It's Sunday! You know what that is? RACE DAY!
So today was the last day of the 2010 BBCh or Bangalore Bicycle Championship, determined to ensure that I made myself a member of this cycling community, and obviously to race as hard as I could.
So, the night before, I set my alarms (2 of them!) to wake me up at 6:30 am so that I have enough time to wake up and feel awake to cycle there by 7:30. Woke up to the 6:15 alarm, hit the dismiss button, looked at the time, ‘yea I still have time to sleep a bit more’. Went back to sleep, and woke up at 6:45, thought again. Yea I got time... Woke up at 7!
SHIT!
After a quick wash and a banana, I was off on my bike. Since this was going to be a race, I decided to pace myself getting there; I was on the road at 7:10 so I had 20 minutes. It took me 15 to get from Edward road, to Mekhri Circle. I was panicking a bit, but good my good old brain decided to turn on for a second and tell me, ‘Wait, fool! The race starts at 8! You’re just supposed to try and be there by 7:30’
With this new found time, I coasted down the road to the Raman Research Institute.
The race that I was going to take part in was a criteria race, just think a circuit race, but with a time limit and no lap limit. You’re supposed to race around a track for one hour. The people whom haven’t been lapped are first. And the best way to remember how far down you are is to just count how many times the same person passes you.
So the track looks something like this. It was around .9 km in length and was full of tight technical corners at the end of the starting stretch, eventually you’re heading back to the start but you peel off the main road onto a pathway where a murderous s-bend makes the perfect choke point. After that it’s straight down past a warehouse and an inclined turn which eventually leads to the end of the main road. Here, you have to take a right onto a dirt track right before you turn off to the end of the lap.
I got myself a race number, number 369 to be precise. And I love it! Even better when people are trying to call it out,
“Number 963,”
“No.”
“693? Oh! 369!”
I took a few warm up laps and the only thought floating through my head was that this was my first race, the first time I was competitively going against other bikers. I was shit scared when I saw the 90 degree turns and imagined myself trying to deal with those turns with like 10 bikers behind me, especially in the first lap where everyone was grouped together, and if one person falls he can take out as many as 15 people. (So really tempting, but the last thing I wanted was the whole of Bangalore’s cycling scene after me!
The next worry was the s-turn, it was an attempt to make the track longer and get to the other side of the buildings, but the trade off was quite worrisome and rather entertaining as it negated the entire previous section. The turn is so narrow so any speed you might have got to separate you from the pack is gone as you have got to be like Lance Armstrong or something to make that turn in one go. Once you’re out of that turn, there is a mad dash to separate yourself from the group.
It was with these concerns that I sat waiting for the whistle to be blown at the start. In hindsight, I started the race with an incorrect mindset, by thinking of my potential downfalls and the chance of my knees killing me in the race, it messed up my psyche and thus my race.
I must have been in the 4th row of cyclists on the start. As soon as the whistle blew, the Kynkyny team was off with number 69 at the front. I pushed myself, I needed to break away from the pack so I poured on the speed and was able to make the first set of turns with no problems. My favourite part of the whole track was the straight to the turns leading to the lap line. It was a muddy rocky road, giving me on a mountain bike a huge advantage over the roadsters, and at the end, there was a small perimeter which over time had sunk in, giving me a perfect spot for snaking off a millisecond or 5!
The first few laps were good, and then the Kynkyny team came again. When I saw that I was getting lapped on like the 3rd lap, I got to say, it was pretty damn demoralising. Then 2 laps later again, and then again, and again. In the 10 laps I did, I was lapped 4 times. It sucked.
Sadly, the race was called off as a cyclist took a nasty tumble on turn 2. As he was rushed off to hospital thanks to a pre-requested ambulance, the big-wigs in BBCh decided that it was just too dangerous a track and as people got tired, there would be some serious risks.
I watched the kiddie race and rooted them on and then headed back home.
Heading home was also a rather interesting ride.
So I snuck out from the side as there was a prize ceremony that was going to happen and I didn’t want to be the sore-loser who left as they got their prizes and plus, my mom was having a big lunch at home.
I started off and reached the traffic light, I stopped like a good cyclist, but as soon as the light turned green, bang I was at 30kmph in like 5 seconds and I kept it up till I hit 40kmph. Thrilled by the speed rush I settled for an uneventful ride home.
Oh how wrong I was.
In the map, point A is where it all went down. Completely my fault FYI.
So, I was travelling down Jayamahal road at 30kmph or 25kmph with this really slow cyclist in front of me. I was asking him to move (okay, I asked him once) to let me go past. We must have been 5 ft from the pavement on the road, so I figured, let me move inside and overtake him.
Big mistake.
I moved into the lane and the first thing I see was a woman and her gigantic sweeper trolley. I was 10 feet from her and so I immediately jammed on my brakes determined not to hit the trolley cause that’d damage the bike, me and possibly her too.
I’m braking and I feel my front wheel slowing down way, way too fast, and much faster that my back tyre. At this point, I’m sure my subconscious must have told me:
“Dude, you’re going to fall.”
“But I can...”
“DUDE! You are GOING to FALL!”
Just then my front wheel came to a halt and me and the rest of the bike when smack into it, I relaxed my hands and felt myself rising off my seat, and it was almost instant, I was outwardly thinking, “what the hell is happening” as I was falling through the air. I stretched out my palms and absorbed most of the force with my gloves, I slid onto the pavement and felt each one of my limbs make contact with the same surface.
This all must have taken 5 seconds.
So I snapped out of my mild level of shock and just out of frustration or whatever, I asked the sweeper woman what she was doing! It took me a minute but I got up and apologised to her, and told her it wasn’t her fault. And it wasn’t, it was that stupid git on the slow bike and the effect he had on me.
I lifted up my bike from the ground and assessed the damage, the front wheel was intact (Thank God!) but it had been twisted from the centre, a quick clasp with my legs and a twist and it was back to normal... well kind of.
Telling the woman sorry once again (I think I scared her: P) I continued home, as I approached the next turn I pressed on my rear wheel brakes, and they weren’t responding, forcing me to stop. I couldn’t find a problem so I continued with my hand on the front wheel brakes. I later found out that the metal casing for the brake was bent in so the breaks weren’t really responding.
NOTE – This situation was only after the fall.
As I neared home, I felt like I was in a bad movie with a crappy running joke. This joke, for the next km I saw the guy who provoked me into falling like 3 times, and each time I overtook him and he just managed to pop ahead every minute!
Way to make my injury a joke! Get some demon to mock me whilst I cycle in pain.
Intense stuff but, oh so much fun.
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