I was awake before the alarm clock rang at 3:15am on THU the Eleventh of July. The excitement, tension and the slight fear was palpable. It was the longest brevet I was embarking, titled the ‘No-hype 1200’. 

After an hour I was ready, rode to the start point, the Khoday’s on Kanakapura road, a good 19km from my house. Bike check done, brevet card signed, cue card handed over by Chidambaran, eight of us are all set to go at 5:30 am. It was wonderful to see Parag Patankar and Anil Kadsur who had come to the start to wish us the very best.Thank you guys.

Opendro, Shreeju, Somaskanda took off like a bullet. I started with a steady moderate pace and at the Mysore road intersection, Vishal passed me. It was pleasure getting to know you Vishal. Sohan, Kiran and Srinivas (from Hyderabad) were behind. In a little less than a hour tom the start, I was at Tumkur road, which was much quieter in the early morning. 

Tea and cake at Tumkur toll was a refreshing break after a good three hour ride, with the brunch stop at Kamat (Sira) at about 11am. After a few minutes of riding, I see Somaskanda sitting on the highway shoulder. He has been waiting for a rider to pass by so that he could find a new partner after breaking away from his earlier partners. Our ride would turn out be interesting.

Wide expanse on both sides of the highway, a moderate sun saw headwinds all the way to Chitradurga, our first control point at the 209km mark. Thirty kms to go and Somaskanda had a flat (his third, and the first after I met him). We fix the flat, fight the winds and then the rain commences. 

We reached Chitradurga around 5:30, take the ATM slip, and eat meals and search for a cycle shop to fix the tubes as Somaskanda has no spare tubes. We lose nearly a hour doing this. As we exit Chitradurga, Somaskanda has a second puncture. As we fix, Sohan and Kiran pass us.

The night is wet, cold and moonless. No stars in the sky. With 200 kms to the next control,it promises to a long night. With the constant drizzle, keeping eyes open is becoming a challenge. I have never had an issue with sleep especially the first night, but the wet night is testing me. I eat quite a few candies to keep myself awake and take a few short breaks. It was great to see a restaurant in this spartan highway and a cup of strong coffee was great. But the effects are short lived. 

We had planned for a late dinner at a Kamat @300km mark, and continue to ride hard. As we near Kamat, we see that it is closed and Sohan and Kiran hail us down. They are sitting in a small joint next to Kamat eating ‘Chitrana’ for dinner. They finish and leave and whilst we commence. Wet and cold, we find the roadside food heavenly! It is close to midnight.

A hundred kms to the second control, we enter the Ranebennur stretch, where I had encountered strong headwinds in my 1000km brevet last month when I rode through this territory in the afternoon. But tonight, it’s cold & wet and the winds quiet. This stretch of highway is indeed very desolate, and today it is dark too. After a couple of hours of riding, keeping eyes open is becoming really hard. The challenge is that there’s no place to sleep. After some time we spot a petrol bunk. We lie down and take a 15-minute power nap. It feels good but is short lived, until Somaskanda has another flat. 

Time is ticking and we are still a good 70 KMS from the second control. The drizzle is unrelenting. The early hours of the wet dawn is proving to real test of endurance of keeping eyes open. Snickers bar from Somanskanda gives a short term relief.The speed has come down and Somaskanda is not hopeful that we will make it to the next control. My thinking is simple – pedal as hard as you can, be in the moment and leave the rest to God/nature. Then I have my first flat. This jolts me and I am awake. A few Kilometers later, the sky opens up and it rains hard, sleep vanishes and I sprint the next 50 KMS to Hubli and make it to the control with 10 minute to spare. Somaskanda follows shortly. 

The incessant rain have made Hubli a big mess. A big slush pool of clayey mud. Sprinting inside this town to reach the ATM control point was a big mistake. The clayey slush is picked up the wheels and thrown into the gear train/derailleurs, as I do not have front mud guard whilst the rear one is a half mudguard. Additionally my shirts and pant is absorbing the muck from the road. As you do more brevets, guess your revulsion to dirt drops dramatically! Now we are real dirty, but all we care about is collecting ATM slips!

After collecting the ATM skip, we have a breakfast that is terrible. Leaving Somaskanda to fix his punctured tubes, I leave Hubli, and promise that we will meet later on the Belgaum highway. With the chain caked with mud, and the climbs immediately commencing after leaving Hubli, it is a slow ride. After a couple hours, I stopped at a nice restaurant to have roti/dhal and proceeded to clean the cycle with a hosepipe. After removing the caked mud and oiling the chain, I am good to go. As I commence the climbs, I find it is getting hard to shift and the brakes mild. 

After about 45 minutes, it is becoming very increasingly difficult to shift gears making the climbs really difficult. It is frustrating, I am not enjoying the fight with my cycle. That is when I decide to abort. A very difficult decision to make. I had practiced hard, psychologically prepared myself for a long sleepless ride, believed that luck will on my side and now I had to make a decision. With the rear gear shifter really hard and brakes mild, it was not only difficult to climb, but unsafe, and it was no fun. As I contemplate, I see the familiar figure of Somaskanda sitting on the edge of on the highway. He had developed a new problem – spongy sore feet, the effect of wet shoes. He could not go any further and was contemplating of aborting too. 

At the 450km mark, about 50 KMS to Belgaum, it crashed. The dream of completing the 1200 brevet. And it was painful. As Scott Ragdale this year’s RAAM participant, an accomplished athlete/cyclist and 7 Triathlons in 7 days (Naseba7) finisher who had to quit said in his interview “Failure sucks”. It resonated with me. 

Failure is a great teacher, as long you are open to receive the teaching. As professional tester, I know this only too well. But the difference is that as a tester I am keen on making systems fail, whereas in this case I am the “system-under-test”. 

I learnt that mud-guards are key to a successful wet ride. I learnt that keeping body warm is critical. I had kept the upper body warm but the lower parts were cold due to the missing front mud-guard. And I am yet to figure to how to keep awake during long wet drizzle spells. 

It was indeed a delight to see that Opendro and Srinivas completed the ride with quite a few hours to spare. Congrats guys. But the Sahayadri had consumed the others. This is the story of the first 1200 brevet in India where eight strong riders braved the winds, rain, climbs, sleep, rode through dark highways attempting the “no-hype” 1200km (actually 1250). It is a honour riding with you guys. Salute the finishers Opendro and Srinivas.

Thank you Chidambaran Subramaniam for organizing the ride. Thank you Manjula Sridhar, Chirag Singhal for all the good wishes. And to all my dear friends who has sent me good wishes and keen on a positive outcome – Sorry that I could finish. 

Looking forward to implementing the learnings in the next season’s 1200/1000. However, am keen though to try the same route in the near future as practice in brevet style, let us see…

On a lighter note, this writeup is longer than my ride!