The Kanyakumari Expedition - Prologue

I have just returned after a stupendous biking trip from Bangalore to Kanyakumari. Inarguably the most daring and most adventurous that I have been in my life so far. To put it in a mildly grand manner, this was my Magnum Opus on the bike, and so in my books this calls for recording every moment that I can recall (which would ofcourse be almost all of it), and I am going to be spending good time putting them down here.

I’ll cover as much detail as possible, the ups, the downs, the chaos, the camaraderie, the squabbles, the planning, the execution, the pain, the pleasure, the blocks, the questions, the answers, the travails, the glory and above it all, the brotherhood.

Aug 9 – 13 2013, are my most interesting days on a bicycle. And it all started with a passing idea in April.

How it all started

With a cocky email from me to a bunch of buddies on the 8^th of April, 2013.

“All,

We live one life. Lets do something that we can be really proud of!

There is enough time to plan something big.

Plan is to ride to Kanyakumari, and be back by bus/train. 

Ride Distance: 640 km

No of days: 4 on bicycle, 1 in bus

Average distance per day = 150 km (just two times what we did this Saturday, with ample rest time each day)

Average ride time per day = 5 hours, if we have sufficient training, this should be a cake walk.

Best time: August – October, just after the rains and just before the chills

Aug 9^th and 15^th are off. So if we take 12, 13, 14 off – we get 7 days.

Who is in? “

I had mixed response for this email, with only Shasti being pretty excited about it. Others were interested, but weren’t decided. VK thought we were fools to “just do it” and that we should make something out of it. He was in if it was associated with some cause that we could give back to, and if we had some support for the riders, like a support car or something.

So since April, Shasti and I had made up our minds that we were riding no matter what, and we’ll just wait to see how it turns out. We had a vague training plan, which was mostly long rides over the weekends. We did the Sira 200 km brevet in between, Shasti had to pull out due to bike issues – we knew he had to change his bike if we were to attempt KK.

While we were at it in our own way, word spread in our office. I was also asked to launch the Cycle to work initiative at office, which I thought was an honour, and when we were looking at ways to create some momentum and interest, I was asked to publish that we were doing the KK ride.

How the riders lined up, one foot at a time :)

Along came the Community team, who had a brilliant idea to back the ride with a cause. VK was getting excited and soon we had people express interest and sign up. Parthasarathy Honnappa, one of my good friends in office, volunteered to bring on a support car. Srinivasan Venkatakumar was joining the support crew as well. This was the clincher for VK and he was in. 

Other friends came on board and then dropped off due to unavoidable exigencies. Sanath Kumar (my non Tesco friend) wanted to join as well. We persuaded Ram to join, I always held Ram in high regard due to his sheer determination and mental strength and I thought it would be a most welcome addition to what would be the ultimate test of strength till date – we could benefit with him around.

I literally dragged VK to get himself a new bike, and he got himself a Riverside 1. It was a trade off for him, since he wasn’t so sure if he was going to bike so frequently to invest more in a bike. Ram was in two minds, and I had more than clearly told him he wasn’t doing the ride on his Olympus, that he got for some 50 GBP on a seconds sale. It wasn’t just cutting it, so we begged Bijoy Francis who got a shiny new Schwinn Sporterra, to lend his bike, he graciously agreed – but I could see his anxiousness picturing Ram on the shiny new bike :P Shasti got himself a Bergamont Helix 2.3, just a week before the ride. The nailbiting wait etc will follow in further chapters :)

So the riders were settled. It was going to be 4 of us from our office and Sanath.

The Charity Cause

Around 650 km was what we were attempting on a bicycle. The age group was 31-40. We were probably a few years or a few months away from hitting our mid-life crisis, depending on which side of the age group we were on. And we were just a bunch of amateurs getting too cocky.

It was indeed our magnum opus on a bicycle, and it would have been a shame not to use this for something special that we would all be really proud of, and ofcourse use that as our motivation to do the ride.

So we decided to associate ourselves with Dream A Dream – read about them here

This was entirely VK’s pet project – to support a cause, and it showed – his enthusiasm was pretty contagious. So we worked out a campaign, named it Unlock Smiles. The idea was to have smiley stickers, each of which would be worth Rs 200. So anyone can buy as many stickers as they want, and the money would directly go to DAD. What we did to cover this aspect deserves a post in itself, so more later. The short version is, we collected more than Rs One Hundred Thousand, in less than a week. This was our EPO for the tour, which incidentally, was named Tour De Smile!

So now we had a cause, a vague plan, riders, bikes. All we had to do was firm up and cover the loose ends and we were all set to go. But if only it was that simple when you put quite a bit at stake :)

--To be continued.