Tour of Eastern Ghats - Day 0
Preparations for the tour went very smoothly, as the routes, distances, gear and stuff to be packed etc were published beforehand. Even the mesmerizing photos of the scenic landscapes through which we would be relishing the pedaling were published. Leaves were approved at work. One of the riders Narayan called me and mentioned that he felt very happy as soon as he came to know that I was joining the tour. Things like these lift your spirits and make you look forward to the tour even more! :)
Thankfully for me, my bike's transport would be taken care of by the organizing team, as it would be covered for the first five registered riders, and I was filling in for one of them.
I was mentally prepared for the saddle sores (which bothered me a lot in the last tour) as I was not actively doing century rides. I was also prepared for the muscle fatigue in upper body and numbness in toes, as I had to go through those in the last tours.
Despite my consideration of the single speed for the ride last year, this time around I considered only my flatbar roadbike and the roadbike for the tour. Though both were good options, I decided to take out the roadbike, as a handful of fast riders are going to be on the tour. This meant that I might be able to draft comfortably if at all a pace-line drafting scenario comes up in the tour. And also, I won't be drained out s much if I am on my fastest and lightest bike.
One thing I made sure to ask Krish, one of the organisers, was about the road conditions, and he told me that the roads are good and we would get to ride through some newly laid roads as well! This pumped me up even more, as the road vibrations are the last things one want while soaking in the nature's lap.
Most of the folks were traveling in train to the start point, and I went ahead and booked my ticket for that same train.
30-Aug-2019 [Day 0, Fri 30 Aug 2019 : Arrive at Bhadrachalam]: The ride starts tomorrow at Bhadrachalam and we need to reach there by today evening. The excitement, as usual, takes away some of my sleep. Most of the folks opted to board at Lingampally and I thought I would walk 2+km to Sanath nagar station from my in-laws place to board the train there. I managed to reach 30 minutes before the scheduled arrival.
But the upstream riders spill the news on our dedicated Whatsapp group that they have been waiting for the train for a while now. This meant that I had to keep waiting, and killing both time and mosquitoes at the station.
Due to lack of sleep and my hunger for the ride, the appetite beast in me started to wake up.
After dawn break, I had to wait for some more time to finally see the train and board it.
Instead of sleeping right after climbing on to my berth, Narayan, the fellow rider and passenger, insisted that we have breakfast as soon as we can, and then relax. The appetite monster in me agreed immediately and we waited for Secunderabad station. As soon as the train stopped in the station, we got off and quickly found the breakfast joint, and grabbed the parcels to eat in the train.
Breakfast tasted better than I expected, and naturally vanished faster.
I climbed on to my berth and managed to doze off for some time.
After a couple of hours, Narayan said that we could go to the rest of the riders.
Narayan, Somnath (who woke up few minutes ago) and I went to the rest of the riders - Dev, Pravin and Gokul.
A series of topics ranging from the water up-lifting technologies, Japan culture, Indonesia, Pineapples were covered and we were enjoying each others company. Somnath was feeling very hungry as he didn't eat breakfast, and Dev was desperately waiting for a Tea/Coffee vendor to be present in a station or rather come-by.
Narayan came to the rescue for all of us when it came to hunger pangs with his overly planned food baggage.
Thankfully for Dev, tea vendors appeared and we gulped down some tea and coffee.
Probably that was the first time I heard his trademark delightment phrase - 'Mazaa aagayaa!'.
While all the riders were eagerly waiting for the late running train to get us to Bhadrachalam road station, I was waiting for lunch :)
After the delayed train finally arrived at the station, we were hit with a couple of questions to be immediately answered - How to go to Bhadrachalam from the station? Should we have lunch here itself or at Bhadrachalam?
I was the only one hungry at that time, so I said we can go to Bhadrachalam and have lunch. To calm down the hunger monster in me, I quickly grabbed a bunch of bananas, and gulped down a glass of lemon soda. Gokul too bought some Guavas. After considering autos and bus, we chose a bigger auto (Tata Ace) to reach our destination of the day.
