India - Part 3

Getting ready to leave on the morning of day 2.

Relentlessness

Each day started before sunrise (I can't remember the specific times, they varied) with a session with the physio, Fatima. We had encountered Fatima properly for the first time the night before when she'd given us a tongue-lashing about having a beer in the bar before going to bed.  Amazing how one can just suddenly shed 35 years and feel like a naughty boy again.  I think I found the warm-up more challenging than the riding - and I have to say, I realized that if I was half smart I would be doing this sort of thing when out on touring rides.  We would stop for breakfast and lunch, and the activation points with the show, and then arrive at where we were staying for the night.  I have learned the hard way that the one thing you do with touring cycling is that as soon as you are done on a day, get the kit off, thoroughly shower, dry off properly, Prep on ass to avoid saddle sores, clean cotton only.  Never wear cycling shorts twice.  

A sight for sore asses

Whatever it takes to achieve this you do.  The Prep thing had been told to me in the early nineties.  It burns a bit, but it works a whole lot.  I'd run out of Prep in Hong Kong, so had to track some down on Amazon, and it came from Italy.  This surprised me (its actually a shaving cream, sunburn treatment - weird stuff).  Turns out that it came to SA with Italian prisoners of war, and subsequently was manufactured there under license.  I swear it is miracle stuff.  My Indian colleagues were initially skeptical.  Amit Joshi was the exception - he had his own ass lotion and had been applying it - he and I had a good laugh about it.  It's not something that you somehow discuss.  "Hey bro, what are you putting on your ass?"  But if you've done this before (and Amit has done it plenty), you also know that you HAVE TO put stuff on your ass if you are going to survive big hour, multi-day rides.  It's not optional.  Without it, you simply can't ride after a few days.   So each day started at 5am, and once you'd done with the day you needed to go to a warm down with Fatima (avoided these when I worked out how - man that was a bridge too far for me, and she had hands of steel) shower, do the whole Prep thing, wash clothes, get into a collared shirt and trousers, and then go to the evening event.  After that, dinner, a good laugh, and bed at 11ish; then you'd get up the next day and repeat.  

Climbing a pass that popped out of nowhere - we were doing better than some
of the trucks that had succumbed to it.  In front of me Amit Joshi;
serious runner, serious cyclist, iron man, CIO - just a regular bloke 

Fatima was a smart idea - and it's changed my thinking about stretching and whatnot.  Part of the impeccable planning included making sure the cyclists kept going, and didn't get daggers in the knee, or a miserable back. That being said, I know Gaurav was having some knee issues which predated the adventure - no big deal - knee brace and keep grinding it out with a smile and a whole lot of kindness (including teaching me how to swear at crazy drivers in Hindi - which you can do to entertain yourself, because that part of India is not looking like changing any time soon).  A particular Indian driving vice is to drive in the wrong direction on a road.  Any road.  A dual carriage way for example, no problem.  In fact on a dual carriage way you can drive fast.  I have this image burned in my mind of Raj (who is normal height and slim, and definitely in his 50s, though he looks 30 something - he happened to mention that he'd been in Germany before the ride to run the Berlin marathon - as you do) stopping his bike on a highway with a dump-truck barreling down the road towards him, going in the wrong direction.  He just decided to make a point with this one, so he stopped, stood his ground, and made the truck stop, and then detour around him off the road.

Monster Masala Dosa for breakfast - Raj in front of me, Vikas and Hemal focused on the important stuff.