participation goes for Toss. He also assured that he will find a partner for us. Thankfully he fulfilled his promiss, and got Sriram (an Engineering Student) for the team. We could not have gone for IT catagory, and we had to go for Amature All Men Catagory. I was fine with that, but i was eager to meet Sri. Well we had oraganised for a Dulathon on 3rd of fab. Donald bought his Trek3700 on 2nd and came for the Dulathon 1 hr in advance so that the team can meet and talk. Sri came in late, it was a little dissappointing, but he looked very fit and that was a boost to me. The Dulathon was of 50K of cycle and 10K of running. Sri was left away, and me and Donald with Gauthaman went much ahaead. We completed the race and met... this is the first time i was interacting with Sri. He was an Enthu... youth. He planned out his trip to Pune by bus.

The Planning:

I read few blogs, went through the Enduro3 site and prepared a list of things to carry along (Which i can provide on request). Well, finally afer so many calls between us we gathered everything tat we needed and headed to Pune on 7th. BTW, Pune is my Inlaws place, so vehcle was not an issue to transport our bikes. My FIL was more than happy to get his Scorpio for that.

The Race Day:

I woke-up by 4 and got ready. My Bro-in Law (Sashank) was there to guide us, i loaded my Bike in Scorpio by 5 in the morning and sat in indica, because the rear seat was folded. Reached @ Donalds Friends place (Sri and Donald were staying there) by 5:45 and loaded their bikes and headed to MIT, where the race was suppose to start. We reached there by 6:15 and we called Mansi to Thank her. We met her thanked her for all she did for us. Hey Mansi, if you are reading this Thanks a Ton again :-)

The Start of the race:

The race started later than our expectation @ 10:30 by then we had gone for number one hundreds of time ;-). One thing worried us the most is the weight of our Bags, close to 9KG

Well the race started, we saw our competition and found that we are good. We biked through the PCs and TCs got lost twice in between. The loop was so good that tumbled twice... Later i realized that it was the break, becoz while reassembling my bike i had put the Break-wires the wrong way, but i managed. Since Donald was new to Biking, and Sri was too good at that keeping the team togather was the only good role that i played while buking. We were the 2nd one to finish the Bike 55K @ 1:40

The Trekking:

I changed to runnign shoes now and we headed to Mountains. I had not eaten ay thing by now. Well, that was not a problem for me @least as i had 4 big banas in the morning. We climbed, we ran, we got lost in the jungle ....

Now we were also running out of water. We climbed up a tip of one mountain and started speculating which way to go @ 3:**pm. Donald started looking @ the Map and identified a Geo-shape and that gave us an idea about that. We did not have time to eat, so we eate some energy bars on the run. We got lost many a times and tried to make our way through thick bush jungle and Sri had throw his mattress sheet because he was getting stuck. Well, some times we got lost further and some times we made our way easier. Finally we came to the point where we were suppose to Halt, till the next race flag. This is point we had to do the river crossing also. BTW we were third team here to report in our catagory. That gave us a boost ...

The Cold Water:

Well @ aroung 6:30 our turn came for river crossing. Only one of us had to go, and competetion was between me and Sri. I went, completed the river crossing in 196 Secs. I had to cross the river (Which was part of the dam) with the help of rope and run back to the start point and report. The river crossing was easier, but running on rocky terrain without was difficult and i was hurt. I completed, sri and donald was cheering me :-) I was hoping for a sexy cheerleaders. Thankflly Donald had warm cloths and helped me to come out of the cold state.

Bed-time:

We found a place below start to lay our king-size beds (The Sleeping Bags). First we ate (Thanks to Amrutha my SIL, who had packed a lot of food for us) and then by 8 we were sleeping, i will not f'get that night. Sri was snoring on one side and it was difficult to find whether he is sleeping or not (Becuse he is from North-east) :-)

Well @ around 1 we woke-up by ppl taling out loud and Sri wakes-up angry says "Excuse me" and a female voice comes from the other side. Sri takes out his head from the Sleeping bag, and asks "what is the time?". The funniest momet in the whole race, i was expecting something more rude. @2AM the anouncement woke-us. We prepared us for the next round and the race was flagged by 2:30AM.

The night Race:

I was injured by the run after the swim, and it started takinf toll. But thanks to the Enthu of Sri.. which kept me on my Toes. We were leeading intially, but got lost and lost aroung 30 mins because of that. It was nice to see every one with the torch goign around and some time it use look like a huge shining snake is going arond mountains. By the time it was bright we were to omplete 15K of difficult terrain, and we met a team which had 2 gals and one very experianced person (Mr Khagre). We just kept up with him and we were never lost after that. 10:30 we were @ the finish. last 3K, we ran .... it took my soul out, because of the injuries iin my leg. By now we new that we are going to get 3rd place, but had our own doubts. Since we were kind of sure that we will get a position, i had to postpone by journy back to Bangalore from 10th to 11th. Thanks to my Boss who gave me permission to do so.

The celebration:

On 10th evening we went to the NDA air-strip for the award distributioin. By now we were confirmed that we will have place in first 3, thanks to Sakshi who told us this. Well, we were there, and Donald wass waliking Awkward, and now we revealed that the cycling is taking a toll and skin and peeled-off from .... (you know where) :-)

But that really dint stop Donald to reach the air-strip. We got the third place in out cata...

But the sad part was that Mr. Khagre's team was fourth. We decided to celebrate our win with them. We went to 2 places pune like Durga-cafe and for Mastani. We loved that.

The team .. (Good and Bad):

Most of the time points which proves that the good can be bad tooo

About Sriram:

1. Very Good Enthu

2. Very fit

3. Lots of Energy

4. Listens to the decisions

About Donald:

1. Team Player

2. Knows what he does/doing

3. Fit

About me:

Let Donald and Sree comment :-)

In all the team had the right compositions .. and we will win the first prize next year :-)

~ Ravi

Bangalore Ultra

There were many people who ran the Bangalore ultra
For me it was my first organised run. I had registered for 26K, which i was not sure whether i will be able to complete it or not.
Completed it .... !
Felt good about it, but there were many guys whi completed 26K, but there were other few guys ho completed 78K and 104K, i wanted to be there.

And I will be .....

I will prepare myself for this.
~ Ravi