BBCh -2013 - Tarmac - April Road Race

You Want Action? Come to BBCh!
  

 Peloton at the start as the racing action kicked off on Hyd Highway! : Photo FlashBulbZz

It was the first flyover on the return and Naveen John(NJ) of Specialized KYNKYNY Cycling Team(SKCT) attacks. Looks back to see if any of his teammates are joining. The front of the pack responds. First, a rider from Team Wheelsports tries to follow. NJ weaves across the road shaking him off easily. Then a rider from Team Trek Firefox and another from Team Naesar try to get on his tail. 

Another snake dance ensues with the riders swinging from left to right on the highway and he manages to shut them down and breaks free. Although climbing is not really his forte for this muscular TT and breakaway artist from SKCT, this slightly steep and long flyover didn’t mean much more than gritting his teeth and grinding a big gear. He did just that and managed to put a few seconds on the peloton. 

Then it happened. His teammate, Lokesh Narasimhachar(Loki), charged off from the front of the bunch and joined NJ and lead him over the crest of the ~1km long flyover.

Loki and NJ drilling it in a break! Can they make it stick?

Unconsciously, I moved to the edge of the car’s back seat I was watching the race from. The adrenaline rush as I was watching the race unfold before my eyes was unbelievable. Are the deadly duo going to do it again? Is this two man break going to stick?

The peloton which was already going at a ferocious tempo and just upped it a bit to reel in the two man break on the downhill. It was around 20km to go to the finish line and the attacks kept coming but no one managed to go clear.

After a few minutes of relative calm from the peloton, Bhimappa Vijayanagar (Bhimshi) of SKCT attacked just before the second flyover on the return and managed to go clear with around 15km to go. He managed to put a decent gap from the peloton. While he was riding at the edge with his team director doing a Marc Midiot, it looked as though he might just manage to time trial away to victory. 

But after a few kms, Bhimshi was joined by Rajnish Kumar of Team Trek Firefox who put in a massive effort to bridge up to him. It was now a two-man break again and the gap looked big. But with others trying to bridge and the peloton itself reacting, the two-man break that lasted the longest and built the biggest gap was caught with around 6km to go.

It is Bhimshi's turn to attack..  with his team director encouraging him like Marc Madiot

More Action More Drama:  
While there was furious action playing out at the front of the peloton, there was furious action at the back of the peloton too. At around 10km to go mark on a downhill where the whole group was going at well above ~60kmph some wheels touched and Manu Balara of Team Naesar crashed hard. He suffered lacerations on his left shoulder and thigh but thankfully escaped without any broken bones.

Sreedhar Savanur of Team Wheelsports and Asif Attar of Team Naesar, two of the strong favorites were caught in this crash. Apparently Asif crashed too but escaped with minor injuries while Sreedhar went off the road and avoided crashing. This meant that they were quickly distanced from the peloton which was busy in chasing the two-man break that Bhimshi has started. Team Wheelsports’ team director, Venkatesh Sivarama(Venky) who was on a support mo-bike quickly went ahead and instructed his team to drop back to help their leader get back. With his teammates taking death pulls for him Sreedhar managed to rejoin the peloton in the last few kilometers.

With the multitude of attacks failing and all the breaks reeled in, the race was heading for a sprint finish as the peloton surged towards to finish line at tremendous pace. Being lead out by his team, SKCT sprinter Laxman Kurni opened his sprint but the strongest surge came from Sreedhar Savanur of Team Wheelsports. And it came when it mattered the most. He had the time to comply with the finish line graffiti of “Hands-Up” for his victory salute.  

Sreedhar Savanur of Team Wheelsports with his victory salute.. Photo: RollingShutterz

 

Racing And A Bit of Tumbling:

When the race kicked off, the 107 riders who lined up charged ahead at a brisk pace. Within the first few kilometers there were quite a few touches of shoulders and wheels which threatened to put a few riders in contact with the tarmac. Although riders were being ejected from the back of the bunch at ridiculous rate, the group was still quite big when we approached the flyover at around 10km into the race. A sideways movement from Sarvesh Sangarya sent Mohan Kumar of Spectrum Racing and Andrew Jerald of Team Student Foundation For Sports, tumbling into the highway railing.

Frious action in the front bunch as the race progressed.. Photo:SimpliClick

It sounded really bad and I wanted to see if my teammate was alright and since he was one of our strongest, I wanted to help him get back to the peloton if I can. So, I slowed down and went back to the crash site. Volunteers had stopped and helped them by the time I got there but Mohan had to abandon as the fork on his bike broke during the crash. Andrew also escaped with minor injuries.

