Living the Dream – K2K Ride – Pre Ride

Attempting Kashmir to Kanyakumari on the cycle is  the dream of every cyclist. Needless to say I was also one of them. Idea as a group came to our mind before, during & after our Statue of Unity ride in the month of August 2022. We created the what’s app  group in the month of May’22 which included actual members who were going to be part of the expedition. We decided to refer to the route which was successfully completed by Mr. Sanjay khade who did solo ride  in the month of Nov’2021, which turned out to be big help. We decided to do phase wise planning as in deciding one route , based on  mapping the next day location  in order to measure the distance. Gadgil suggested to assign job to Individual like someone will look into the route, few of us will look for the hotel, some of us will find the cycle shops etc. Phadtare suggested to follow Srinagar- Chandigarh- Delhi- Gwalior – Nagpur – Hyderbad- Bengluru – Kanyakumari route. Sydney who’s bucket list was k2k ride decided not to go ahead suggested valid points. “I think, first thing U all have to decide is, in how many days u want to complete the entire trip,(30,40,45 days), and then plan the daily ride accordingly. There are people in this group who are working, and getting longer leave might be difficult. The K2K distance being around 3600 to 4000 km, the trip should preferably be completed in 35 to 40 days.” – Sydney Miranda. Narayan & I suggested to split the distance into 1800km and start the planning phase wise. Also as a group we decided to take 3 rest days during the journey. The actual meeting didn’t happen in June because few of us in the group went for Pune to Pandharpur devotional cycle ride organized by Indo Athletic Society IAS Pune. After the one of the first meeting on the video call in July Arun Deshmukh suggested that we will book the hotel for katra & Jammu, since this 2 spots are fixed, rest will depend on our coverage per day between 100 to 120 km, but we will shortlist and keep in advance. Till Jhansi we did the basic calculations regarding distance. It was time that we should meet because it was the beginning of the the August month. Initially we had planned to ride in the month of December so we had 4 months to plan and practice. It was also decided to ride together in group because first time 8 of us gonna ride for 40 days. On Aug 27th Sat Just after span of 10 days after Statue of Unity ride (we went from Mumbai to Gujrat one way on 15th August long weekend)  we decided to meet our common meeting point at Tukaram Phadtare’s office  in CBD Belapur. when to go, who will be the part of team, what will be the route and many more countless questions was in front of us like a rock solid wall. One of the main questions for me was how will I go for the expedition. Will I get that many days of leave? Initially plan was for 40+ days to cover 3500+ kms. Then the idea of applying for the Sabbatical leave struck to me. I have then completed 3+ years & wasn’t going to engage with any other organisation as my goal & focus was only on cycling.  We made a decision to book Train tickets in the month of Oct 1st week.

Twist and Turns

When I said yes to the group in the month of May that I will be doing full ride with them in few days only my brother in law Tejas told that they have booked the flight tickets ( Australia to India )for the month of Dec. Their visit to India was almost after 2+ years because during covid flights were closed in Australia. That time in May , Sabbatical wasn’t confirmed I decided to take a shot of speaking with the company management after Sept-Oct. Cycling, the K2K ride was important to me so was the meeting Gauri, Tejas & my Niece Saanvi. May be I could cut the trip short and join the group either till Maharashtra or later half the trip. Or I would have told Gauri that will meet then next time once they visit. Uff too many questions were popping up and decided to focus on the planning  and going with the flow. In a few weeks Arun Deshmukh told his daughter’s wedding is fixed in the month of December 3 and trip will be happening in the month of Feb. Phew that was big relief as I will be able to spend time with my sister and also can join cycling expedition.

