Tuesday 14 January 2014

Being a trainer rat and my two training routes

                 The marathon-ic classes began at college last week and coincidentally did my "winter" training rides. Although winter's long gone in Bangalore, these  rides are called so because everywhere around the world, these rides are performed during the winter months when there is no road racing happening. Unfortunately, due to the irregular cycling calendar in India, I'm doing them now (better late than never). These rides are long rides (4+ hours) and constant efforts, so what better place to do it than on a trainer? Well, if you stay in Bangalore and are aware about the "mind and body"-numbing traffic then you would realize that the trainer is a much safer option despite having to deal with the never ending boredom. Fortunately I was able to complete all of last week's workout thanks to Armin Van Buuren's "A State of Trance".
 (Wonder if we can organize such a race)


         

     Last thursday, I came back early from college and decided to head out on the road rather than slog it out on the trainer for 4 hours. One of my usual training routes in the evenings is the Bangalore University campus. This has neatly laid roads for 8.2 kms with 3 short and steep climbs (perfect). The backdrop being this is a crucial route linking the National highway and Western Bangalore which means there is a high vehicular density (it feels kinda cool when I drop many vehicles on the climbs). Back to thursday, the ride was pretty calm except for 10mins of exceptionally large amounts of traffic at certain sections. But 4 hours of repeating the same loop can be mentally taxing. My thoughts varied from "Will the Pettachi-Renshaw-Cavendish train work this season?" to "How would my performance vary if the air was 10 percent more viscous than it is?". 
        With the large amounts of traffic I did run into some nincompoops, three guys on a motorbike who thought it was "funny" to shove me of the road at 7:30pm! Idjits.

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(This is what the elevation profile of the BU route looks like!)

      Last Sunday, I decided to head out on a route which I had previously been on only once with a friend of mine. This route is B-E-A-utiful. Its about 55kms from where I stay which involves 50mins of navigating through traffic, but its totally worth it. The best part about this route is the silence, other than the villagers and the occasional moped passing by, there is nothing else to disturb the equilibrium. I did the same route today and the weather was nothing short of perfect. With the clip of Simon Gerrans winning the Australian Road championships (like a boss) playing in my mind, I was tearing up the tarmac on today's ride. The directions to this route are strictly confidential and will be revealed only over a DBC.


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(the vineyards alongside the road are a treat to the eyes and nose)

Lastly a big shout out and congratulations to my team captain, Sachin Panwar and also to Jetharam "Sher" Ghat on securing one-two at the tour de polo last weekend. Looking forward to my first race this season.







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