At race pace, one could go down before one could say, “Oops!”. Crashes are part of racing and they happen at all the levels. But, it is really important that the youngsters like Sarvesh(and many of us oldies too) work on group riding skills like holding a line and not making sudden movements. Working on a bit of bike handling skills along with working on ones speed goes a long way to keep oneself as well as others safe.

I tried to get back on and after 2-3kms of the most optimistic chase ever in the history of bike racing, I gave up and chose to flag down Jaikanth Kumaran’s car. He was there with his photography partner to shoot the race. I figured that since my chances of being part of the racing action with the front bunch were doomed at least I could get to watch the action from a support car.

As our car went ahead, we saw more riders that were left in the wake of the speeding peloton. By the time we caught up to the peloton, they were almost at the turn around point(30km). It was still a relatively big bunch with the numbers being made up by the riders from SKCT, Team Wheelsports, Team Trek Firefox and Team Naesar along with lone wolfs, Dev Veera(Spectrum Racing), Craig Raynes(BOTS), Jehaan Panjuani(ProCycle) and Sarvesh Acharya. Riders with no teammates in the lead bunch were limited to following the wheels while those with teammates to work with were able to show much more intent either attacking or reeling in the attacks to control the race.

If the pace till the U-turn point was furious, the action became more intense once they took the U-turn to get to the finish line. It was a pleasure watching the race action so up-close. I’m sure it would have been even better if I was in the peloton to give my teammate and eventual cat 2 winner, Dev Veera(Spectrum Racing) company while watching the action from within the bunch.


Results: 
In Men's Cat1, Sreedhar Savanur showed once again why he is considered to be one of the finest of young cycling talent in India. His victory also shows why bike racing is such a team sport. He was quickly followed by SKCT’s Laxman Kurni(2nd), Lokesh Narasimhachar(3rd) and Ambi Mallappa(4th). Team Trek Firefox’s main man, Jeetharam Gat finished at 5th.

Cat 1 Winners: FlashbulbzzPhotography

Spectrum Racing’s  Dev Veera wins the Cat2 race with Sukrit (2^nd)(Aurovelo), Petrus Moeleker(3^rd), Andre Deplechin(4^th)(Aurovelo) and Michael Traesborg(5^th) following him.

The women’s category race was a show down between Spectrum Racing’s Vicki Nicholson and Team Wheelsports’ Gitanjali. In the end Vicki finished a more than minute ahead of Gitanjali who finished 2^nd despite a bad crash towards the end. She was barely able to stand on the podium.

Women's Category Winners: Photo: RollingShutterz

Team Procycle’s Jehaan Panjuani won the under 18 category with an impressive performance finishing 21st overall.

U-18 Winner.. Photo: RollingShutterz..

BBCh Keeps Raising The Bar!

With more than 100 riders the race was not just one of the biggest amateur road races organized in India, it was also one of the best organized. With the riders, who raced at both state and national levels representing all the top 4 teams, the field was very competitive and very talented.

Although there was ample police support courtesy IGP Bhaskar Rao, Devanahalli and Chikkaballapur Traffic Police, closed roads would have made it so much more perfect. But the pilot car, bikes along with the support contingent following the peloton ensured that the general traffic was kept in check.

Sponsors & Volunteers:
From this race Leap Start became the main sponsors for BBCh offering prize money for all the winners and the main force behind U-18 category. Nephrolife sponsored the ambulance support while Sufferfest continues it support with prizes for 4th place. Camelbak continues to support BBCh by offering up its goodies for prizes. Thanks a ton to all the sponsors for the support and the volunteers for continuing to be so awesome and making BBCh more awesome with each passing race. Thanks to Team Naesar which did the route scouting and marking. Thanks also to the photographers from Veloscope, Rolling Shutterz, FlashBulbZz Photography and SimpliClick for covering the race.

Photos from my camera are here and here. High resolution pics of the action can be seen at flAshBulbZz, RollingShutterz, SimpliClick and Veloscope.

BBCh - Dirt - Turahalli XC Race - Fantastic Trail Action

BBCh - Dirt Racing Kickoff: 
The day dawned with chirping birds and moo-mooing cows sizing up a rather large group of strangers that poured into their neck of the woods. Turahalli XC trail was of course their terrain and we just happened to intrude, on this particularly beautiful morning. Some hundred odd folks gathered in Turahalli for the first Dirt race of BBCh-2013, 4 loops of ~5.5km trail making it a 22km XC race. 