Injury and Recovery

On Oct 25th we had a small  get together with Yoga Buddies. ( I used to go to Yoga classes)  I fell down on marble floor tiles while running while playing indoor games. I was wearing Jeans and the impact of the injury was on the right knee. Luckily by God’s grace I was able to move the knee and leg but I could feel the pain. I came home and applied an ice pack. In our office we had an extended Diwali break of 1 full week. I had plans of going for long rides, long runs which would have helped me in the upcoming cycling expedition . But then I thought of taking full rest on the next day thinking of getting better from yesterday’s fall.  Days were passing by and the Diwali short vacation got over. During that entire week I didn’t go for a run, cycling & swimming. After the break the routine of going back to the office on the cycle began. My home to the workplace one way distance is 6km and daily it’s 12kms. When I was on the cycle, the activity was painless but when I was off the saddle and folding my leg in half Lotus or sitting with both legs in the folding position (मांडी घालुन बसन) I could feel the pain. It was the start of the November month & even after 10 days  there wasn’t slight improvement in spite of the icepack, taking ample rest I thought that this looks like a serious injury and I need to consult a physiotherapist asap. First I thought of ordering the Knee cap but kept the thought on hold. I also ordered KT tape (Kinesiology Therapeutic ) and started using it while cycling. I asked a few of my friends Avishkar, Sainath if they know any physio. They helped out with a few contacts. I contacted Dr. Pallavi Chogale on Nov 9th and we decided to meet on Saturday at her clinic. When I visited her she understood the issue and told that my cushioning structure of the knee gets swollen with load and that is when I can feel it . She also asked whether I going to participate in any running events in the coming months? I told her about my K2K expedition. One of the major reliefs was she told me to continue the fitness activities & stick to the routine, meanwhile treatment in the form of sessions were on. We did around 9 sessions during Nov 12 to Jan 7th. These sessions turned out to be pretty useful & I am really grateful that we did those sessions. She told me to carry an ice pack and full sleeve cycling pants just in case of injury triggers. I kept that in mind and carried both during the trip.

Sabbatical Leave

I applied in the month of November 15th & in the month of December I got to know the management had approved the same. My friends Levis & Jayson helped me out in drafting mail because initially I was going to speak verbally with the HR Management but giving it in writing worked out in my favour as it turned out to be only document and the crucial one in the entire process. I also informed my clients about my temporary absence for the tenure & my team and colleagues also were supportive.

Training

It was a mixture of walking running swimming & a little bit of cycling. I wanted to take it easy and then get used to the activities again so the main aim was staying on the road and keeping muscle memory intact. I started with 3km-4km of running in the month of Nov and then increased that till 10km in Jan . For cycling apart from office commute, 1st ride was on Nov 25th around 25km and 50km and then 100km in our Jambhulpada get together group ride in Jan 21 & 22nd. I believe that doing the steady progress worked as till Feb I was fully recovered. I almost cried when I went on climbs painless and I knew that I will be able to attempt & complete the upcoming expedition in spite of less practice rides (approx. 3-4 rides)

Trip Planning

For the full journey from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, the final count of participants were 8 – Mr & Mrs Phadtare, Gadgil, Deshmukh, Nayan, Nayana, Narayan & I. Narayan booked the train tickets on 6th Oct. We have also kept an open option that whoever is not able to join for full ride they can chip in & join us in between route points. Date of the journey was Feb 3 & initial plan was to reach Kanyakumari by March 8th. We had few offline meetings at Phadtare’s office in the month of August & November. Also we met as a group in one of the cycle rides in Palm Beach Road on Dec’31st & one night out in Jambhulpada in the month of Jan’23.

We had assigned tasks to specific teammate such as:

Narayan : Train Booking & keeping track of finances (which Narayan does Voluntarily & is one of the best in terms of keeping track of numbers)

Tukaram, Arun, & Akshay: Hotel Booking & route mapping

Sunil: T shirt / Jersey Finalisation

Gang of Girls- Nayana, Nayan & Vidya : On the way Cycle shop information

Nayana: Also took responsibility of creating id cards which conatined information such as name number blood group emergency contact number. She also responsibility of making a big k2k poster.

We had created as separate what’s app group where we used to discuss about other things such as update on the given tasks such as hotel marking & near by cycle shops on the way. I created one group Instagram handle k2kride2023 where we started posting updates regarding the journey. In Jambhulpada with mutual discussion we decided to increase the number of avg kms & if everything goes well as per the plan(🤞) instead 8th March we will be reaching Kanyakumari on March 2nd. We did few calls to the hotels & told them about our upcoming journey & stay availability at their place. Few of them told to keep them informed about it one day in advance. Few of them asked us to pay half of the booking amount we we did. We got the Jerseys on Feb 1st and next day we decided to meet at Bandra Terminals around 11 am for cycle parcel formalities.

PS: The Journey started on Feb 3 and will be writing day wise events in the upcoming blog series, if you are reading till here stay tuned for the next events.