The journey to the Shimla was pretty straight-forward and I met up with Michael who I knew from the Bangalore cycle races in Delhi and made a new friend from Ireland, Steve who was in Delhi for work and had brought his Commencal with him. We spent a relaxed Friday in Shimla assembling our bikes, fitting number-boards and drinking beer in a restaurant overlooking the town. We had also made another friend from Uzbekistan who had ridden to the start from Bangladesh.
Racing started on Saturday being flagged off from the ridge in typical relaxed Indian timing, and we all headed along the road for around 11km towards the start of the first competitive section. Some last minute bicycle fettling was going on here with the bike mechanic's primary tool of choice being a hammer. He would certainly not be going anywhere near my bike!
Steve and I decided that we weren't really going to race, me with a dodgy wrist, and him being more of a down-hill orientated rider, but when the whistle blew to start our group of 5 riders, this theory seemed to go out of the window with pain being of secondary concern to speed! A fairly smooth gently undulating 16km was a good warm-up for the day, and after a short 1km on road we arrived at the second of 3 competitive sections for the day. This was virtually all down-hill on loose gravel with sweeping hairpins, and got quite steep towards the end proving a challenge for my weakened wrist and braking fingers. The final stage of the day was to regain all of the height we had lost earlier in the day, with a steep 11km rough climb. Attacking this as hard as I dared, aiming to have nothing left at the end, those who I passed on the slope would most likely have thought that I was having an asthma attack as the altitude and and grade made the lungs and legs cry out! I didn't use my granny ring once and was pretty much spent by the top, but the effort paid off as at the end of day 1 I was in 2nd place sandwiched between the 2 Nepalese riders of Narayan and Aayman. After the late start and long breaks during the day it was starting to get dark as I dropped down into camp, and showering with a head-torch was an interesting novelty - I say showering, but I mean washing with a bucket of water!
When scrutinising the results of the day I was delighted to see that I was sandwiched between Narayan and Aayman, so clearly my effort on the final climb had paid off.
Day 2 (Sunday) dawned with glorious sunshine and the first competitive section started just a stones throw from the camp. A short climb was followed by 7.5km of gently undulating gravel. Steve was looking forward to the 2nd stage, a fast steep 14km rocky descent which should suit both his full-suspension bike and riding. We set off together and I chased him for the first few km, remarkably I was able to stay in touch with him on my hard-tail, one assumes that it wasn't quite steep enough for him to come into his element fully. Bizarrely his rear dérailleur managed to work it's way loose and fall off completely, so he had to stop and fix it. It was shortly after this that I noticed some slightly strange handling and noises coming from my bike. To reduce the shocks on my wrist I was running my tubeless front tyre very soft, probably around 20psi, however it was now significantly less than that, in the region of 12psi. Through the rocky section at the stop of the stage I must have managed to 'burp' some air out of the tyre, where the tyre bead becomes briefly un-seated from the rim and loses some air in the process. Fortunately I didn't have a puncture so could continue riding, but had to take the corners very slowly to avoid the tyre rolling entirely off the rim, and also loft the front wheel over some of the larger bumps to avoid damaging the rim.
Lunch was had at the bottom of the valley followed by a short road section and a chunk of hike-a-bike, carrying our cycles up steps and steep slopes which weren't rideable. Not for the first time I was glad of a fairly light-weight bike, which meant I expended less energy being carried as well as ridden. The 3rd competitive stage of the day was a 21km climb where much as on Saturday we would reaching a similar altitude to which we started in the morning. Whether it was steeper, I was more tired or needed to pace myself for a longer stage, I became well acquainted with my granny ring early on, with Narayan and Aayman (the 2 Nepalese riders) disappearing off into the distance. A few occasions I got off the bike and walked to stretch and give my muscles a bit of a break, and unsurprisingly finished the climb a good bit slower than the whippets ahead of me. A rather chilly descent on the road followed but we arrived at the campsite in plenty of time to shower in daylight, not a luxury afforded to the slower riders! I lost 9 minutes on the final climb of the day which meant that I finished the day in 3rd place and also dropped to 3rd position overall.
