The day 3 from Hassan to Madikere was a long day and a great day. After a 180km ride with a 10km climbing CS, most of us surprisingly were feeling fresher than ever. We chilled out in the evening in the Madikere late into the night as day four is a shorter and easier ride of 64km towards Kannur. Due to the traffic and road conditions along with mad traffic on Kerala’s narrow roads, organizers decided to keep the ride short to 64km and then send the riders with a bus to Kannur where we’d chill out on day five which is a rest day.
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| A beautiful morning to ride.. |
As it was a short ride, we started out late at 9am . We were briefed to be careful on the 15km downhill that follows after around 35kms of bad roads which is followed by more bad roads. As soon as we got out of the resort it was pretty clear that we were in MTB terrain. The roads were bad to non existent but the scenic beauty was amazing.
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| The beauty along the route.. |
As there was no competitive section for the day and the ride itself was very short, we were having a pretty relaxed ride. We stopped anywhere we pleased either to capture the scenic beauty in our cameras or for having tea and some exotically named coke-a-cola imitation drinks. It was loads of fun.
Vandit, whose broken bike has not been fixed yet, decided to take a five minute penalty for the GC and ride in the support car. He was continuing his domestique duties for his master Jedi Cowzilla from his car by exchanging empty bottles of water with him and posing for cameras.
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| The Domestique and the master.. 🙂 |
6-7km into the downhill I saw a lot of riders stopping by the road side and stopped to figure out what happened. Vineeth who was apparently looking to overtake Siva on a curvy descent ended up taking a wrong line and headed into a rough patch on the road and washed out. He crashed pretty badly resulting in laceration on his face around his left eye and his right palm.
Dr. Arvind who was riding by stopped and took out his cycling gloves and wore his surgical gloves and with his cycling attire and helmet still on, sutured the wound on Vineeth’s face. He ended up with a few stitches around the left eye and a small cast for a broken finger on the right hand. He is doing better but will not be able to ride any further because the broken finger does not allow him to hold the handlebars and use the brakes.
It is bad luck for Vineeth who is a very strong and experienced rider. He has been riding at his own strong pace and was finishing the rides in the first group on all the days and is in 13th position in GC without even riding the CS sections any differently than the rest of the ride. All it took was probably a bit of bad timing on a small section of a technical descent to ruin a perfect tour for him. When we took a look at his helmet that took a bashing in the crash we understand how important a role it played to save his head from any serious injury.
Another rider, Akshat from Pune who was on his hybrid bike, also crashed on the downhill. He had few abrasions and rode on after first aid. Lucky to have a neuro-surgeon(Arvind) riding on the tour and have the Sita Bateja ambulance support available to take care of the safety of the riders.
After the downhill completed and as we went further, the omnipresent Mohanlal, the narrow roads and the drunken buses having a ball on them were enough indications that we entered Kerala. We could feel the heat and humidity right away. Thankfully we didn’t have to ride much and reached the support station two which was also the end point.
From there we were to take a bus to Kannur. As the bus got full, and I didn’t want to wait for a second trip, I got into Siva’s support car and got to the hotel in Kannur. It is later learnt that the bus driver lived up to the reputation that Kerala drivers have and gave the guys a ride that they would never forget in a lifetime bringing them to hotel in record time.
We have a rest day at Kannur at day 5 to get ready for a sufferfest climbs of day six and seven.
Here are the photos from day4: https://picasaweb.google.com/102172342564541481938/BulldogSTFNDay4MadikereToKannur#
Here is the ride log: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/135390109
Read about the rest of the Bulldog’s Tour of Nilgiris(TFN’11):
Day 1: Bangalore to Mysore
Day 2: Mysore to Hassan
Day 3: Hassan to Madikere
Day 5: Rest Day At Kannur
Day 6: Kannur to Sultanbhateri
Day 7: Sultanbhateri to Ooty
Day 8: Ooty – Kodanad
Sucks to hear about vineet. but then, i m sure he s 'been there done that' with this stuff too and its not something that wld bother him too much. scars heal, bones mend.
Nice elaborate and relaxed ride, sorry to hear about Vineet's incidence….wonderful report as usual, keep them coming!!!!
Nice account of the happenings Venky!
Thanks guys! Kalkat: Yes, the experienced campaigner that he is, he had seen worse. Although he missed the best days of the tour, I think he would have something to look forward to next year.