Completing the 600 brevet this year helped to complete a circle I'd started spinning last year, when I started out as a randonneur. In 2015, I successfully completed 200 and 300 BRMs, but faltered at the 600, when I was clearly lacking the fitness and mental strength needed for two days of riding 300 plus km. The group I rode with, led by Marcus Carlholt, were a strong bunch of riders,  who were nice enough to drop their pace quite a bit, to allow me to ride along with them, but I was still nowhere near ready. I had to do a long stretch by myself, and by the time I rode to the hostel we'd booked for a night halt, it was very late and I had too few hours of sleep when I resumed in the morning.  Since they were going to be too fast for me, I elected to ride by myself, and ultimated ended up aborting the ride after 545 km, when the temperature dropped to 2°C, and it even started to snow!

This year, I started out in a pretty poor physical condition, but thanks to a few rides with friends and a bunch of rides by myself, I quickly shed a few extra kilograms, and the difference was really noticeable! I rode and finished the Linköping 200, and also signed up for online coaching from Venkateshwara Navanasi aka Bikey Venky. Venky has been instrumental in keeping me committed and on track, and his inputs have been invaluable to me. I rode and finished the Vasterås 400, which was the first ever time I rode for longer than 24 hours at a stretch, with only a 30 minute power nap to keep me going. Those successes gave me the confidence to take on the Linköping 600, in a bid to complete my first ever Super Randonneur series. Like all rides I'd never completed before, I was tense before the 600, and ended up packing a backpack with a lot of stuff; though none of the items in the backpack were unnecessary, having a backpack, particularly one without a curved surface to allow the back to breathe, was always going to be a bad idea, and this one certainly a bad idea. There was also something that I ate on the ride which didn't agree with me (which I later identified as the energy bars with oatmeal in it) which left me with a severely distended stomach, and on the constant lookout for the next toilet. After riding 455 km on the course during which I'd logged an additional 35 km due to taking wrong turns due to issues navigating with my Garmin Egde 500, I decided to call it a day. I knew that my legs had been strong and my body had performed well and I was well within the time limit, having consumed only 26 hrs for my 455 (490 km, due to extra mileage logged because of GPS issues), despite the stomach issues, and so took heart in the performance, knowing that I'd be able to nail it the next time.

I continued my rides and rode my fastest ever Vätternrundan 300 km, in 12 hours and 15 minutes and lost even more weight. My next shot at the mythical 600 beast was on July 2, and this time, my determination was really steely.  I sought suggestions and help from all the bikers I know. Apart from Venky, I spoke to friends Manjula Sridhar and Mohammad Rafi Shaik, both multiple-SRs from India, about my anxieties, and received helpful hints and pointers from them. Manjula's blog posts about her repeated attempts at cracking the 600 were very helpful; they showed how little we really controlled, when on a randonneuring ride. Sleep deprivation, bad nutrition, navigation issues, bike issues etc are just a few of the things that can lead to a 'did-not-finish', or a finish outside of the cut-offs, and then there were other factors such as wind, rain etc, which could also throw serious curveballs; I would have to do my best to prepare for it, and hope for the best. In the meanwhile, my friend and compatriot, Opendro Thoudam Singh had become the first ever Indian to crack the Trans Am Bike Race in the United States, and I decided with grim determination, that I'll not pull out of this 600 for anything short of a medical emergency, and announced my decision to try and earn a successful finish, and dedicate the success to Opendro, or Open, as we call on the mailing list, for all of the inspiration he's provided to all of us, with his gutsy riding.

One of the things most local bikers do, is to obsess about the weather; they keep checking the weather and many don't even register till the last day, making the final decision on the day of the ride; not me, as I can't do it, even if I wanted to, as I often need to make travel plans beforehand, as I don't have a car to get around. A cursory check of the weather on the day prior to the ride revealed a horror-show; lots and lots of rain. I just shrugged and packed in all of my wet gear into my newly purchased Blackburn frame bag, which would eliminate the need for me to carry a backpack. When I arrived in Göteborg, the weather was glorious, but I knew it was scheduled to turn ugly the next day. Apart from the frame bag, the second component which I'd got my hands on, just before leaving for the ride, was my new Garmin GPSMAP64 ST GPS. I had not even had the time to do a 50 km ride with it, to acquaint myself with it. This would prove to be expensive.

