Freedom ride

It's 63 years of independence today. To commemorate the same, a 63km ride was organized in the city today. A golden chance to ride alongside the greatest riders of the city. There were riders from all age groups - from 7 to 70. Initially my thought was to ride along with the biking community and take it more as a fun ride. But as the ride kicked off, I got this sudden urge to complete the entire ride in one stretch and hit an average speed of 22+ kmph for the entire ride. I started off with a good tempo and in no time left all my teammates behind. About 35% into the ride, I saw this father son duo on the road. The dad was riding a real cool Cannondale road bike and his 7 year old son was on his small Btwin. I slowed down to ride with them for a while. Riding along side the spirit of the kid was took precedence over setting individual records. The kid was not riding the entire 63km but was biking along with his dad for a small stretch. I challenged him to a race and he did put up a good fight, riding at 20+kmph. :) I rode with them for some distance and then went ahead.

One of the legs of the return ride was particularly demanding. We had a 3-4 km stretch that was a mild uphill all the way through. I started feeling the pain in my thighs and butts. I wanted to do that stretch without break. A part of me wanted to keep going whereas the other part wanted to take a break. In rides and hiking, mostly the mind gives up before the body does. On the flip side, there are instances when the mind complete refuses to listen to the body and the body ends up burning out. The best riders and hikers know very well how to strike a balance between the two to get the best out of both. For me, I don't know which one gave up but as I climbed down the saddle, I could feel the entire body weight on my thighs. I parked my bike by the highway and walked a few steps to free up the lactic acid. It worked and when I got back on, the ride seemed relatively easier.

I hit the base and clocked an average of about 20kmph for the ride. I am not complaining. The ride as such was not very long as I've been on longer rides before but somehow it seemed demanding today. The base was at a 5-star hotel and we were supposed to have raffles lucky draw for the riders. One of my colleagues won a nice fibre helmet and I won a bike rack for the car. Now I have a couple of bikes, a rack for them...all I need now is a car to mount the rack on :) Lunch was on the house for the riders at the hotel. I was tempted to grab a quick bite as all I had since morning was a couple of bananas and water. I was literally starving but decided to head home. As I entered the kitchen, I was glad that I didn't eat anything at the hotel. The simple homely steaming lunch was smelling incredible. Had a sumptuous meal and crashed for a couple of hours.

Evening rains again spoiled our plans of shopping for some essentials. Hope it stops raining before the movie tonight.


P.S. - I generally don't prefer cropping my photos but this is an exception.