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| Day 1 on rocky Himalayan terrain |
| Monday September 28, 2009 |
| I have been practicing for months for this big day. It's the first day of the grueling event for which I bought my bike. Today, its the flag off day of MTB Himachal 2009. There were more than 70 riders from different parts of India and the world, there were teams from the Army and Air Force. I was starting to feel jitters in my stomach to see that i am going to compete with professional class riders.This is the first competitive event I'm taking part in and I was just getting the idea about the level of the event. We reached a day before, since we got picked up in a bus from Delhi. I happened to meet lot of interesting people, there were photographers, bike designers and on the other hand there were some serious bikers. The day started with the flag off by the CM of Himachal after a boring speech. We started the free ride to the first competitive section which was 13kms away from the flag off point. There were riders from all age groups ranging from 18 to 56 but most of them have been a part of this event for a while unlike me. I started easy in the morning as my body takes time to warm up ...once the guys started overtaking me I was getting skeptical about completing the event while being competitive. Then as I got into momentum my heart started pumping oxygen to my lungs and I gained some pace and overtook few guys which brought back my confidence. Riding in hills is a completely different ballgame and requires a different set of training and conditioning of your body. Since I live in Noida I never got much chance to train my self for an event like this. But anyways what else am I gonna do... so I found myself the right gear and managed to reach the starting point in a respectable time. The first stage, we got our briefing in the morning that today would be relatively easy riding, consisting of flat and downhill terrain. Riders were released in batches in a pack of 5. I started in the third batch after refueling... game on everybody was ripping on the gravel terrain. I managed a good start and was able to overtake 3 guys from the earlier pack and finished good. The second stage, was all offroad downhill of 27kms which was very technical and tricky for an amateur rider like me. There were big rocks and sand. Downhill is everybody's favorite but this terrain was very tricky and required the most important skill...to be patient...the terrain looks tempting but you should never forget limits of your bike. There is a very thin line in being fast and being dangerous so you always got to remember that in downhill, there are no small mistakes on 2 wheels. That was proven true as few guys crashed today, some of them will not be riding for rest of the days. Day ended in the lovely camp site which was 15kms further from the stage. We crashed after having a wonderful meal and called it a day. In Pictures: MTB Himachal 2009 |
Neeraj is one of the seventy intrepid cyclists who have set out to conquer the rocky Himalayan terrain for the fifth edition of the Hercules Mountain Biking Himachal-2009, considered India's toughest cycle rally. Cyclists from all over the world will test their ensurance levels and skills on the mountainous terrain of the Himalayas over the next 10 days. 
