The cycling trip

So I decided to celebrate my 29th birthday on a cycling trip down Konkan coast. The itinerary had sounded fairly simple - 19kms of cycling on the first day and just about 4kms on the second and so on.

It was a toss up between a more tougher-looking trekking trip in the Vasota forests and this one. I decided to go for this one because I had'nt cycled properly for about 15 years now and was dying to hit the beaches for some time. And looking at the itinerary, I was prepared to be cycling for about an hour everyday and to avoid getting bored, listening to music or heading out for a swim in the sea. Should be a fairly relaxed weekend, I thought.

I could'nt have been more wrong!

For one, we cycled about 100kms in 2 days (hehe, there seemed to be something wrong in the itinerary...not that I'm complaining!). The group was extremely interesting and I got hardly any chance to listen to the music FBP had so painstakingly written onto a CD for me to load on my pod for the trip. And yeah, I got to swim only for a few hours on the second day - but I am sure I couldnt have handled more - with all the sand that has a way of irritatingly getting into everything you take to a beach.

The group was fairly large - about 20 people from various backgrounds (surprisingly, many were involved in finance in some way or the other - hehe, are we getting too many holidays or are too overworked?errrrm!), different countries (4 countries - India, Surinam, Mexico and Netherlands) and a range of ages - from 22 (my guess) to 40 (my guess again).

The bikes were great. I think the hallmark of a good bike is that there is a smooth feel to the pedalling and it hums like a bunch of bees when going fast downhill. Considering that there were quite a few tough uphill climbs, we'd have been better off with geared cycles, but that'd be asking for too much, especially when you get a ready supply of cold water through the trip, a lorry following you at all times to pick up stragglers and get to sleep in tents on the beach.

The trip was organised by Explorers, a bunch of great and enthusiastic young people. So they had organized everything and all you had to do was be there, ready to stress your quadriceps and umm the glutes too (3 days on bicycle seats left em screaming with pain) and brave some sun (Baz Luhrmann made sure we were well protected).

I have absolutely decided to stop being a lazy bum and buy more backup Nikon batteries because the camera folded up after the first day and I was left high and dry, feeling like a fish out of water. Theres this feeling of incompleteness that creeps in for sure when I dont have my cam handy - gotta do something about it!

So we all met up at the Gateway, took a boat to Mandwa, then a bus to Alibaug (hot tip: everyone and their uncles are going to Alibaug on a weekend, so queues dont work when you're waiting for the half-hourly bus from Mandwa to Alibaug) and got our cycles from Nagaon. Our base camp was at Barshiv - about 15kms away from Kashid and 25kms from Murud.

The cycling from Nagaon to Revdanda (about 10kms) was fairly uneventful and the terrain was flat, thus increasing my feeling of complacency about the whole trip (I was wearing jeans on the first day of cycling, for Pete's sake!). It suddenly became uphill from Revdanda onwards and that set the tone for the next three days of cycling.

You are cycling at a leisurely pace and spy the road going up in the distance. You take some deep breaths and push harder on the pedals in anticipation of the uphill slope. By the time you hit the slope, you're already out of breath and tiny thoughts about getting down from the cycle and trudging up the slope flit through your mind. Then you spy the Dutch with amazing stamina cycling up the slope with little effort and you decide to grit your teeth and push yourself harder! Soon you're standing up and cycling, pushing away with all the might left in your thigh muscles. Of course you cant last long that way on the uphill climb and your knees start buckling under you and the lower back starts giving away. You're breathing hard, very hard and your lungs are bursting and your heart is doing a tap dance, threatening to burst out soon enough.

Just when you think you're done and cannot go any further, the uphill ends.

You smile to yourself, let out a whoop of joy, settle back on the seat and whiz down the hill, the wind singing in your ears and the well-oiled cycle humming like a bee. You're still breathing hard but you're going back to normal soon and the wind is evaporating all the sweat that you were soaked in. What makes it even more beautiful is when the downhill stretch suddenly exposes the vast expanse of the shimmering sea below you. The view is breathtaking and you forgive the organisers for not having mentioned all those hills in the itinerary:-)

The trip was great on the whole. Barring an accident where one of the young ladies with us lost control on a downhill turn and went careening into the wall between the road and the rocks below. Thankfully there was'nt much damage and she held up pretty well with all the blood on her face and knees till I let slip that she had chipped a tooth. Damn! That seemed to be the last straw and huge tears started rolling down - I must have kicked myself atleast 5 times for mentioning that to her. So anyway, she was back to her cool and collected self after she was stitched up and bandaged.

I have this thing with other people's blood that I REALLY need to do something about. The moment I see someone covered in blood, I start getting a cold sweat - it starts from my forehead, my breathing becomes laboured and soon I'm drenched in VERY cold sweat, ready to pass out unless I dont sit down in fresh air. There's something rather shameful in hyperventilating at a distance from where someone is hurt and I really think I need to see a shrink about this. Thank god my parents' dream of making me a doc did'nt bear fruition - else I'd have been passing out every 2 minutes or so.

The nights were lovely. The only liquor shop in the vicinity served NO hard liquor but, hold your breath, just Wine and Beer! Who in the blazes drinks all that wine in the Konkani villages? So you have rows upon rows of fine port and Zinfandels lining the walls of a measly little shop in the middle of nowhere. The conversations were great - from marriage to life and from Indian culture to Dutch economic policies and liberalism. It could'nt have been better and it was good to hear so many different views from people. It never ceases to amaze me how much deeper most people are than from the first impressions you make about them.

My birthday was decidedly muted - noone on the trip knew about it so I was left more or less alone...I find all the wishing and good treatment a little embarrassing. SMSes are good and the iffy network on the coastal villages made sure I was not too embarrassed saying thank yous to everyone on the phone:-) I did miss family, though.

Am back into the grind now with locked-out quadriceps but feeling much better and fitter than last week. Below are a few pics from the trip from the first day - the cam made sure I concentrated fully on cycling in the next 2 days:

Our first pit stop at Revdanda - little did we know about the uphill slopes that were going to hit us after this

On the way - shot with one hand, with the other hand and the rest of me focussing on tackling the uphill coming ahead

Now THATS a good way to spend your weekend

Chilling out at Barshiv, our base camp

Sunset at Barshiv beach