..5-4-3-2-1-GO!!! Off you go! You clumsily grope with your foot trying to engage the left cleat and try desperately to ignore the ridiculously low reading from the malfunctioning HR strap. “Dude! This is serious business! Did you look at all those those awesome riders who turned up for the race? Pay them some respect by suffering a little. Will you?”, you chide yourself for the casual start. A km or so into the race you get into a rhythm and start to grind the gears. You remind yourself you need to change gears now and then depending on which way the road is pointing. 

Just as the suffering levels seem to be hitting the roof the HR strap does you a favor and starts showing the figures that would do the suffering some justice. You decide to pace yourself and stay in drops the whole way. Amid all that suffering and all the panting you try to feel good while going past a few riders who have started a little ahead of you. Then, you taste something bitter when a couple champion riders, who started way behind you, whizz past you, as if you were standing still. “Alright! Focus now! At least keep them in sight”, you tell yourself. The heart seems to be ready to blast through the chest. The fire in the throat and nostrils from all the panting is enough to make you feel like an ancient dragon on two wheels. One that is old and sick. Terribly sick.

At last you see the flyover which signals that the finish line is fast approaching. You are not sure either to feel relieved or to fear one last punishment. But like a diligent new student of the roadie clan, you decide to bite into the juicy cake of pain. You try to savor it. You surge across the finish line to the encouraging cheers of friends. You feel pleased with the effort thinking that it was the best that you could do. Of course that is just until the masters remind you that you’ve neither puked nor dropped dead across the line and that means you have not suffered enough! Welcome to the good life, roadie! 🙂

BBCh-2012-1, 20k ITT Men’s Podium Asif(1st), Loki(2nd), Vivek and Samim (shared the 3rd)

 What a start to the season! 

Nearly 86 riders raced, around 10 photographers and volunteers and a huge number of well wishers were there to cheer the riders. It was truly a festive atmosphere at the first race of the season on the new airport road.  

So many bikers and so many bikes. How would it feel if not like a festival! All those bikes with aero gear on them and all those riders on a nice Sunday morning was a sight to behold. Proper time trial bikes, aero wheels, some road bikes with aero bars, aero helmets, and super thin rides in aero skin suits. You name it you had it there.

Quite a few riders came in from other cities, like Roopak Suri from Hyderabad and Mark Anderson from Mysore and quite a few riders from Bijapur as well. Expat riders like Darren Ried, Georg Leuzinger, Craig Raynes, Jeff Schmidt  were there as well with great racing experience. Lokesh, Naveen, Vivek (Mr. 69), Asif and Samim were just a few names out of the number of riders with fair chance of making the podium.

Men’s Category results- BBCh-2012-1; 20k ITT

 In the end, it was Asif(1st) of team NAESAR, Loki(2nd) of KYNKYNY Wheelsports, Vivek Radhakrishnan(3rd) of KYNKYNY Wheelsports and Samim of NAESAR that made it to the podium in Men’s category while Neera Ketwal(1st) of Team BOTS, Natasha(2nd) and Shilpa Deo(3rd) of team CAM made it big in Women’s category.

Women’s Category Results- 20k -ITT

BBCh-2012-1, 20k ITT Women’s Podium Neera(1st), Natasha(2nd), Shilpa(3rd)

Thanks to the volunteers on the day who made all the fun and the pain possible. Some of them are, Ananda Ramachandra, Satheesh Amilineni, Roshini Mansukhani, Rengarajan Balasundaram, Akshay Arvind Prabhugaonkar and Arvind Ganesh. Thanks a ton guys! Thanks also to the Veloscope photography team of Srikandan Balakrishnan, Archana, Venkatesh Murugesan, Subu, Vidhyacharan, Darshan, Manoj and Harpreet who covered the event beautifully.

The competition is so close and even fraction of seconds matter at the top. If this is any indication of the season ahead, we are in for a kick-ass season of racing ahead of us in BBCh-2012. Buckle up and sit tight folks! Well, not you roadie! Go, get out and train! 😛



For info on BBCh races and lots of race photos, follow Bangalore Bicycling Championships on FB. Rest of the results here.