Century ride!

Prologue - I am 6 feet tall and at-least 35 kg overweight with most of it sitting snugly around my midriff, loved to cycle as a kid and some reading just took me back to those careless days. After a month of dilly dallying, I became a proud owner of a Rockrider 5.2, which i purchased 2 months ago, after a lot of reading and analysis. Over the last 2 months, I steadily increased my ride distance from 20-30-50-60Km and felt good about it. I was doing decent time (anywhere between 2hrs 15 min to 2hrs 45 for a 55-60km ride) and was eying a century ride for more than 3 weeks.

Last week I stumbled upon this http://tinyurl.com/3cb8hww on facebook and my friend (who btw did manali leh this year) decided to do route 2 the long way i.e JP Nagar - Harohalli - Thally - Anekal - Bannerghatta - JP Nagar (approx 120km).

Boy was I kicked!

The ride -
Phase 0 - the start

5:00 am - started from home with the bike in the car and headed towards JP Nagar mini forest
6:00 am - bike assembled after a small tweak to the front break and we head off towards kanakpura road






phase 1 - smooth as silk (approx 35km - 1hour 45 min)

It was all downhill from Merida junction to Harohalli and we did good time with just one pit stop near guhantara.Reached harohalli @7.45 am after a little bit of searching we realized that the good breakfast place @harohalli had closed down (not sure though) and had breakfast at another hotel. Took off from here and headed down the road which a few other bikers (7-8 of them) had taken only to realize that it was the harohalli-anekal road. No harm done, we backtracked and hit the road to Thally after asking around a little

phase 2 - dog day afternoon! (approx 30 km - 4 hours)

For the first 30 min the road was not very great and was rolling but after that, IT WAS HELL (for a noob like me who hasnt done nandi)
The next few hours made me question the reason why I decided to spend my Sunday afternoon in acute physical discomfort instead of watching bodyguard like most normal people.
Every 10 min, I was reminded of the big bad wolf huffing and puffing to blow the house down...but at the end of the day, the house always wins. Thally was soon becoming shangrilla and I was at the end of my tether. a 30 min break..lots of water, a snickers bar and a couple of banana's made it a lot better.

I began to dread downhills as i knew what was coming at the end of it and the road snaked around the hills (periphery of Bannerghatta national park), which meant I could not leverage the downhill slopes to climb.
The vista was beautiful with swift moving cloud cover and lots of greenery and finally we made it to Thally after almost 4 grueling hours

phase 3 - a welcome break ::(approx 23 km - 1.5 hours)

The first 30 min the road was long patches of very coarse gravel but thereafter it was relatively flat and uneventful.but the leg cramps and frozen hands began to kick in real bad and hence the ride was interspersed with a lot of short breaks to stretch fingers and legs. When we reached anekal, I realized than i am almost there and the fear of not completing the ride began to fade away

phase 4 - snails pace ::(approx 20 km - 2 hours)

We decided to take the Anekal - Bannerghatta road in order to avoid the madness that is Electronic 
city.This stretch was probably the slowest that I have ridden on relatively flat terrain (not that i have ridden much!) and the road just seemed to go on and on and on... finally hit Bannerghatta road after a few more stops to stretch fingers and legs.

phase 5 - home stretch ::(approx 13 km - 40 min)

The only thing that was driving me was the fact that I will get to rest my ass on something that is a lot bigger than a loaf of bread! that and the numerous downhill stretches helped a lot!

Postmortem -

a few hours of shut eye and I was back in front of the screen to dissect the ride. I soon realized that my 'mountains' in the harohalli - thally stretch had an average gradient of 2.6% and only 2 stretches (1.2km and 4.4km) were as such 'long'. molehills - mountains...get the picture?
training harder and longer is the only way to increase endurance. period!

On the whole, the ride clearly outlined my shortcomings from both a physical and ergonomic point of view. But it only reinforced the fact that I want to do more and more of long distance/endurance cycling to burn away the flab

Put the Maharaj in the Middle

The internet, as we knew it, was proclaimed to be the savior of the middle-class (might be stretching it a little but what the hell…it’s the beginning of a new year :) ). The end of the middlemen who knew the mysterious pathways to fount of youth (or whatever little piece of paper you wanted). It’s amazing how shortsighted we get when we are optimistic. If anything, the internet has increased the number of middlemen in our lives, which in this case has a markedly positive impact on consumers and general public – seems to go against economic sense but this is the twisted truth. A couple of examples here might prove my point:

 1.    Freecharge (URL - http://freecharge.in/index.php)

Is an online prepaid mobile recharging platform that allows you to recharge you mobile and get free coupons for the same amount from various food/entertainment joints like Dominoes, PVR cinemas etc. As a consumer it’s a Win-Win as you spend almost nothing (Rs 10 delivery charges) and get talk time & free coupons. The best part is – IT WORKS!

2.      Snapdeals (URL - http://www.snapdeal.com/deals-bangalore_koramangala_plus)

The Indian version of Groupon (my first impression of what I have seen) that provides you with special offers/deals in your city/geographic area that you are living in. from where I stand, this again is a win-win for me as I get to know more about what sells and what doesn’t in my locality, which is very useful info for a consumer marketing professional (somewhere down the line, FMCG’s and retailers will surely tap this!).

Two businesses that act as the middleman, the new ‘Maharaj’, who help you get what you want, when you want it and where ever you want it. The increasing number of businesses that provide incremental value by offering price comparisons and discounts (also think makemytrip, cleartrip etc) makes me wonder if, as consumers, we are playing into the hands of the big bad wolf – organized business.

 The biggest maharaj, who to a certain extant is still in the making, is yet to hit us. And when he does, it’s going to be big, or that’s what the punters say.  Facebook! Think of all those personal messages, think of all those wall posts and private info that you share. Birthdays, weddings, anniversaries and everything else under the sun, including professional info. All that info is sweet music to a marketing professional. All that data will put a smile – a real big smile on the jokers face and he will be laughing away to the bank.

So what’s my point? What am I trying to say? It’s simple – while at one end you are getting things almost for free, be sure that somewhere on the other side there is a number cruncher who is busy sticking labels to your profile and figuring out how to make you think you are the Maharaja and the deal you are getting is a King’s ransom!

What goes around always, ALWAYS comes around.

Happy New Year!