Day 3 of the Tour of Nilgiris took us from the beauty of the Wayanad region in Kerala to the Queen of Hills in Ooty!

This year due to the forest department refusing us permission to ride up Kalahatty, we went back to the route we used to use till 2012 which is via Gudalur. While the Kalahatty offers an exciting challenge with its steep climb of 10% over 11.5km, riding via Gudalur takes us to the same height in a longer distance. The Gudalur road to Ooty is where trucks taking the supplies to the hill station ply. That means it is not designed to be steep but rather a steady grade of about 5%. Both climbs are HC category climbs, one for its steepness and one for its distance.

It was a slightly hazy morning as we got out of Kerala and headed into Tamilnadu. The tea estates of Tamilnadu welcomed us with really pleasant weather.

From 116 to 79! I rode a bit with Dr. Francis Roy, who is an Orthopaedic surgeon from Tiruvanvelli. The doctor used to be 116 kilos not too long ago. Yes, that’s one hundred and sixteen kilos. Since 2016, he has changed his lifestyle habits including food and exercise habits and he’s now about 79 kilos.

He says that updating himself about nutrition has changed his life and he thinks our present education system doesn’t teach enough about nutrition even for doctors. He now gives more talks on the importance of nutrition and lifestyle habits than orthopaedics. What an inspirational transformational journey he has to share!

Came to the Tour and Upgraded to a New Bike!

This young man, Asav Shah, didn’t think he needed to upgrade his bike when he signed up for TFN. On yesterday’s ride to Chembra Peak, his bike met with an accident and broke while he escaped even without a scratch. He did not want to miss the rest of the tour because he didn’t have a bike anymore. And in comes Wheelsports Venky to the rescue. He ordered a new bike and it arrived overnight from Bangalore to Mysore and someone went to Mysore to pick it up. The Crankmeister Bicycle Works team put it together in the morning before the ride. He was able to start his ride at 7am on a brand new bike. Just another example of how the TFN family comes together to the rescue.

The ride to Devarshola estate was beautiful and I set a nice unhurried pace in tune with the lovely weather and eerily calm morning in the hills.

We reached the lunch spot and had a quick lunch and headed towards the climb with Badri Narayan in tow.

The Never Ending Climb Up to Ooty!

A bit outside Gudalur, a 5km segment was chosen as a competitive segment for the day. Back in 2011 and 2012 we used a 21km section of the climb as CS. But, it is not possible to do so now as there is a lot of construction work going on for the last couple of years.

The 5km segment was the only uninterrupted section without any construction and it was brilliant to ride it.

I started a minute or so behind Nandini and Priya. I got into a manageable rhythm and kept spinning up the climb. Even with the cool weather on the climb, I began to sweat buckets with the effort. The breathing was laboured but I felt in control and unhurried. When the mindset is one of welcoming the suffering, every thought won’t be of dread. I was in that mindset to let the effort come to me and be happy with whatever I could manage on the day. I managed to catch Nandini along the way and just barely caught up to Priya as we got near the finish line. It felt good and was in sharp contrast to how I felt on day 1.

After the CS, Badri, Nandini and I started riding together and caught up to Priya and Benny along the way.

Badri and I caught up to Jonas, Krishna and Sibabratha who were setting a nice rhythm. By the time Badri was struggling and decided to ride at his own pace as I joined the Jonas mountain train.

We stopped at a nice scenic spot to take pictures and I managed to drop my phone and break the lens while taking the phone out of the jersey pocket standing still.

I refilled both the bottles at the support station at 84km mark hoping to fuel myself to a steady ride to the finish.

The ride was made optional after SS4 at Thalakunda just outside the Ooty town. Since the weather was fine and it was only 3pm, we started from there quickly and began to ride to Hotel Highland in Doddabetta. The traffic in Ooty was a bit of a pain to deal with but we managed to get out and started climbing towards Doddabetta. By then all 3 of us(Jonas, Sibabratha and I) were pretty tired but I kept a steady pace to make it to the finish as smoothly as possible. With one km to go, we stopped to get some warm tea to rejuvenate ourselves.

It was a bloody hard day and glad we got to the finish with ample sunlight and well before it got dark and cold.

Results from the days CS

GC After Day 3

In the women’s category, Priya is 34 seconds ahead of her teammate Nandini Sharma. Both of them have more than 15 mins gap on the third position.

In the men over 45 category while I managed to add a few seconds to my lead, Harsh Dillon made a jump to the second position with an excellent climb performance on the climb on the day. He has a 42 seconds lead on Jonas who now moved to 3rd in the category.

In the 35-44 category, Howard Miller is maintaining a formidable lead over his two good friends Anand Prakash and Mihir Joshi who are just one minute apart at 2nd and 3rd respectively.

Joel is in a league of his own in men under 35 and overall. Rithvik is at 2nd with Aditya Bhandari at 3rd.

Overall, with Joel at the top being in no doubt, the top 5 are all up for grabs over the next couple of competitive segments.

What’s Ahead!

Tomorrow is a rest day. It is the day we spend relaxing, cleaning, laundry, chocolate skipping, site seeing and doing a TFN class of 2023 photoshoot. The day after tomorrow we head towards Coimbatore. It is mostly downhill and flat. That day also has a 6km CS section. It’ll be interesting.