Day 3 (Monday) was more beautiful weather, and started with a steep tarmac decent to the beginning of the first stage, a 17.5km fast and furious downhill section initially on road then gravel. I began in a group with Narayan and Aayman who were the overall leaders and also the Indian Army team, the latter being just behind me on the overall timing. Chasing the 2 super fast Nepalese on the winding road which clung to the edge of a steep valley wall was initially very exciting. However after locking up a tyre and nearly disappearing over the edge of a cliff on a tight corner, I decided that perhaps my fast rolling but not particularly grippy tyres meant I should perhaps aim to finish the stage in one piece, so backed off a little!
When reaching the valley floor we continued on the main road for around heading upstream, crossing the river before the first bike-a-hike of the day, climbing up the opposite side of the valley. Stage 3 started with a climb with a few hair-pins, then gently undulating on uneven dirt, again I started with the same group, keen to judge my speed against the main contenders. Although I lost a small amount of ground on the initial steep climb, the following bumpy section was fast and furious and on several corners we were 2 or 3 abreast. Although it would make little difference to the overall timing, I was pleased to finish first on this stage.
Lunch on the banks of the river was a chance to cool off and see a tiny watermill in action. The 2nd stint of carrying our bikes was tough in the mid-day sun, but did eventually come to an end where we then climbed gradually on a road section. The final stage of the day was sure to be another major test of legs and lungs. For the first 4km I had the smaller Aayman stalking me, sat on my back wheel, his compatriot having disappeared up the road ahead. However, my relatively pedestrian pace clearly wasn't much of a challenge for him, so on one hairpin he sneaked through on the inside and slowly built a gap. As per the final climb on the previous day I was in my granny ring from soon after the start and did get off my bike to walk several times. I was watching my Garmin closely, both for the 11km to come to and end and also for the altitude to gradually creep up. 2350 was the height we were to finish at, and 3 1/2 minutes after Aayman, I crossed the line, happy not to have lost more time. A quick descent down to the camp which was to be our base for 2 consecutive nights and I was the first to arrive, and eager to discard my sweat saturated cycling gear off and some warm clothes on.
Day 4 (Tuesday) was scheduled as a rest day and I will admit that before starting I thought that this would be totally unnecessary, and that we should be charging ahead with more racing. However, when it dawned and I didn't have to get out of my sleeping bag until 9am, it was very refreshing and most welcome to have a day of relaxing. The fact that it was a national holiday for Ghandi's birthday may also have been an influencing factor. A few of us took a relatively gentle trek up the valley to a waterfall, which was about as strenuous as things got.
A lot of people took the opportunity to do some washing and bike servicing. As I had brought more than enough changes of cycling clothes for 7 days of riding, and very rarely service my bike, this wasn't something which I bothered with! I did however drop the air pressure in my suspension forks a little, as my conservative wrist protecting riding was only using half of the available travel. I substituted a little more air in my front tyre to try and avoid any more burping incidents. We had some variable weather later in the day with rain showers and also some hail for a short period. Fortunately the majority of the tents appeared to be water tight.
Day 5 (Wednesday) dawned and the plan was to make an earlier start as this was to be the longest day of the week, totalling 95km. The day started by descending the same rocky section of road which we had climbed at the end of day 3, steep, bumpy and winding. The reverse direction was significantly more enjoyable for me, and I led the Nepalese by a short margin. I had a large gap in the middle of the section, however with limited strength in my right hand for braking, I had to take the second half more easily otherwise I wouldn't have been able to slow down sufficiently for the corners.
Without much hanging around we continued along the short road section to what would be the longest competitive stage of the week, 32km with around 700m of climbing mixed with 400m of descending. Starting with a very fast twisting descent on broken tarmac with Narayan and Aayman was great fun, but I knew that as soon as the road started to head up that they would disappear off into the distance. Sure enough after around 8km I was on my own. At around 25km I could feel my bike wobbling around under me, and the tell-tale hiss of a puncture. Hoping the the sealant in my tyre would do what it's supposed to I rotated the wheel gently, but the slice in the tyre proved to be too much for the latex to seal. Out came the spare tube and pump, off came the redundant valve and a few minutes later I was ready to roll again. Unfortunately whilst this was going on my nearest rival, the 4th place man overtook me. While I was making ground on him in the final part of the stage he finished 30 seconds ahead.
