Tour of Tamil Nadu 2013, Embarking to Trichy on Day 0.

Facebook ! what is life without "FB" these days, a place where you are most likely to meet friends (and some wanna-be's) who have long gone from our lives as we add another year to our life. The status message on my FB page on the 21st December 2013 read something like this - "Good night folks ! When some of you guys wake up to go to work on a Saturday morning tomorrow I'm gonna be sitting in Trichy assembling my bike for the Tour of Tamil Nadu, 1000 kms + in 8 days. Have a great weekend !" I was excited.

I waited at the airport for my training buddy, henceforth he will be referred to as Trainer, Vaibhav Dandekar. It was hard 6 months of training which included close to 3 full months of trainer miles owing to monsoon in Bombay and then very unsystematic intervals and endurance workout. Trainer VDHehe worked dedicatedly on the trainer program which I had used for the UWCI race in Sri Lanka. I followed it for a month and then had to abandon it due to whole lot of travel which included a trip to Kerala and Bhutan. After the 1st month - October, I decided to work more on the endurance than speed and intervals as ToT was never meant to be a race and more of an endurance ride of more than 100 kms almost everyday. 

We had limited place to train in Bombay for many reasons - some just obvious. I loved the NH8 but detested going there through the Western Express Highway. I never came back home happy every time I took my bike there but nevertheless those long rides did do some good in terms of fun. Trainer and I would go to Kharghar Hills despite the odds of having very poor road there. Over the 3 months prior to the tour, I rode 100 kms on every given occasion. In no time, i was getting closer and closer to the 10,000 kms of mileage I had planned for the calender year. The apprehension were always there knowing fully that I have gotten closer to 10k kms but fell shy by a small margin. I may be the only one of all my cycling friends who never ever had 10k kms to my credit. My brother have had 10,000 miles, forget kilometers, for the past 4 year. Trainer and I had the miles to talk of but never the elevation profile. The less is said of 'so-called climbs' here, the better. It is an embarrassment to even talk about it. I have 2 - very short 1.5 kms long climb on the JVLR close to my house which averages around 3.5% gradient. I would sit and climb it. JVLR has been my hill training and I for one will always look at it with roadie love for climbs. I trained on it again, again and again.

The time is 6:00 am on the 21st and we have an early morning flight to catch to Trichy via Chennai. I meet trainer at the airport and there we are standing in queue with our over sized luggage. We check-in with small hiccup. Trainer had an expensive bottle of degreaser. He had to leave it at the airport for his wife to pick it up.

We sit in the aircraft with our Iphones glued to the ears. He tried to drop me with AC/DC and I repeatedly tried (also succeeded) to drop him with Pink Floyd and Metallica. Trainer was pretty amused to see my Iphone casing which I had so loving purchased to secure my device. It was disgraceful so to say that I had a Samsung cover for an Iphone. So much for my dislike for Samsung and that oh-so-ugly whistling ring tone it comes with. We reach Trichy airport on time and then prepare to collect our bikes. Co-incidentally we meet Sapeksh who flew in from Delhi but took the same flight as we did from Chennai. We see another bike case and knew someone has come over for the ToT. We immediately greet each other and that friendship will soon become strong that 3 of us along with other three riders Bangalore soon form a team that will bond together for the rest of the tour. 

On reaching Hotel Tamil Nadu, our host at most of the places we will soon visit, we meet Vasanth (Vaz) and the rest of the gang from ToT core team. We meet Suresh who provided all the help needed for bike maintenance. Suresh is gem of person we met on the tour though I knew who he was. I figure he happens to be a bike dealer and fellow biker. I have had him as friends on FB initially but later removed him and nearly everyone from my friends list as I want to purge many I do not know or have met personally. There are too many waiting to be friends just because we all enjoy the saddle and soreness on the bum. I made him a follower initially but now very happy to add him as friends again. He was great to talk with and very soft spoken person. Good to have good friends again.

Trainer and I get to our rooms after a hearty meal which included Pepper Chicken and Egg Fried Rice. We quickly set up our bikes for the tour and then go down to meet our fellow riders. I would be BSing if I say I was confident of this tour. There was never any kind of updates on the recce or any information on the tour. Both of us were very apprehensive till we go to meet Vaz. We were very surprised to see efficiency with which they were sorting all the logistics, rider cards and all other goodies which would later be distributed to us. I was very happy to see the rider dockets prepared with so much relevant and useful information that the first hint of apprehension was beginning to disappear. 

We were feeling more and more confident of the tour and felt very good about it. Later in the evening we are briefed of what lies ahead of us for the next 8 days - the day profile on elevation and destination. On the seeing the ride info it still did not sync in that this tour is going to be 'the best' biking tour I have ever done in India. It did not throw any surprises at that point in time. It is only later that we figure that we are in for some tuff days ahead and some ridiculously beautiful places in Tamil Nadu. It was just surreal. Vaz was a delight to hear with his ever-so calm way of presenting the day ahead to us. His words never at any one moment had any word of caution or doubt. He gave us very good description of the route right from distance, what to watch out for and the elevation profile. Elevation part was a little discrete on every briefing but when the moment came to experience the gradient, it was filled by surprises and awe. The tour was tuff and we had no sense of it till we started the day.

It is now the 22nd of December and 6:00am in the morning. The alarm rings and there we go again. The Tour of Tamil Nadu is about to begin. We have breakfast, the bikes comes out of our rooms and we all assemble. The thought process now go into nostalgia as I gather the happenings of the days and moment. Let the wheels roll and ToT is all go.