Ride report of my 'Opendro 600 BRM'

[Prashanth Chengi]

Hello all,

Thanks to all the people who share their ride stories here. Reading accounts by the likes of Sayi, is quite inspiring, and eggs on us to both ride more, and to write more! 

Here's the ride report from my 600 BRM, with which I got to my first ever SR. And yes, this was the 600 that I dedicated to Open, for his truly outstanding and inspirational Trans Am finish.

http://prashanthchengi.livejournal.com/76496.html

/Prashanth

[Aravind M S]

Fantastic write up Prashanth. 

Well and true dedication to Open!!!

--
biking conversations on the world famous "Bangalore Bikers Club" :)
 
are you a part of the bicycle racing scene?
Visit www.bangalorebicyclechampionships.com for more details
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Bangalore Bikers Club" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bangalore-bike...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Chidambaran Subramanian]

Good write up Prashanth. Congrats on your 600 + maiden SR

On Fri, Jul 22, 2016 at 12:12 AM, Prashanth Chengi <prashant...@gmail.com> wrote:

--

[Opendro]

Ridden hard and written beautifully. Congratulations once again.

Thanks for dedicating it to me. I will take that as more of a comradeship than my own merit to earn such a nice gesture :-)

Wish you many more miles!

[Prashanth Chengi]

Thanks, Chiddu and Aravind!

Many thanks, Open! 

You certainly underplay your own merit too much! The plain fact that one of us (and not an elite professional athlete with access to unlimited financial and training support, and equipment, whose profession is biking) made it to the finish of an event such as the Transam Bike Race in immensely inspiring. When the chips are down, often a bit of psychological boost is what's needed to keep going, and not to scratch, and your ride provides that boost to us, whenever one of us needs it.  Now, when I'm really bogged down due to bad weather conditions, and I'm tempted to quit, I tell myself that discomfort is temporary, but the joy of finishing will be mine forever, and go on. Surely this can't be worse than anything Open went through, and prevailed, is another thing that eggs us on, now.

/Prashanth

--

[Jayaprakash E]

Nice write up Prashanth!! Congrats again!!

[santosh kumar]

Congratulations Prashanth. Great feat and a fabulous write up...

--

[Parag]

Congratulations Prashanth, Third time lucky was my initial thought, but on reflecting a bit, it is clearly the result of all the training, and preparation you did to ensure you would succeed.

The weather conditions are very nicely captured, and I was thinking if I am up to doing such a ride in freezing weather, Bangalore riders are blessed ,and spoilt by the lovely weather.

Open- Being a role model is good, you inspire a lot of us, so stop being so self-deprecating, and tell us how to follow in your pedal strokes !

[Prashanth Chengi]

Many thanks, Santhosh, and Jayaprakash, for the kind words.

Thanks Parag!

Yes, the failures were hard, but each ride made me stronger mentally. I was devastated when I failed to finish the 600 on the first attempt, while in reality it was a great thing that I got that far. I was much more mature by the time I made my second attempt, not to mention better prepared.  After I had that stomach issue, I was very calm and collected when I made the decision to abort the ride. It felt sad to quit after 455, but the fact that I'd crossed 400 for the second time in a row, with just a 30 minute power nap, was quite encouraging.  And my legs were still strong. I knew that I would be able to do it on my next attempt.  On the third time, I guess I was totally ready, but was still a bit worried about jinxes and superstitions! After the horrible start, the panic was bad, but once I calmed down and reasoned it out, I was able to go on.  It was the 400 brevet that really gave me the confidence, I think, in my own abilities as a biker; it told me that I could ride solo for more than a day, encountering few or no people.  That is one of the big contrasts from India; here you can bike for hundreds of kilometers without seeing a single human being! Some of the control stops are well over 100 km apart, and you might not see anybody during those stops.. and if the time is late evening/night, you might need to simply push on, taking a selfie at the control point, because that too would be closed! I think the report of the 400 would make for nice reading too. Will try and put down my thoughts and recollections.

/Prashanth

[Ali Poonawala]

SR is a fantastic achievement... Dedicating 600 to Open is really very touching...yesterday he was narrating some of his lows during the ride...
To go on in these circumstances, diving in and pulling hope from depth of despair...
You guys are so good !