After lunch we continued along the road high above the river which we had crossed on day 3. The final competitive section of the day was 15km of relatively gradual climbing with a fast descent to finish. The same pattern emerged, with the Nepalese gradually getting away from me as I set what I hoped would be a sustainable pace. I was pleased to have only lost 3 1/2 minutes overall, and put more of a gap back to 4th than he had made earlier in the day.
The highlight of the riding was yet to come, with 600m of descending over 13km down to the campsite, with the Nepalese and I setting a pretty hot pace. After multiple close-shaves with oncoming traffic it was just me and Aayman left, as his team-mate clearly decided he preferred to arrive a few minutes later and in 1 piece!
Despite it being the longest day of riding, the early start and less time being spent between stages, everyone arrived in camp in daylight, the first time all week!
Day 6 (Thursday) was supposed to be the big one. We had the small matter of climbing from 1550m to 3150m over 28km, starting on tarmac but deteriorating to dirt, rocks and gravel, and for a short section gloopy mud. This was Jalori pass,the first of 2 competitive sections of the day, and the highest point we would reach all week. In short, it wasn't much fun.
The Nepalese duo disappeared up the road pretty quickly, as expected, and my nearest rival from the Indian Army who finished ahead of me (mainly due to a puncture) on day 5 sat on my wheel for the first few km. Once he overtook he gradually pulled away, and I decided to pace myself and not chase him. As the road twisted around the side of the valley I could see him quite frequently, and at around 12km I was given a time check of around 2 minutes where some of the organisers were ready with additional beverages and sustenance. Perhaps 8km later I timed the gap myself as I spotted him passing a building, and the gap had stretched by another minute. I was anticipating losing around 5 minutes in total by the top. As I seemed to be tiring throughout the week, the opposite seemed to be true for him, getting faster every day! I'm not ashamed to say that I walked several short sections, especially towards the top where the final 6km has an average gradient of 13%! 2 hours and 26 minutes after starting, the finish line was a very welcome sight. After I had finished staggering around subsequent to ungainly dismounting my bike, I was quite pleased to discover that the time difference to 3rd was about 3 minutes, so not as much as I had predicted.
The problem at the top was that I was too warm in the sun, and too cold in the shade, so spent a few hours alternating between the 2 as the rest of the field made their was up the hill. Of course this stopped being a problem once the sun was obscured by clouds, fortunately by this time the vehicle which some of us had stashed extra clothing in appeared, and all was well.
We wrapped up well for the descent down the other side of the pass, and unfortunately for me this section was not competitive, as I certainly seem to be more dominant on the downs than the ups among the top few guys. The descent took about 2 hours less than the ascent, and was certainly a lot more enjoyable!
The final stage of the day was supposed to have 300m of climbing over 20km taking us right to the evening camp. It soon became obvious that this was a slight under-estimate, as 300m had been climbed significantly before the half-way point. I managed to keep my rival behind me all the way and after 700m of ascent finished around 7 minutes ahead of him, more than reversing the damage done in the morning.
Just to spoil things for myself I decided to show off riding into camp, and spectacularly messed-up a relatively small drop-off, leaving a nice imprint of my stem in my ribs. Most movements were now painful, so it's probably for the best that we only had 2 allegedly easy days remaining. I would be breaking out the prescription pain-killers given for my wrist later...
Day 7 (Friday) Thursday night was the first time I wasn't too hot in my down sleeping bag, which suggested that it had been quite a cool night. Sure enough the gloves and various other riding accoutrements which I had left hanging on the tent were frozen solid. I swapped to a spare pair of gloves and thawed out my Garmin heart rate strap by hanging it in the naan bread oven for a few seconds, only melting it a little bit. Fortunately the sun rose to illuminate the valley of our camp so we could remove our thermals before starting the days riding.
We climbed at a nice steady pace for 8km to the top of the valley where we were greeted with stunning views across the mountains, all the way to Shimla some 100km away and beyond. We could see the first competitive section of the day dropping below us, twisting down the mountainside, a 20km downhill stage which was sue to be fast and furious. The first batch of riders left, including myself and the Nepalese - Narayan and Aayman. Aayman, the smaller and younger of the pair had proven to be faster on the descents, possibly more fearless, and a delight to race and ride with, carving through corners and thrashing over rocky sections. Unfortunately right in the middle of this supposedly 100% descent, there was a considerable hill, which required my lowest gear to spin up, this was where predictably I was overhauled and despite my best efforts I wasn't to see the other 2 until the finish, losing about 40 seconds overall to Aayman. I also noticed at the finish that I had managed to slice my front tyre on a sharp rock, and was losing some air from the sidewall, the sealant inside not managing to repair the damage. A quick patch on the inside of the tyre and a blast of CO2 to re-seat the bead and I was back in action.
