About Waking up and Getting Home

The interesting part about these cycling trip that has not been written about so far is the torture of dragging yourself out of bed at 5am, and the recovery routine once you get home after the ride. As you can imagine this does not make for a very happy household. Basically the night before you get your bike ready and your cycling gear (clothes, shoes, pump, magic potion, tubes, camera etc) so that you don't have to fumble around for them in the morning and wake up the household. When the alarm goes off at 5am you don't have much time to think. It's either - get ready very quickly, but as quiet as a mouse and then get the hell out of your home before anyone wakes up, or tuck your head under the pillow dreaming about how unusually long and wonderful a short five minute nap is. 

Once your out of home there is the usual routine of waking the chowkidaar to open the gates and then as you ride to the meeting point you will get chased by some canine that couldn't get to sleep, or get asked for directions by a sleepy but bewildered taxi driver who probably has a very anxious and upset customer waiting for an airport drop. 

Once at the contact point you will find that your phone starts ringing and you get several simultaneous calls from  bikers trying to find out where the hell the pick up point is, or why you are late. Again, it is crucial you get out of your house before this starts, else expect trouble.  And if some riders don't show up then you can get them into trouble by giving them a call to ask them if they are coming or not. This is a wierd feeling, it's a bit like your six year old neighbour who rings your bell every evening to ask "can Rohan please come out to play today?" and part crank caller who is gleefully waking up a household in the middle of the night. Anyway with all the coordination done the group finally assembles and you are off!

Here are some pictures from last Saturdays ride when seven of us went back to climb the thorny hils of Compasspur, who's real name I still forget (see my blog of 21 Oct for the gruesome details of my previous lone visit).  Go here to see the ride route and other details.

Pictures below from left to right.

1. Trek 4300s parked together at the house of the now famous hookah gurgler

2. Assessing the ascent (pic courtesy Rajesh Kalra)

3. Happily climbing (pic courtesy Rajesh Kalra)

4. The photographer being photographed (pic courtesy Rajesh Kalra)

5. Carl with his son's back-pack (chweet nah!?)

6. Prabhat settling our fat breakfast bill

7. Caught in the sand 

8 & 9. The standard "proof of ride" group pictures

So you had a great ride, you watched the sun rise, laughed with your friends, sweated like a pig, probably feasted like one too (even "on one" if you can get some bacon), and then you get back home and you are exhausted. The first thing you do is re-hydrate and then you go and stand under the shower, wash off the Haryana sand and dust, get into some comfortable sleeping clothes, do some leg stretching exercises, and then crash out, waking up just in time for lunch.

As you can guess, my spouses is not too amused with this routine of finding me gone when she wakes up and then finding me asleep when I get back and I'm sure it leads to much domestic friction in many riders household. However I have conviced myself that this is the price one has to pay and that "Work-Life balance" isn't everything.... "Work-Life-Ride balance" is.