Tales from the Saddle......: BBCh Twilight Criterium

About 2 months ago some of Pune's best road bikers finally came together and started training together. Sid and I were trying to get this started since a year. At the core of the group was Sid, me, Nakul, Apurv and Mahesh. The training rides were sparked by the use of the app strava. The chance of getting on the leader boards and being the KOM motivated everyone to get up and train. And before we knew, the rides have became a habit. Everyone showed tremendous improvements in their cycling. I always knew Nakul and Mahesh as a fairly average weekend riders, but when I actually rode with them, I was baffled at their tremendous improvement.

We were joined by the youngsters like Aunsh and Rohit, Michael the awesome triathlete from Germany as well the veteran PT. And soon enough we were raging all over Pune and its outskirts on our shiny new roadies. Then as you'd expect with testosterone high males, we started our own "pirate racing". The friendly competition provided another huge boost for everyone to train and improve themselves. We were doing so good that we even managed to awaken the long dead cyclist in Nachiket. He too started training with us, and with hardly any miles under him he went on to grab a podium at Bangalore Bicycle Championship ( BBCh) . It was he who proposed that the whole group should take it up a notch and go down to Bangalore for the Criterium held on 17th May 2014.

After The First Pirate Race

The criterium or crit is a race held on a small closed road circuit which is usually flat. And the race is run by time and not by distance or laps. The Cat II race lasted for 45 minutes with riders doing multiple laps of Bhartiya city circuit of 1.4 kms each.

With hardly 2 weeks in hand, we started our interval training for the Crit. These hardcore sessions were very consuming on the body. An hour of interval training in the morning guaranteed that I slept in office. The week before the race was spent on total resting, I used the bike only for commuting. Everyone was nervous and anxious for the race. On the Thursday before the race, we got Vinoo Chari's awesome pickup to transport the bikes. We managed to fit in 5 bikes on it and the rest 3 went on Mahesh's Polo. Thursday evening and night was spent in wrapping and loading the bike, which was a very stressful and tedious and thanks to Sunil, AC and the LC staff who helped with it. AC gave a tactical briefing which as always proved invaluable for us.

Bikes Getting Packed for the 900 km journey

The road trip to Bangaluru was awesome as you'd expect from a bunch of young men. Everyone we passed on the way gave us bewildered looks. You dont see a pick up carrying shiny bikes everyday. Gotta love Vinoo's car for that. With hardly 5-6 stops we reached the southern city by 8 pm. Thanks to Brijesh Nair we had an apartment to stay in Bangalore, but Nacho failed to mention it was unfurnished, so the boys had to stay and sleep like animals. Saturday i.e the race day started a bit late. I had spent the night comfortably at my grandparents house. Met the boys hogging on a carb laden breakfast of idlis and dosas. Then back to pillion and rest till noon. It was also the birthday of Apurv "the Hulk" Verma, so the age old ceremony of cake smattering on the face was carried out.
The Bhartiya City circuit was at the other end of town, it took us 2 hours to reach the place. Barely 2 hours before the flag-off. It took us almost an hours to assemble the bikes. We hardly got any time for warming up. Someone had took down my saddle and since its height wasn't marked I could not get the saddle height to perfection and had to race in an uncomfortable position.

Road Trips aren't complete with group pics at every stop

The Race -

The race began on time despite the rain gods showing up to watch the race bringing along heavy winds and water. It was going to be a wet race, a big concern while cornering. Once the under 18 and women finished their race the cat 2 riders took to the line. We were just about to start when I hear a shout to stop the countdown. It was Mahesh who was struggling to zip up his jersey over his one mile broad chest. In his efforts he broke the chain and was momentarily shirtless till Aunsh got him a replacement. In that moment we could hear whistles, shouting and even a woman cheering him to race topless. Poor Mahesh was red with embarrassment. However it dint last more than 2 minutes and we were soon on our way.

Being Salman!!!

The wet roads proved to be a downfall for all the inexperienced riders including me. There were shouts and skids even as the peloton reached the very first corner of the race. It was here that my leader Sid fell behind, so I fell back to get him back into the bunch. I did manage that but in the process sacrificed my own race, as I couldn't stay with the bunch after riding in the wind. My cornering improved with every corner I took, but it was too late as I was first amongst the team to get lapped. It just wasn't my day, I tried hard to get back but the wet corners, improper saddle height got me out of the race. By that time the peloton had split up into a long trail of struggling cyclists. Only 4 cyclists remained in the front bunch of which 2 were from TLCR viz Nachi and Michael. It was heartening to see them controlling the race. The rest of the boys were scattered all along. Sid who struggled with the corners was the second to get lapped behind him came Apurv.

Mahesh had surprisingly held himself till the last 5 minutes until he too got lapped. Now only 7 people remained in the whole race. Sushil and Nakul from TLCR were now working together to remain in the race and they did just that by finishing 6th and 7th. In the last 2-3 laps Mike and Nachi broke away from Opendro Singh (Team Cleated Warriors) to comfortably seal the 1st and 2nd positions respectively for Team Lifecycle Racing.