At the start line as the race was flagged off..

63 pairs of tires raised a cloud of dust as the race was flagged off. The start line was on a wide mud road that allowed for a spacious start. A few hundred meters and a couple of left turns later you enter the thorny forest trail. The initial burst has separated the leaders from the rest of the field. 

Craig Raynes of BOTS Racing, Richard McDowell of Team Trek Firefox Racing, K Kiran Kumar Raju of Specialized KYNKYNY Cycling Team and Sridhar Savanur of Team Wheelsports pulled away and formed the lead breakaway bunch early in the first loop. Towards the end of the first loop however, the champion road rider, Sridhar became one of the many causalities of the tough trail and took a hard tumble on a downhill stretch. A hard hit to the knee and a twisted ankle meant that the road champion was not going to be able to embarrass the MTB specialists.

Craig in the lead at the start of the 2nd loop.. You can see Richard in pursuit..

By the start of the second loop, Craig was leading the race with Richard hot in pursuit. Kiran was a few meters behind them in 3rd position. The rest of the field was more than 5 minutes away and the closest guy, Siddhu Kurani of Team Wheelsports crashed out in the middle of the 3rd loop. That meant that the three podium positions were going to be from among these three hardcore MTBeers(read EmptyBeers) unless they crash or flat out. It was now the question of who will claim which position. 

The first two loops were lead by Craig but by third loop however, the rules of gravity began to overrule the sheer muscle power that was being generated and the feather weight duo closed in and dropped him into 3rd position. It was now Kiran in the lead with Richard closing in on him. That cat and mouse chase continued between these three right to the finish line but the positions established in the penultimate loop prevailed and Kiran finished an epic race on his new Specialized Epic 29er.    

Kiran Rides An Epic Race:
The first time I noticed Kiran Kumar Raju was when we were doing a recce for an XC race route around Sarjapur around early 2011. Here was this lean guy riding his MTB with the kind of abandon that we rarely get to see. But I didn't know him or his name then. Then I saw him put in a monster effort during the Nandi race in 2011 on a borrowed bike and sneakers. That was when I knew this guy is actually a really special animal. So did Vivek Radhakrishnan who soon blooded him into his development team, KYNKYNY Wheelsports, for 2012 season. He hopped on a bike after a long gap and finished 3rd in Nandi race 2012. 

All those bad-ass performances earned Kiran the red and white SKCT kit and a Specialized bike for 2013. He is the one man army of the SKCT MTB team  that made its debut along with the Specialzed Epic 29er. 

Kiran and his Specialized Epic at the start of the 2nd loop

All the best laid plans of this Epic debut however were in serious jeopardy when Kiran crashed on his commute and did a face plant on concrete exactly one month before the race. He broke his jaw, got operated, got some titanium plates and screws in his face and was on liquid diet for better part of the month preceding the race. 

When he appeared at the start line the scars from the lacerations were fresh on his face, arms and legs. The already lean guy lost a lot of weight due to the liquid diet and looked like a ghost. Although I knew him, I wondered if he would last at least couple of loops let alone compete. But what do we know! He went ahead and won the race beating a couple of the best MTBeers to the line. I won't ask him to take a bow because I know he was struggling with a bad back after the race. Kudos Kiran! 

Turahalli Continues to Amaze: Best of The Trails Yet!
Although we have seen quite a few great trails over the years at BBCh, I thought this was the the best XC trail loop so far. It had a bit of everything in it. Loads of climbing, rocky downhills, fire roads, thorny winding trail, a bit of jeep track a lot of single track. It ejected a lot of riders out of the race with punctured tires and punctured limbs. It was one tough course testing everyone to the limits.

Opendro negotiating a fast rocky downhill bit..

The first of the hundreds of flats on the day was on my team Spectrum Racing's Mohan Kumar a.k.a The Demon, who flatted with-in 200mts from the start line. That was the end of the race for him. By the end of the race, puncture fixing appeared to be the favorite pastime for most. 

I didn't participate in the race owing to a small injury and I walked one loop of the trail taking photos and watching the race unfold. I can still feel the burning sensation all over my legs from all trail rash the thorny bushes on the course gave me. So, I was not surprised to see all the bloodied legs with various art forms etched in dark shades of red by the end of the race.

