Tarikere 400 km Brevet ride

Randonneuring as a sport is really catching on in India and we have a huge number of participants, especially in the bigger cities like Bangalore, Delhi and Chennai. Before this year, I had never ridden more than 200 km at a time, but inspired by the stories of people who did multiple SRs and brevets of 1000-1200 km, I decided to attempt the SR this season. I began with a 300 when the season opened and completed it fairly comfortably. The next ride in Bangalore was a 1000 km, which I felt was way beyond my capabilities. The upcoming ride is a 200 km one, which I intend to complete.

In the meantime, there was a 400 km brevet organized in Mysore (Tarikere 400 brevet). So, I signed up, loaded my bike in my car and started off. I had done my 300 BRM on my roadbike and didn't feel very comfortable at the end as my upper body was really stiff. So, I decided to see if I can complete it on my MTB which I had fitted with semi slick tyres. Unlike the 300 where I just turned up without preparation (and almost got booted for having inadequate lights), I made a rudimentary plan (that saying is true, your plans go out of the window when the first punch makes contact)

My plan

The ride started off promptly at 6 am. I got in with the leading group and continued with them for the first 5 km. It was still a bit dark and I stopped to fix my headlight. At that time, I lost touch with the lead group and went along with a group further back. We made good progress covering 24 km in the first hour. As I hadn't had anything to eat in the morning, I stopped for some tea and biscuits. By that time, I was the last rider on the road as the others pressed on. Not to worry, I told myself, I may catch up with them when they stop and even if I don't this is not a race.

From then on, I decided to go at a comfortable pace at around 70-80 % of my regular speed. I was maintaing an average speed of around 21.5 kmph through this period. The key thing about the route was that it was a completely rolling terrain and I did not find many sections that were flat. As we were going to do a U turn at the 200 km mark, each long and fast downhill filled me with dread as I would have to climb back in the middle of the night. 

I stopped for breakfast at 8:30, having covered around 55 km. After a healthy breakfast of 3 set dosas and some rice that I packed in my backpack, I resumed riding. 10 km later, I realized that I had forgotten my gloves in the restaurant. I considered turning back, but it would take me almost an extra hour, so I decided to go forward and if I was lucky, the restaurant would be open on the way back and I could pick up the gloves.

At the first checkpoint

I stopped briefly to have the packed lunch at 12. At every small town on the way, I purchased bottles of water to refill my bottles. By now, my phone's battery was at less than 50%, so I decided to leave it in the bike bag and charge it with my powerbank. To my dismay, I found that the plug was not a tight fit and while riding, the jerks were breaking the contact and it would stop charging. I decided the way out was to have it charge whenever I stopped.

The rest of the first half passed without incident with 2-3 breaks to have fruits and other snacks. I had initially set a target to reach the halfway point by 3:30 pm. But the rolling terrain and the average road surface slowed me considerably and I finally reached Tarikere around 5:30 pm along with 3 other riders. My phone had run out of battery at 187 km and lost the GPS signal, so I saved the strava ride and started another one for the return. (Link :  187 km @ 21.3 average)

At the halfway U turn point

There I made the first big mistake of the ride. The other 3 riders had stopped for a meal just a couple of hours back and decided to start riding back. I decided to stay back and have a dosa and packed some ghee rice as emergency nutrition for the night. By the time I started back at 6:30 pm, it was dark and I needed both my headlights. The road from Tarikere to Kadur was around 30 km and a fairly steady climb for most of that distance. The problem was the opposing traffic, as it was a long downhill for them, they were coming down at a high speed with their headlights at high beam. Each time a vehicle passed, I would be blinded and slow down my pedalling momentarily. As a result I took almost 2 hours to cover the 30 km. I was falling further behind my plan for the ride and realized I would have to cut down on the halts and keep pedalling to be able to complete it in time.

I reached the Arasikere at around 11 pm, which was a full 3 hours after my planned time of 8 pm. It had taken me close to 4.5 hours to cover 65 km, an average of just 15 kmph. I stopped at a restaurant and had some coffee and cake and asked if I could lie down for a few minutes. During that time, I plugged in my phone and headlight to the wall outlet and had it charge. I started off at 11:30 and pedalled slowly. At around 1:30 am, I realized that I had covered just 22 km in the last 2 hours and was never going to finish at this rate. I was sleepy, my pedal strokes had no power. 

I briefly thought of giving up but then decided that even if I do, I was in the middle of nowhere with no one around and would have to wait till morning. So, I decided to find a place to lie down for an hour and hope that I would recover my energy. 

I was at 290 km and had to complete the 118 km in around 6.5 hours which seemed doable. I stopped Strava as my powerbank was also losing charge and I wanted the phone to be active if I needed it for an emergency.I found a shop where the owner had piled up 50 kg sacks of salt outside, so I climbed up, set alarms for 2:30 and every 10 minutes hence. The "bed" was extremely comfortable and I fell fast asleep in no time. I would've continued sleeping but for a fellow rider who saw me and came over to check if I was ok. I woke up with a start and realized it is 2:52, so I had missed all the alarms. (Link:  87km @ 15.3 kmph)

I now had 5.5 hours to do 118 km and 3.5 hours to reach the last CP, which was 66 km away. Thankfully, I found that my energy levels were much higher and I pedalled on, reaching the final CP with just a few minutes to spare. After some tea and biscuits and time to charge my phone to 15%, I started riding again. It was 7:00 am and I had 2 hours to cover the balance 38 km.

At the final checkpoint

Or did I? As I found out later, the distance between the last CP and the finish was 55 km instead of 38 and the cue sheet was just inaccurate. Simply irresponsible from the organizers.

I was still pedalling like crazy, as much as my energy levels would allow. But at the cutoff, I found myself around 15 km from the finish line. I was shocked, there was no way that I had just covered 23 km in the two hours. I decided I would take it up with the organizers once I reached.

Then disaster.

A few km later, still 12-13 km from the finish line, my left side pedal just came off from the bike. The spindle was still attached to the crank and I tried pedalling with that, but it was very tough going, especially as the last 20 km was a continuous uphill. Finally with around 10 km to go, I figured I just couldn't continue and picked up my phone to inform the organizer. It was completely dead, which pretty much summed up my luck. I asked a local if I can park and lock my bike there while I go to the hotel to get my car to retrieve the bike.

The pedal

A few lessons that I will definitely take to my next BRM

- Do your homework with regard to the route. Never trust the cue sheet blindly

- While planning the ride, pay more attention to the latter part of the ride. The first part usually goes well, it is in the second half when you are tired, cold that a written down plan could come in handy

- Take a fast charging power adapter and cables for each one of your phone/bike computer and headlights. It will be useful when you need to juice it up really fast

- Do not trust an older powerbank. Though my mi bank has a good capacity of 10000 mAH, it doesn't really power anything beyond the first 3 lights

- Consider your choice of bike. A road bike or a hybrid will allow for higher sustained speeds which can provide that invaluable buffer later on in the ride.
- Don't ever think of giving up on a brevet. The slope from thinking about giving up and actually giving up is extremely rapid and you will be hanging up your gloves in no time

Though the DNF was a blow, my SR dream is still alive, it has given me a lot of confidence in my next attempt at a 400. As they say, you learn more from a single mistake than a 100 successes.