Day Five: Rest Day In Ooty:
After a
big Ooty climb, rest those legs well as another big day is ahead in day six. If you itching to get out and get more climbing on the legs though, there is a Hors Category climb in Kalahatty not too far. 1200m in 12km. One of the best in the world. Go get it. No? well, just laze around in the resort or go around and roam the tea estates.
Day Six: Ooty to Upper Bhavani and Back:Up And Down.. Up And Down:
Well, we won’t go till Upper Bhavani as originally planned and will turn back some 15km short of it, but still the route is going to be one of the toughest on the tour. Nearly 3000m of total elevation change in 100km of the route with not much change in the total altitude means you are going to go up and down a lot. The roads are in decent condition through out. There are quite a few short and steep climbs on the route. They keep on coming at you right through to the end. So, get your climbing legs tuned up before this day. And saying that the scenery is going to be stunning will be a gross understatement. Pristine beauty!
This route is going to be part of TFN Entree where about 30 additional riders are going to join the regular TFNers. It is going to be one bad-ass day!
Please note that since it is an out and back ride and the competitive section is on the return route, riders have to sign in at the U turn point before heading back and participating in the CS. Those who fail to do so will be considered as not completing the ride and they will be disqualified from GC.
The U-turn point for men will be at 54km mark while for women it is at 37km mark. Both these points will have support stations where the riders will sign in and proceed to ride back.
The u-turn point for men at around 54km is a very scenic place with lot of grass around to sit and relax before starting the ride back to complete the final climbing CS of the tour.
Competitive Section:
The competitive section is a 4.7km climb which gains about 330m in elevation. It is the final climbing CS of the tour. Although very short, it could be offering the final advantage to the climbers. Since the entire route is quite rolling and the CS starts at around 75km into the 100km ride, saving the legs through the first 3 quarters of the ride is going to be critical.
Being a short climb it is going to be a go broke from the start kind of climb. This CS could still see a few changes to the GC.
Featured Rider:
Bjorn Suetens is a 42 year old Flemish – Belgian who lives in Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex, UK. He is a professional bike fitter and runs a bike fit out fit called CyclePrecision. He landed in Bangalore yesterday and rode with a couple of us this morning. He is a pretty strong rider and obviously being a professional bike fitter could immediately see that I’m riding with an inordinately wide handle bars and was quick to point out how it could effect my shoulders on the long rides. I would have to pay to get a full bike fit done by him but it is pretty obvious that he is good at what he does.
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| Bjorn Suetens in an MTB race.. Pic from his FB profile. |
He has been riding a bike as far back as he could remember but has been training seriously for the last 3-4 years and has been participating predominantly single day and multi-stage MTB races in UK. His current coach is Dan Henchy from PBScience who is also associated with our very own Srinath Rajam and his team MadRascals from Chennai. He is pretty keen to see how the competitive sections go for him and is looking forward to riding in the beautiful Nilgiris. All the best Bjorn.
Featured Sponsor:
Solverminds are the GPS tracking Partners for Montra Tour of Nilgiris 2012. They are helping us keep a track of riders and the Support vehicles on the Tour. All the the Riders would be having a GPS tracking Device mounted on their Bikes.
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| The technology that keeps us safe out there.. |
330 meter climb over 4.7 as per your graph.
Thanks Deepak. Updated. š