— Every battle is won before it’s ever fought
It’s an effort to share my, as lived, experience with an event ‘Miles Together\’ — a 100kms cycling team race, organized by Mulund Riders.
The race has 15 teams. Each team is a blend of 6 cyclists with varying riding experience; from novice to proficient. Though the participants are not professionals, their enthusiasm makes up for any lacuna.
This was my first “team” cycling event and by all means, it’s completely a different experience.
Well, that’s really enough background, time to start —
Had a busy day at the office, kept me occupied till midnight. While waiting for the cab, I browsed through the messages on WhatsApp. I was inducted into a new group; the cab arrived. The new group’s title says ‘Miles Together’. Awesome!, Team was announced and I’m in.
Bike, practice, rides, speed, max km, running, jerseys, strategy, support vehicle, winner, and medal are few words in some sentences which send me to deep thoughts. While reading those messages in the group, it hinted at the fact that ‘it’s not just a fun event but people were determined to win’.
It took me few mins to gather my thoughts and another 10 more to complete the basic formality of introducing myself, yes 10 mins. For the first time, I was introducing myself in terms of Bike I ride, max speed for 50 & 100 KMs, and largest single riding distance. With help of Strava, I compiled the data, and wtf — I was the slowest amongst all. Let’s drop out, sabko haraoge kya!… Hey, wait, my largest ride is the best, kuch toh accha hai. Let’s begin…
Bike I ride: Montra Timba 1.2
Max km rode: 300
Average speed for 50 km: 21
Average speed for 100 km: 18
Area of residence: Mulund-E
It looks like I’m the slowest among all of us 😥
And no sooner I got assurances, one from the captain and another from mentor-the best riders of our group. They said they would work on my speed and were confident that I would be the fastest in the event.
It’s not just ideal talk…. They meant business and started planning the training and preparation —
- Days were decided when we could ride together,
- Convinced everyone for the maximum number of group rides
- Improvement areas were chalked out
- Discussions about challenges people faced
- And finally, the time for the next day’s ride.
It wasn’t even 24 hours since we said our first HI! (online) but, we were all aware of our riding, strengths, and areas of improvement.
On my first ride, my mentor helped me with techniques and best practices to improve speed. He checked my bike and shared few suggestions for bikefit. He was sure about his responsibilities and very confident about the results. I finished with my fastest 45+ km ride. I was excited about my ride but was equally overwhelmed with the ease he rode, increasing speed, when convenient. Mr. Mentor, you are a real inspiration.
The ride ended with SATISFIED ME, learning so many nuances, registering a better finish, and confidence to improve a lot in a month.
Not all days are green. We all have our priorities apart from riding too. Every hurdle that could be imagined placed itself – vacations, office, late work shift, slept longer ;), pains, accidents but the captain’s commitment, planning, follow-ups, and encouragement kept us motivated to fight all odds and give it our best.
She has all traits of a good manager and an excellent leader. She ensured the practice kept going parallel with work. Our weekend practice rides are almost compulsory for us. Two replacements: one member due to injury and one more for another reason. All decisions that arrived were collaborative and unanimous. Personally, I found nothing happened without discussion or acceptance by all the members. With this, we managed many group rides and at least an entire week when we all were there for the ride. Practicing together is as important as the strategy planned by the mentor — “Drafting”.
I heard of this term for the first time when the mentor shared a video on WhatsApp. Drafting is a technique in which cyclists ride in a single line to reduce the wind resistance for riders behind them and take turns being in the front position. It was fun riding in a line just following the rider in front of you, keeping a distance of 1–2 meters between. A little apprehension, what if he immediately breaks? I was constantly training my mind to go sideways in such a situation, rather than applying breaks. And mentor moved from the front to back correcting our mistakes. Discipline guys, no one will break the line, don’t let the gap increase — he kept shouting.
This is what we were going to do for the entire route during our race, he declared. What!, I thought it’s nice but extremely slow. Today’s speed will only be around 16–17 km/hr and with this speed, we can’t win the race. With the same thought, I checked Strava. Come on, it\’s amazing, we were riding at 24kms today but I just didn’t feel it. No wonder our mentor was putting so much effort for the last 2 hours to exactly explain this to us.
Drafting has become our daily practice routine and we keep touching new limits.
We practiced the same technique once on the race route too, to get an idea of the route. And of course to check whether we all could do 100 km. We finished the feat but with lots of breaks. This is something we needed to improvise by the race day. And it isn’t very far…
On D-day, the wolves were in their uniform. To repeat what they were doing for the last 1 month — giving their best. Every wolf knows if he succeeds in his role, the pack would succeed. No one should break the line, maintain the gap, said the mentor, keeping his focus on line and length to ensure speed and most importantly — safety. Riding in a pack makes it more noticeable for other vehicle drivers on road. No rush, no push — just drafting, the best we can.
We were the second team to reach the halfway mark. It was a boost as we started 10th at the starting point, being a 1-min staggered start for all teams. After a compulsory break in midway, we started again. We encouraged each other and tried to maintain our tempo of the first half. This time we made it first to the finish line. Now started the most difficult and anxious wait, to check that the teams who started later should not finish in few coming mins. With each tick of the clock, we progress a step nearer towards success. And with the result announcement, finally confirmed – it’s the wolves day today.
I would say it’s not today, rather — the battle is won before it’s fought.