We contemplated watching Saaho, a much hyped Telugu movie, as it was the movie release day and almost all the theatres were airing it. The fan base of rebel star was visible with the dense crowd outside every theatre. But we later brushed off the idea to better try and sleep, for it will be hard to ride without enough sleep. We appreciated the mighty Godavari when we got to see it in full glory, and also when we were crossing it. That's when we got to know of Narayan's swimming achievements and adventures.
Somnath said that he would love to have some coal burnt country corn on cobs and I said that I too am up for it.
We reached the hotel in Bhadrachalam by 1:45 PM and headed out for lunch after the luggage was secured in the rooms. Krish, Prabha and Prajwal reached on the previous day.
The humid weather made us sweat after only a few minutes walk to the
lunch spot. We waited desperately for the plate meals to arrive and we
feasted heartfully. Dev was up for a tea after lunch and we all joined him. The tea vendor
could easily make out that we were coming from Hyderabad, just by
looking at how much sweat we all had on our faces.
While heading back to the room, we noticed a few vendors selling desi corn, but we thought of coming back for it in the evening.
We noticed some vendors selling cashew nuts, and I picked some to try out.
We reached our rooms and the bikes too reached after some time.
All of us got downstairs to check the bikes. In the meanwhile Venu garu and Raunak reached too. Few riders went out to ride till the Godavari river and back. Later in the evening, Krish walked us through the ride plan for tomorrow - [Day 1, Sat 31 Aug 2019 : Bhadrachalam to Maredumilly , 117 km/554m climb]
He also gave some advice to the riders who don't have much experience with continuous climbs and descents. We were told to brake slightly, release, and again brake, and again release, and repeat the process instead of braking continuously on descents, and that otherwise, the brakes would ware out in just one day. I too gave the advice that I remembered - brake/slow down before entering a corner or before turning. We were also told to get on to the drops while descending to bring down centre of gravity, and also to have extra control on brakes. Not just that, new riders were advised to stop on the top of the climbs to cool down a bit, and then start descending slowly, so that they won't cool down too fast and lose control.
Few of us headed to the Lord Sri Sita Rama Chandra Swamy's temple as we are anyway in the piligrimage site. We were told that the temple would close for the day soon and we walked hastily. Though we reached before the temple closure time, we missed the golden ornament decoration of the idols, which happens every Friday. Nevertheless, we had a pleasant darshan and we recalled the temple's history. We bought some chocolates and stuff in a medical store on the way back, and reached the room just in time for dinner.
We all headed out the the nearest restaurant and enjoyed the food. Poor Sam was headed to Bhadrachalam in a painfully slow coming bus and might reach by midnight. So we packed some food for him and headed back to room.
We felt we were physically and mentally prepared for the first day of the tour after going through the elevation profile of the route, and very excited about it by the time we hit the beds. I was particularly excited about tomorrow's destination :)
Thankfully for me, my bike's transport would be taken care of by the organizing team, as it would be covered for the first five registered riders, and I was filling in for one of them.
I was mentally prepared for the saddle sores (which bothered me a lot in the last tour) as I was not actively doing century rides. I was also prepared for the muscle fatigue in upper body and numbness in toes, as I had to go through those in the last tours.
Despite my consideration of the single speed for the ride last year, this time around I considered only my flatbar roadbike and the roadbike for the tour. Though both were good options, I decided to take out the roadbike, as a handful of fast riders are going to be on the tour. This meant that I might be able to draft comfortably if at all a pace-line drafting scenario comes up in the tour. And also, I won't be drained out s much if I am on my fastest and lightest bike.
One thing I made sure to ask Krish, one of the organisers, was about the road conditions, and he told me that the roads are good and we would get to ride through some newly laid roads as well! This pumped me up even more, as the road vibrations are the last things one want while soaking in the nature's lap.
Most of the folks were traveling in train to the start point, and I went ahead and booked my ticket for that same train.
30-Aug-2019 [Day 0, Fri 30 Aug 2019 : Arrive at Bhadrachalam]: The ride starts tomorrow at Bhadrachalam and we need to reach there by today evening. The excitement, as usual, takes away some of my sleep. Most of the folks opted to board at Lingampally and I thought I would walk 2+km to Sanath nagar station from my in-laws place to board the train there. I managed to reach 30 minutes before the scheduled arrival.
