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| In the midst of Vermont winter.. In January.. |
A ride towards Northfield always reminds me of my rides in the Vermont winter. I rode predominantly on these routes in the snowy winter of Vermont including my first century ride in the US. So in my mind, I always compare the visuals of now and then. Such drastic change. All the white magic of the winter is now replaced with a verdant and pulsating sunny magic.
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| The same spot in July.. |
The hills and their gradients always remain same though. 🙂 There was a total of 1215 meters of climbing on yesterday’s ride of 40miles(~64km). The grades at the start of the second one got me. It started right after a turn and I couldn’t get into any rhythm at all. I kept pushing but eventually ended up doing a trackstand and could not get it to move. I had to get off and walk about 30meters or so before I got on the bike and continued climbing again. I showed all the cars that were struggling with roaring engines up that climb to console my weeping ego.
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| There you go.. you get the point 🙂 |
Grades coming down the first hill.. My hands hurt from braking by the end of it..
As I was pushing up the climbs standing on the pedals and pulling on the handle bars to push the pedals down, the visual of Kistappa flashed. He was, Krishna aka Kistappa, the rickshaw puller who took us all to school when I was a kid. On slopes, he used the same technique before he had to get off and drag it. A couple of us used to get off and push as well to help. That was ages ago and he’s no more but he was such a patient man putting up with tantrums of us, noisy kids. After a lifetime of hard work pulling that rickshaw, I hope, he is resting in peace and having pleasurable bike trips in heaven now.
After the initial years of going to school on a rickshaw, I’ve earned my first bicycle by getting good marks in my class IV. It was a Hero roadster, a hand down from my brother. I remember riding it sideways in the initial days as it was a bit too big for me. All those fun years were followed by many sedentary years that put many flabby kilos on me. As an adult, one of the best things I have earned is another bicycle. Thank god for it! Now, from biking to the school, I’ve graduated to biking to work and biking everywhere for the sheer pleasure of it.
Stats:
Total Distance: 63.9km
Riding Time: 3hrs 17mins
Avg Speed: 19.5kmph
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| Elevation graph from my Nokia Sportstracker.. |