The Results:
The women's podium was dominated by Team Wheelsports. Gitanjali and Sowmya of Team Wheelsports finished 1st and 2nd while Spectrum Racing's Shilpa Deo shared the podium with a 3rd place. Sowmya reached the race venue early morning from Mysore, borrowed and rode our design guy Aditya TVM's MTB into podium. 

Women's Podium: Sowmya(2nd), Gitanjali(1st) and Shilpa Deo(3rd)

The kids race was 100% dominated by Cleated Warrior younger generation. 

Cleated Warriors- GenNext!

The Men's podium was shared by SKCT's Kiran at 1st place, Team Trek Firefox's Richard at 2nd and BOTS racing's Craig at 3rd spot. 

Men's Podium: Richard(2nd), Kiran(1st) and Craig(3rd)

The winners in both men's and women's categories were gifted an entry into the weekend edition of MTB Shimla along with a cash prize of 2k each. 

Voluteers:
The guys did a great job of marking and manning the trail. Trail scouting and marking is not an easy job. The volunteers did a great job once again in the smooth organization of the race. Thanks guys!

Volunteer power at BBCh! Thanks guys!

Photos from my camera here and here.
Photos from Veloscope here and Rolling shutterz here. Enjoy!

Tamilnadu Cycling Club - Individual Time Trial - March 2013

This is what is racing all about! Giving it 100%  Dipankar Saikia the eventual winner! Photo: Suresh

Why Race If Not To Suffer And Exult in Suffering??:

The pounding heart was agreeing with the numbers on the garmin and the legs were pumping away and settled into a nice rhythm. 5-6kms into the ~25km race the speed was just below the target of 40kmph. As planned I was going just below my threshold. And then my worst nightmares came true in broad daylight. Some invisible hand began plucking at the strings attached to the side of my left knee. The sharp tingling ITB that troubled me from time to time during the last few weeks, made its very untimely and villainous appearance. 

'Dude, less than 30mins more. Just hang in there. You can take care of it later' 

'No, it could snap and you could end up with something serious' 

'Come on, its just some mild pain. You endured better before' 

'You could push too hard and end up something bad' 

'You're a sucker dude! You find all sorts of excuses to put in a lousy performance'

'Come on, that's not fair' 

'Exactly! It is not being fair for others in the race if you give excuses. So, STFU and ride'. 

'No...'

I would have given anything to stop that painful mental dialogue and the ability to focus on the race instead. It was only later in the day that I realized how exponentially more potent the pain of giving up is over the pithy pain caused by Iliotibial Band Syndrome. In retrospect, I should not have given up. Ah..well, retrospection is worth nothing in terms of the numbers on garmin or for the race results. But hopefully, I will be able to bottle up this awfully painful feeling of giving up without giving 100% to remind me to keep going when the going gets tough.

With the awesome folks at Chennai - TCC gang... Thanks TCC! Photo:Suresh Kumar

Spectrum Goes To Chennai:

The Spectrum racing wagon, with The Demon a.k.a Mohan Kumar, our skipper Dr. Arvind Bhateja and I, started towards Chennai to take us for our first race appearance in Chennai. For me it was my last opportunity of sorts(at least for a while) to appear in an outstation race before my wife and kids come back at the end of this month after being away for the birth of my second kid. Many months of my forced bachelorhood is set to end and although I wasn't really ready to race with a bit of ITB issue bothering me after last month's ITT at BBCh, I didn't want to miss the opportunity to visit Chennai and meet the awesome folks at the Tamilnadu Cycling Club. I was hoping to put in a good show in the ITT and was planning to take some time off after the race to sort the irritating niggle out.

New Teams: New Beginnings:

We reached Chennai on Saturday afternoon and made it to the house of our gracious host, Srinath Rajam. We participated in an instructional session he conducted to the budding national cyclists of his Team Trek Firefox Racing. It was great to get an insight into the kind of training and nutritional plans that are set out for them by the coach. The Trek Firefox team is made of budding cyclists from all over the country including Meerut, Ghaziabad, Delhi, Patna, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai. 

Srinath Rajam, who is soon to be a certified coach from British Cycling Association is the force behind the team and is mentoring them with great passion and clear goals. I'm sure great results are going follow as that great passion and love for the sport is combined with a scientific approach to coaching the team. 

