Fwd: [chennai bikers] Chennai Cyclothon - My first ever race - Finished 11th (approximately)
Rohan Kini
This was an interesting experience report by Bharani on the Chennai Cyclothon. Our victorious Kinky team is mentioned a couple of times :)
From: Bharani Shivakumar <bharani.s...@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Jan 24, 2010 at 12:09 PM
Subject: [chennai bikers] Chennai Cyclothon - My first ever race - Finished 11th (approximately)
To: chennai-bikers <chennai...@googlegroups.com>, matt barrett <mattfo...@yahoo.co.uk>, Vellayan Subbiah <vell...@laserwords.com>, Sachin Chavan <sch...@royalenfield.com>, SRINATH RAJAM <raja...@vsnl.com>, Gopal Bike <sheet...@rediffmail.com>, senthil kumar <tri...@gmail.com>
Chennai Cyclothon was a kind of mess in the organization part right from the beginning. They got their sponsors late and the registrations were open less than 2 weeks before the event. Still there was a nice crowd that turned out today. The publicity of the event and the enthusiasm of the citizens of Chennai to be appreciated. But this was too big a crowd to be managed by CWI (Childen of World India)
I collected my bibs from Vibha yesterday itself and was happy to receive a complementery T shirt from Shuhaib for Chennai Bikers as Firefox's Sponsorship. So we have a T shirt for Chennai Bikers atlast!! Thanks for the efforts Shuhaib and Vibha.
There was a kind of confusion in the 60 Km category route. But got cleared today morning during the instructions. Thanks for the inputs from Vibha for the Chennai Bikers in advance. I was struggling with my ligament pain after the TFN for a while and was worried if this Cyclothon is going to mess it further. I did not have any ambitious dreams for the Cyclothon and wanted to hear my body speak and mind order the legs. Still I prepared my bike well with 72 psi (for an MTB) of air, brakes checked and chains lubricated.
It was inspiring to see a bunch of Tamil Nadu state cycling team with moderate biking gears, good to moderate bikes and some young boys even in bare foot. Tamilnadu cycling Association was officiating the race and some of them are the coaches of the young lads. The other end was the KYNKYNY biking team from Bangalore with whom Matt barrett from Chennai rides. I was thinking of holding on to Peter from Auroville and Murthy of Chennai Bikers to hold on and draft with them.
It was a neutral zone from the Anna University campus to Madhya Kailash (starting of IT express highway). The teams grouped and took positions at the starting point. There was also a bunch of normal enthusiasts on single speed and normal utility bikes. At the flag off of the race, the bunch started to move to 30 - 31 kmph in the first 1 Km. I was on my first ever race and had to learn a lot about what people do in a race. It was usually the turn of the TNCA (Tamil nadu cycling Association) team to attack and the KYNKYNY with the rest of the crew follow to make up the sprint. Peter was with his friend Georgio, who was a semi pro racer from Italy. I was some how managing to keep myself up with the lead group through the stretch. Over the entire race there would have been some 10 to 15 attacks where they go to 45 - 50 Kmph and I survived most of them to get back to the lead group to ride at 33 - 35 Kmph in the cool mode. I was the only MTB in the gang of 15 - 20 ppl in the lead. There was lot of nice chats all through the ride and I thoroughly enjoyed.
The worse part of the race was waiting in the last stretch. When it was almost 5 Km to finish, we were waiting for some attack from behind and sipped ourselves with some water. As a surprise, it was Peter this time attacking from behind. The TNCA and KYNKYNY followed them, suddenly there was a slip from one guy which resulted in a crash of 6 - 10 bikes. I fortunately escaped the crash by inches and now the lead group before is gone and I am left behind the crash. I had to start from 0 Kmph to rise to 35 Kmph and ride all alone against the head wind. The open traffic 1 Km before the finish line made me to slow down again and when I was going further and looking for a sprint, there is a crowd taking photos and after crossing a white line, I realised that I just crossed the finish line.. This was the complain from the other guys who finished before me, they were saving their energy for the final sprint and it is already finished. There was no indication/board/ribbon that said that it was the finish line. Georgio and Prashant from KYNKYNY were caught in the crash and would have expected them also to be the top finishers.
When we came back to Anna University, it was a big mess with all the other categories cycling around inside the campus and we wished that we escape that place. Went out to the Elliots beach to have breakfast at the Murugan idli shop.
I learnt a lot about racing and hope that I can to much better with a roadbike and subtracting 10 Kg off my body. The next race for me will definitely be on a road bike.
BSA Hercules Chennai Cyclothon - A brand stunt show. Better to have given it a miss, if you are not a serious racer. I heard from the groups that came behind that he traffic itself was not closed for them and they had to stop at all traffic lights. Thanks to the Pilot vehicle that helped in reducing the mess for us
Waiting to hear about stories from other categories.
Bharani.
--
o__
_> /__
(_) \(_)... Burn fat, not fuel - Bike along to a healthier life and cleaner world! :)
saddlenshoes.blogspot.com
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Bharani
Regards,
Bharani
On Jan 24, 12:07 pm, Rohan Kini <rohan.k...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Im sure many in Bangalore are not on Chennai Bikers :)
>
> This was an interesting experience report by Bharani on the Chennai
> Cyclothon. Our victorious Kinky team is mentioned a couple of times :)
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Bharani Shivakumar <bharani.shivaku...@gmail.com>
> Date: Sun, Jan 24, 2010 at 12:09 PM
> Subject: [chennai bikers] Chennai Cyclothon - My first ever race - Finished
>
> 11th (approximately)
> To: chennai-bikers <chennai...@googlegroups.com>, matt barrett <
> mattfootpr...@yahoo.co.uk>, Vellayan Subbiah <vella...@laserwords.com>,
> Sachin Chavan <scha...@royalenfield.com>, SRINATH RAJAM <rajam....@vsnl.com>,
> Gopal Bike <sheetal...@rediffmail.com>, senthil kumar <trid...@gmail.com>
> *BSA Hercules Chennai Cyclothon - A brand stunt show. Better to have given
> it a miss, if you are not a serious racer.* I heard from the groups that
> came behind that he traffic itself was not closed for them and they had to
> stop at all traffic lights. Thanks to the Pilot vehicle that helped in
> reducing the mess for us
>
> Waiting to hear about stories from other categories.
>
> Regards,
> Bharani.
>
> --
> o__
> _> /__
> (_) \(_)... Burn fat, not fuel - Bike along to a healthier life and cleaner
> world! :)
>
> saddlenshoes.blogspot.com
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "chennai-bikers" group.
> To post to this group, send email to chennai...@googlegroups.com.
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