July 2, 2016: Ride day. Woke up at 0530 and grabbed a quick breakfast. Looked out of the window, to see heavy rain belting down. I flicked on new Garmin, to navigate to the start point, when I had the first moment of horror; I could barely see the screen properly; it turns out that I could have bumped up the brightness, but I didn't realize that then. The zoom level was also too low; I didn't know what level of zoom would serve me best, and I simply rolled out. Before long, I was having trouble seeing through my glasses which had fogged up completely, and Göteborg has tram lines on the streets, making riding harder and more hazardous. Within some time, I lost my way and had to spend ten additional minutes looking around, till I managed to get back on track. At one point, where I had to stop for a light on a steep incline, I slipped and failed to unclip, and fell awkwardly, twisting my saddlepost and bending my bottlecages, but I stopped only to call my fellow rider to tell him that I'd be late getting to the start) and rode like the devil was after me. By the time I pulled into the start point (a gas station), the cashier mentioned that my fellow riders, Daniel, and Anna-Lena, had waited and then pushed off without me, about 10 minutes ahead of me. To make matters worse, he pointed out the wrong direction, mentioning to me that they went in that way (when they had actually not; he was confused as all other brevets starting from that place went in the other direction), so I actually started going in the wrong direction, but the GPS kept telling me that I was wrong. I was wet, cold, miserable and lost, with a GPS that I was not familiar with, and a rising panic.  Then I told myself to calm down; I took a few deep breaths and pulled myself back to the start point, to reorient myself. I also started up the Garmin 500 in NAV mode, to navigate the course (which I'd loaded onto it, just in case!) When the panic subsided, I told myself that I wasn't letting this one slip by; I needed the finish, to dedicate it to Open, didn't I? I used the more familiar but glitchy Edge 500 to get started. Now, Göteborg is a tricky city to navigate out of, particularly if you are using bread-crumb trail courses on devices like the Edge 500 or 200; too many turns within short distances, confusing forks, tram lines to avoid.. stop lights.. My exit was truly painfully slow, but I thought to myself that slow was beautiful; slow was a whole lot better than stopped.  After about an hour and a half, I had managed to leave the city, and it even stopped raining. Things were suddenly looking better, and I'd managed to figure out the use of the GPS by now, even finding the optimal zoom level, and just like that, what had seemed like a nightmare seemed to work like a dream! I stopped to make the much needed adjustments to my saddle and bottle cages (the bottlecages had been hanging precariously and dangerously, till then!). It took me more than 20 minutes to adjust them correctly, but I finally got it right and I started moving again, telling myself that I had a lot of catching up to do. I send out a message to Daniel, mentioning that I'd had to fix some bike issues, and that I was now pushing hard; I asked him to message me when he got to the first control, at km 80.  After some more time, I got the message from him, saying he'd reached the first control; I was more than 20 km behind, and had quite a few climbs to tackle too. I swore under my breath and pushed harder, taking care to stay just below my heart's redline. The next point, was at 130 km, and I missed them by under 15 minutes. The third control point was at km 166 and I totally needed to catch up, so I kept pushing at an ITT like pace, knowing fully well that I was burning many, many matches. I was beginning to ask myself whether I should slow down and simply do the ride on my own, but I kept pushing myself, for a bit, and then a bit more. I was downing water furiously and riding hard, replacing spent bottles at each of the stops. When I was about 5 km from the third control point, I got a message from Daniel that they'd just pulled into the McDonald's there; I called him back and told him that I was pushing like the blazes and was only 5 km out. He mentioned that they'd wait, and off I went. I joined them, ordered two large burgers, one to eat and one to go, and a large strawberry shake, as I could definitely use the sugar.

From that point on, we rode on together. Anna-Lena seemed not to want to ride out front, so Daniel and I took turns at the front, with Daniel doing the bulk of the riding out in the front, as we set out to Svenjunga, the next control point some 90 odd km away. Svenjunga would also serve as our dinner stop. We reached there close to 2000 hrs, and pulled into a pizzeria. Daniel and Anna-Lena ordered hot meals while I dug into my packed burger, which would not get any better, the longer we rode. I washed it down with some fresh milk. We restarted, and before long, it started raining again. We had to stop and change again, into wet gear, and continued. The temperature, which had been 15°C during the day, had dropped to 10 and now to 8°C. As we continued to bike, it kept dropping, till it dropped to a really cold 2.9 °C, at which point I was really glad to have taken my neoprene gloves with me. Though my hands were wet, they stayed warm, and I didn't take off my waterproof overshoes, even though it wasn't raining anymore, as it kept my feet warm. Around 0200 hrs, I was really beginning to nod off. We had not been able to stop anywhere for a powernap, as the rain had left everything wet and soggy. I mentioned that I really needed to get some shut-eye, and we rode on to the next checkpoint. Since nothing was open at that time, we found an ATM, to do a balance check, to get a statement with a timestamp. We stopped outside the ATM, parked the bikes and simply sat down on the pavement and shut our eyes for the next 30 minutes. While that was a long way from being ideal, it took the drowsiness away, and we continued riding, but we ran into a thick blanket of fog, which reduced our visibility to less than 10 feet. The fog made Daniel feel very sleepy, but we rode on till around 0600 hrs, when we spotted the church at Tönnersjö, with benches on the outside. We all took a second 40 minute nap there (http://bit.ly/2afIxiH), before resuming.

We rode through Laholm and onto Båstad, which was as far south as we'd go, on this ride. We stamped our cards there, ate a hearty breakfast and turned around and for the first time, had some nice supporting winds which encouraged us. We stopped to take a picture by the roadside, at a point where we got the closest, to the North Sea.</span> By the North Sea!

Clearly I have no clue how selfies work!

We rode on till we decided to stop, to allow me to eat a packed sandwich, for some energy. Anna-Lena also decided that she needed another nap, so we ended up taking our third and final 30 minute nap there, but on restarting, we felt that it would be better if Daniel and I could push on, with Anna-Lena riding at her own pace, as we were only about a 110 km to the finish. Both Daniel and I were beginning to get saddle sores on account of slower riding and coasting, and felt that pushing hard and finishing as soon as we could seemed a sound idea. We rode on to Varberg, our penultimate checkpoint and had pasta salad and milkshakes for lunch, picking up our stamps from the ICA Maxi store. We had a couple of climbs thrown in, between our position and the finish, and we dispatched them strongly, when we encountered them, as we were egged on strongly by the impending finish. We reached the gas station at Mölndal, at 1942 hrs, 36 hrs and 42 minutes from the start time. Daniel congratulated me on my first ever SR.  I pumped my fist in celebration, and said to myself, 'This one's for you, Open!' Note: Anna-Lena finished with a timing of 37 hrs and 10 minutes. Strava Activity: https://www.strava.com/activities/629421443