How I got my Title

I always felt that a title would go well with my name. Getting a PhD seemed like too much work and it didn’t look like the British Royalty was going to give me a knighthood anytime soon. So the easiest way to a title looked like through cycling. Hmmm Randonneur Rahul! A bit like Brigadier Rahul! Sounds pretty cool eh? So how does one go about becoming a Randonneur? It’s simple, you successfully complete a Randonneuring Event!

The easiest one is of course the shortest event, i.e. 200km ride which one needs to complete in 13.5 hours. You ride through a defined route, passing through checkpoints at strategic points. These checkpoints could be manned or unmanned. If manned, you need to get a time stamp from the organizers on your brevet card. If unmanned, its typically a pre-defined ATM from which you need to get a transaction slip with a time stamp. But since this is Bangalore, traditional unmanned check points have been replaced with people taking “selfies” and “whatsapp'ing” it to the organizers at pre-designated landmarks! How cool is that?

The plotting started in December 2013. The Bangarpet 200km in March looked like the best bet taking into consideration my work schedule, travel plans, weather, etc.

While I was physically prepared (daily interval training on the bike, long weekend endurance rides, daily core strengthening, daily stretching, weight loss to get in the most efficient zone….) nervousness hit 2 days before the event. Will I be able to finish? Will my “old” bike and tires hold up? Will the spate of flats I was facing resurface and mess up the ride, will the old chain break? The list of things to worry about was endless…

Based on my averages over the past few months, I came up with a ride plan. Maintain a moving average of 20-22kmph, break of 5 minutes every 20-30km to stretch, refill water, eat, bio break etc. 1 hour break for lunch after 120km and finish the 200km in about 12 hours.

Selfie of a Grumpy Rider @TMB ATM, Hosur

33km 0806hrs

The ride started off uneventfully, but my plan went out the window at the first checkpoint 30+km from Bangalore. I spent over 30 minutes in a line to get a transaction slip from the Tamil Nadu Mercantile Bank ATM in Hosur. And just as I reached the front of the line, the ATM konked out!!! I ended up taking a selfie in front of the ATM, which is probably what I should have done in the first place!!! GRRRR…. 30 minutes to the total time, when i was at my freshest and the sun was not hot :-(

NO! I won’t let these things affect my  morale! I will take these setbacks in my stride and ride on! I will just cut down my lunch break from 1 hour to ½ hour and try catch up with the original plan. 

The next 30-40 km was spent socializing with other riders on the road. You catch up with someone or someone catches up with you, you say hi, chat for a bit and you go back to your pace and they go back to theirs…

After about 90km (about 11am) I hit a really bad patch of road, the sun was scorching down and I started to wonder what the hell I was doing. I should be somewhere with a chilled beer. These waves of doubts kept coming between 11am and 4pm, by which time I also had a nasty headache from the heat. That’s when I realized why it’s called an endurance event! You REALLY need to endure it!!!

During this period I stopped at various places for tender coconut, sugar cane juice, sweet-lime/ moosambi juice with salt, Idli, curd rice and water refills. The villagers were very friendly and very curious. They want to know where you are coming from, where you are going and why you are doing it. Lastly they want to know the cost of your cycle. My take on the whole thing is this: Every one has owned a cycle at some point in their life man, and has fantasized about riding around the whole day on their cycle and going everywhere on their cycle. So when they see someone doing it, they want to know more. They want to know the cost to make sure you don’t need a fancy bike to do it! There was the occasional villager with the “you guys are mad” look as well :-) But thank you sincere villagers for your friendly chat which kept me going!

And then there was this creepy guy who rode alongside me for a while on his moped trying to sell me life insurance!!!!

A Rejuvenated Rider @Emerald Isle Resort, Hoskote

153km 1535hrs

I survived the midday heat with my spirits intact. Around the 153km checkpoint (Hoskote), met a couple of other riders and we all shot each other in front of the Emerald Isle resort.

If I wanted to pull out of the brevet this was the last place I could do it and ride home (~25km) After this I would be going away from my side of Bangalore and if I couldn’t ride any more, I would need to be bailed out by Sahina coming and picking me up in the car…

I assessed myself and felt I could do it. The next stretch of the route was home territory. I knew it like the back of my hand.

Selfie of a Determined Rider @Chikka Thirupathi temple

184km 1729hrs

Reached ChikkaThirupathi temple around 530pm. 184km completed. By now, my butt had started to hurt after the long day in the saddle.

But it was about finishing now. Found a burst of speed and made it to Sarjapur village by 6.15pm. 200+km completed. Just outside my target time of 12 hours!!!

But it isn’t over till you reach the finish point. Another 10+km :-( This involved surviving the madness called Sarjapur village AND navigating the crazy traffic on Sarjapur-Bangalore road in the fading light.

A stop for a banana, another stop to get my reflective jacket and lights going and numerous stops in traffic later, I made it to the finish line at 19:12

YES!!! I’m Randonneur Rahul Md now, and I will get a medal to prove it from Audax Club Parisien in about 6-8 months!

Now that I have successfully completed it and am Randy Rahul, do I want to do it again? Not for another 6 months. I think my sweet spot is hammering out 80-120km on a weekend morning before brunch with family. So my next target is to get my average speed up on my new bike from the current 24kmph to at least 27kmph on 3-4 hours rides. Maybe I will attempt another brevet in the latter part of the year, when the weather starts to cool down and my speeds are higher!

Oh another thing. After I finished the brevet, Sahina said that if all I wanted was the Randy title, she would have certified me as a Randy Old Man!!! Talk about time and effort wasted in the wrong direction ;-)

On a more serious note, what did I learn that i would apply for my next brevet?

• Work on stretching my glutes as part of the daily routine. That’s the only muscle that was sore the next day! 
• Wear bib shorts instead of the regular shorts. They may look funny, but not having the elastic band eat into your stomach will save you from burning sensations after a bio break!
• Wear a light coloured helmet with good ventilation. I have a feeling that my black, poorly ventilated urban helmet contributed to my afternoon headache!

Hmmm... If I'm even talking about learnings to be applied for the next brevet, I guess it means that I would do it again ;-)

I got one invaluable piece of advice before the ride from Sree Ram @Cycling Boutique, which was my mantra during the ride: “During a Brevet drink before you are thirsty and eat before you are hungry. If you are tired, take a break! Credit is for finishing within the cut off time, not for finishing first!!!” 

With my nephew Rohan and a bottle of Gatorade @ Krishna Lilac

While loading up the cycle on the car after the event, Senthil, Rohan and Maya came to meet me with a bottle of Gatorade! Thank you Senthil!