600K BRM: Attempt #2

As I write this, it's been over 24 hours since I returned to Bangalore, after dropping out 180km into my second 600km brevet attempt. With 3 spokes broken, and those spoke sizes not readily available, I had little choice but to abandon the ride then. Now, I have some ideas contributed by friends, but it is too late. I will not be a Super Randonneur this year.

On Thursday, I went to see the 1000km riders off on India's longest brevet so far. Of the thirteen riders who started out on the route, Bangalore to Belgaum, twelve dropped out. So bad were the wind conditions on the route, that they were not able to reach their time station at the 400km mark in time. One superhuman rider completed in 55 hours with even him admitting that the onward journey was "difficult".

So it was with trepidation that I rode to the start point on Saturday at 3AM. I was fully prepared, or so I thought. I was the first rider to arrive. Soon friends and fellow randonneurs dropped in, and the five of us set out to reach Ranebennur by 12AM that night.

Very soon, we had split into three groups, with me alone in the last group. I caught up with the second group at 100km as they were finishing breakfast. Till then, I had a decent average of 20kmph, a speed which would become increasingly harder to maintain in the kilometers to come.

As I set out from the breakfast point after some minor repairs, the winds started. It is one thing to read about the monsoon winds, quite another to encounter them in person. From then on, it was incredibly difficult to ride at a decent average speed. As a national highway, NH-4 is incredibly boring to ride alone too. By the time I reached Hiriyur, I caught up with two of my friends and ended up having lunch with them. We continued as a group, making our first checkpoint at 175km in time. If the winds to Hiriyur had caused my average to drop slightly below 20kmph, the winds to come would stun me.

In the next 13km, the winds now at our sides, howled at us trying hard to push us onto the road. Our averages were suffering, in the lower tens. We just decided to grit our teeth and carry on. It also did not help that in that stretch we were steadily climbing to Chitradurga.

At 188km, we saw the lone 1000k rider still riding, now on his return route. We waved and he waved back. After a breather, we continued. As I followed the pace set by my fellow riders, I was finding it harder to keep up with them. As I pushed on the pedals to catch up with yet another time, I heard my spokes breaking. While I was prepared to replace a spoke, I wasn't prepared to replace three broken spokes. Thankfully, I had stopped at a small village, and the villagers assured me that this was NH-4, and there were buses to Bangalore every 10 minutes. Indeed, in the next ten minutes I was on my way back to Bangalore. In a way, glad to be out of the hell that my fellow riders would suffer on their way to Ranebennur. Only three would complete from the five who started out.

While I am disappointed, overall I am pleased with how these series of rides turned out. I am far more confident of riding unsupported now, a sea change from last year, which puts long distance unsupported multi-day bicycle tours on the horizon.

And come November, the next randonneuring season starts! PBP 2015, here I come!