Great Malnad Challenge 2018 - My Experience

We were all ready for the day with bags packed and dropped for the destination change. Jabeen was feeling better today. SV with help of Sunil did some lubrication for Tabu and Jabeen’s cycle. She stunned Sunil by offering banana peel to wipe his greasy hands.  Santosh briefed that today is the day to just maintain your cadence & there is no optional part as we were shifting from Kalsa to Gudikere (103 KM, first need to cross 13 KM reach race start and a 48KM of race section, plus additional 10KM to the lunch point). We didn’t wait for the flag off, finished our warm up earlier than the group & started ahead of the group like fellow cyclist Govindarajulu (his 5 th GMC) always does. We had to start/cross the little ascend from Kalasa again & I got slowed down. Jabeen & Tabu were ahead of us, after Kalasa main road, we took a deviation & pedaled up. Even in small steep/slope ups, I was shifting to gear 1 (left hand), SV asked me to come in gear 2. ...

Today breakfast will be at Kundadiri, so you have to ascend if you need your breakfast. Jabeen was surviving on electral with hardly any sleep and told she will call-off and take some rest. Since my swelling hadn’t come down and was uncomfortable while walking, I requested Jaison “I want to pedal the remaining 2 days, please do something”. Jaison applied some physio medicine, stretched my legs, tied a band, after which I felt little better. But was skeptical if I can pedal, and so took a pain killer from Dr. Prabhu. He gave another pill to Jabeen that will help her immediately. It was so good that we had him along, we had consulted him umpteen times & he had all basic medicines with him. After lot of thought Jabeen too got ready, I knew she was a fighter 😊 . It is just unfortunate that a fighter gets more & more hurdles/battles to keep fighting. After 5kms of pedaling we reached Kundadri base, from which the race point starts. Jabeen decided not to ascend as she had hard...

Tuned with our half-awake mode from 4AM, today combined with the anxiety of last day/completion we were  all set for the finish line. We clicked some pics, seeing our pics we realize how tired we were even after our refresh, all of us look so worn out. We packed our bags and were ready to roll-on, but breakfast was not yet ready. Govindarajulu and Padhu left early with the plan of breakfast en route, Padhu didn’t want to be exhausted riding under the scorching sun. I also preferred this option as even though it was the last day, never knew what surprise/challenge awaits us. GMC had tuned me that every day will have a different challenge, so didn’t want to take it easy but be ready. Jabeen suggested to complete the breakfast as anyways we will have to spend the time en-route, moreover the homestay food was good and so agreed. Until then we had bread/Jam & in no time idlis & crispy hot vadas were ready. Anju helped the cooks & us to be in serving. We completed our wa...