After another gentle transition stage we all had lunch by a river crossing. As this was to be followed immediately by the 2nd stage of the day and I didn't want my food making a reappearance shortly afterwards I made sure I didn't gorge myself. The last stage was to be an undulating 29km, starting with climbing around 400m and finishing by dropping the same amount. Either Aayman and Narayan weren't really trying, or I was a bit quicker, but for the first 10k. We rode together taking turns on the front of the group before they inevitably pulled out a lead which they were to maintain until the finish. The descent was very fast and rough, and my arms were the weakest link towards the end as I struggled to hold onto the bars. Perhaps only riding road bikes for the 6 months preceding the event wasn't the best overall training...
After this stage we had the only section were we were to be transported in vehicles to the evening camp. This was a logistical decision to ensure that the first 2 days where we had a lot of inexperienced weekend riders were not too challenging in terms of overall distance. Unfortunately the 103km packed into a crew-cab pickup truck weren't hugely enjoyable, but the journey was punctuated by a few stops. The first was when a policeman requested that the passenger on the roof of the truck be decanted to the rear. The second was for a flat tyre, however that afforded us the opportunity to feed a hungry kitten some biscuits. The 3rd stop was to repair the damaged tyre, but we did manage to get a pre-dinner of noodles in a roadside cafe while this was happening. At an average speed of around 20kph I think we would have been quicker cycling the section instead of driving!
The final day (Saturday) dawned and as expected we were greeted by more stunning weather. From our camp we had a gentle road descent to the start of the final competitive stage of the week. I swapped bikes with another rider for this and we both appreciated the benefits of each others bikes, but agreed to swap back again before starting racing. Racing was delayed somewhat as a landslide was being cleared lower in the valley. These are a frequent occurrence in the area and can often cause major disruption for days. Fortunately for us it was mainly cleared pretty quickly and we didn't require a perfect surface to pass. According to the results from the previous day I either needed to make up 33 minutes to claim 2nd place, or make sure I didn't lose over an hour to drop me back to 4th. As such there was little chance of the leader board changing, but this didn't mean that we weren't going to be racing properly over the last 29km! The final stage was pretty much the opposite of the last section of the previous day, starting with a descent and finishing with a climb. The outcome was quite predictable too, where I led the Nepalese to the bottom of the valley some 700m below the start, and they overtook me on the climb, and gradually disappeared out of sight to finish about 3 minutes ahead.
Eventually all of the riders cleared the final climb to great applause, and we had the last great lunch together of the week. In one big group we all rode the last 6km up to Shimla and dropped into the same area we had begun the race from one week prior. After over 500km of hard racing it was fun to climb onto the podium with the very deserving winners, even if it was only the bottom step, to get drenched with champagne! After a quick refresh in our nearby hotel we then regrouped for the prize-giving, which seemed to be as much for the benefit of the sponsors as the riders, but given how much they had contributed to the event this was understandable. I managed to walk away with an unprecedented 3 trophies - 3rd in Open Men Solo, 3rd Overall, and also best downhill, along with a couple of giant cheques, which when I cash the smaller version will almost exactly pay for the entire week, including flights to and from Delhi! Considering I was doubtful whether I would actually be riding, and certainly didn't expect to be competitive due to my wrist, I don't consider this to be a bad outcome! Sleeping in a bed that night was also very refreshing after over a week under canvas. While I enjoy camping, the novelty of a proper shower, a mattress, lights etc didn't go amiss.
Overall, a thoroughly enjoyable experience, and one which I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to anyone. I am glad that I didn't participate last year, which was my original intention, as several months off the bike meant that I was far from fit. It is certainly an event where getting fit in advance is something to be appreciated later, especially when climbing the 1800m up Jalori Pass to mention but one brutal climb! Also, at about £300 for the entire week (partially or fully refundable if you manage to creep onto the podium) represents exceptional value in my book.