Although Specialized KYNKYNY Cycling Team(SKCT) operates in similar lines, it looks like Team Trek Firefox Racing is the first private Amateur cycling team in India which is paying a stipend for the riders along with taking care of all their nutritional, training and travel expenses so that they can focus on just improving their performance on the bike. 

BBCh road race in April is going to be their first official race on their new trek bikes and team kits. The TCC ITT is just a trailer of sorts as they are yet to receive their Trek Madone bikes and team kits. We wish them all the very best ahead and look forward to great competition and sportsmanship with other top teams like SKCT and Team Wheelsports at club level and with other teams at National level.

The promising young lads of Team Trek Firefox (not all of them are in this pic)

The Hurried Start:

We retired early on Saturday and got ready early for the race on Sunday. But anyway ended up reaching the race venue just 5 mins before the 6:30am start. Unfortunately, unlike us, the good folks at TCC were very punctual and as we began assembling our bikes and pumping up our tires, the riders were being flagged off one by one. We ran to the registration desk to sign our indemnity bonds and to collect our bib numbers and dashed off on the opposite side for a quick warm up which lasted all of 2-3km before we had to hurry to the start line. 

Siddarth Kansal and Adarsh Sexena started ahead of me and Mohan, Dipankar Saikia and another Trek Firefox rider were slated to start behind me. I started off and got into a good rhythm. But soon I began to feel the pain on the outside of the left knee. May be pushing without much of warmup brought it up sooner than I hoped. Although the pain itself was not huge my brain seemed to have moved to my knee and I was not able to focus. Instead, I started to worry about all sorts of dooms day scenarios like not being able to ride for months together etc. 

With all the negative thoughts I began to slow down and ultimately resigned myself to complete the distance slowly. In the meantime, a Trek Firefox rider went past me followed soon by my Spectrum racing teammate, Mohan. I wished him all the best and felt better seeing that he was in good form to fly the Spectrum colors. After a while Dipankar Saikia wooshed past me in a graciously smooth motion.

The Course:Not That Fast:

The course although is flatter than most we would see in Bangalore, is not a very fast course. It has very slight 1-2% inclines all the way which are quite deceptive. But I think the main factor that makes it not-so-easy a course is its winding nature and the swirling cross winds that confuse us. It is a very scenic route too. Although the buses stopping at the couple of village stops on the route could pose issues for the riders, I didn't face such issues. One dog threatened to commit suicide and take me along with it in the process though.

 

As I continued to trudge along I sat up from time to time to stretch and relieve the tingling pain before getting back to aero position. As the kms ticked by, I saw a volunteer holding a 1km to go board and ringing a bell. I was so relieved that I wanted to stop and kiss that guy. Thankfully, I stopped myself from such inappropriate behavior and ambled across to the finish line.

From left to right: Jeetaram Gat(TrekFirefox), Dipankar Saikia(SKCT) and Satpal Singh(TrekFirefox)

The Results:

Dipankar Saikia of SKCT smoked it as expected and finished the course at 43.5kmph in 34:09, a good 55 secs ahead of Jeetaram Gat(35:04) of Trek Firefox team. Satpal Singh of Trek Firefox team finished third with 36:16. Naveen Raj of SKCT is the only other guy who managed an average of above 40kmph on the course.

In Women's category out of the three participants Barbara Pidgeon was the fastest and took the sole podium position with a timing of 49:45.

TCC Organization:Splendid Job:

I have heard really good things about the professional way races are organized by the team at TCC. Even then, I was pleasantly surprised by the smooth way the race was organized. They were punctual, professional and thoughtful. Every person who was responsible for a particular task seem to do it like clock work. The complete results were out with-in 15mins of the race completion.

At the finish line we handed over the tags to a couple of volunteers manning a van filled with boxed breakfast. The tags were tickets for the sumptuous breakfast of idli, Wada, Masala Dosa, Pongal and a bit of Kesari bath. No, not any one of those items. The box contained all of them. It didn't matter if I performed well in the race or not. I did really well in devouring the breakfast and licking the plate clean. The breakfast was delicious and the people were sweet.

Spectrum racing intends to participate more regularly at TCC events and thanks you all for your great work.

It was such a pleasure to finally meet so many guys whom I knew only through online media like FB and Bikeszone. 

A special thanks to our gracious host Srinath Rajam for hosting Spectrum Racing and treating us like royalty. Wish great success to Team Trek Firefox Racing.

Photos from my phone here. More photos from Suresh of Probikers here.