But the upstream riders spill the news on our dedicated Whatsapp group that they have been waiting for the train for a while now. This meant that I had to keep waiting, and killing both time and mosquitoes at the station.
 |
| It is very rare for people to be happy even when waiting for a late running train ;) |
Due to lack of sleep and my hunger for the ride, the appetite beast in me started to wake up.
After dawn break, I had to wait for some more time to finally see the train and board it.
Instead of sleeping right after climbing on to my berth, Narayan, the fellow rider and passenger, insisted that we have breakfast as soon as we can, and then relax. The appetite monster in me agreed immediately and we waited for Secunderabad station. As soon as the train stopped in the station, we got off and quickly found the breakfast joint, and grabbed the parcels to eat in the train.
Breakfast tasted better than I expected, and naturally vanished faster.
I climbed on to my berth and managed to doze off for some time.
After a couple of hours, Narayan said that we could go to the rest of the riders.
Narayan, Somnath (who woke up few minutes ago) and I went to the rest of the riders - Dev, Pravin and Gokul.
Narayan came to the rescue for all of us when it came to hunger pangs with his overly planned food baggage.
Thankfully for Dev, tea vendors appeared and we gulped down some tea and coffee.
Probably that was the first time I heard his trademark delightment phrase - 'Mazaa aagayaa!'.
While all the riders were eagerly waiting for the late running train to get us to Bhadrachalam road station, I was waiting for lunch :)
After the delayed train finally arrived at the station, we were hit with a couple of questions to be immediately answered - How to go to Bhadrachalam from the station? Should we have lunch here itself or at Bhadrachalam?
I was the only one hungry at that time, so I said we can go to Bhadrachalam and have lunch. To calm down the hunger monster in me, I quickly grabbed a bunch of bananas, and gulped down a glass of lemon soda. Gokul too bought some Guavas. After considering autos and bus, we chose a bigger auto (Tata Ace) to reach our destination of the day.
We contemplated watching Saaho, a much hyped Telugu movie, as it was the movie release day and almost all the theatres were airing it. The fan base of rebel star was visible with the dense crowd outside every theatre. But we later brushed off the idea to better try and sleep, for it will be hard to ride without enough sleep. We appreciated the mighty Godavari when we got to see it in full glory, and also when we were crossing it. That's when we got to know of Narayan's swimming achievements and adventures.
Somnath said that he would love to have some coal burnt country corn on cobs and I said that I too am up for it.
We reached the hotel in Bhadrachalam by 1:45 PM and headed out for lunch after the luggage was secured in the rooms. Krish, Prabha and Prajwal reached on the previous day.
 |
| Idols outside the hotel |
We noticed some vendors selling cashew nuts, and I picked some to try out.
We reached our rooms and the bikes too reached after some time.
All of us got downstairs to check the bikes. In the meanwhile Venu garu and Raunak reached too. Few riders went out to ride till the Godavari river and back. Later in the evening, Krish walked us through the ride plan for tomorrow - [Day 1, Sat 31 Aug 2019 : Bhadrachalam to Maredumilly , 117 km/554m climb]
He also gave some advice to the riders who don't have much experience with continuous climbs and descents. We were told to brake slightly, release, and again brake, and again release, and repeat the process instead of braking continuously on descents, and that otherwise, the brakes would ware out in just one day. I too gave the advice that I remembered - brake/slow down before entering a corner or before turning. We were also told to get on to the drops while descending to bring down centre of gravity, and also to have extra control on brakes. Not just that, new riders were advised to stop on the top of the climbs to cool down a bit, and then start descending slowly, so that they won't cool down too fast and lose control.
Few of us headed to the Lord Sri Sita Rama Chandra Swamy's temple as we are anyway in the piligrimage site. We were told that the temple would close for the day soon and we walked hastily. Though we reached before the temple closure time, we missed the golden ornament decoration of the idols, which happens every Friday. Nevertheless, we had a pleasant darshan and we recalled the temple's history. We bought some chocolates and stuff in a medical store on the way back, and reached the room just in time for dinner.
 |
| Probably the last time when the riders posed in non-cycling attire |
We felt we were physically and mentally prepared for the first day of the tour after going through the elevation profile of the route, and very excited about it by the time we hit the beds. I was particularly excited about tomorrow's destination :)
Comments
Post a Comment