Back to back hill climbs on the Eastern Ghats with Raveendran Jepegnanam and Naveen Nadig (Part2) After a satisfying Kolli hill ride, we moved on to Yercaud for the next climb. We reached Yercaud by 5:30pm and checked into a cottage. The temperature was dropping (12c) and was getting cold. Our dear friend Yeshwin got us a nice dinner from Pear Tree Café and we celebrated the successful Kolli climb together :) Post dinner, Naveen and me went for a long walk in the neighborhood and enjoyed the cold weather. Sunday (30th Nov) - Yercaud It was 8am and still cold, we were waiting for the SUNday :D Yeshwin invited us over to Pear Tree Café for breakfast. We went to the café early and feasted on the poori’s, idllies and thoroughly enjoyed the lip-smacking meal :P (more from Ravi on this..) Thanks to Yeshwin and Mary for the nice meal that fueled us throughout the day. The cold weather and a filling breakfast made us think about getting back to bed than hitting the saddle :D Ravi didn’t like the Kolli descent hence wanted to skip the Yercaud descent. We changed plans and drove down to Salem to start with the climb instead of the descent. With a lazy drive back to the cottage we reluctantly loaded our cycling gear onto the car and drove down the ghat road to Salem. We noticed the missing fruit vendors on the 12th/13th bend and realized that there were no shops / pitstops on the ghat road. At the foothills, filled up the two sippers with Enerzal and water and stashed a pack of chickie into the jersey. The ghat road is about 18.5km (foot hill to the peak) with an ascent of 1030m @ 5.5% grad. After a delay of over 2hrs, we finally started our ascent by noon. I have done this climb over a dozen times and wanted to get back to the non-stop sub 2hrs ride. Paced the ride @ 5.4min/km and continued with this pace for the first 10 km. I was doing well over 600m ascent/hr against the plan of 500m ascent/hr. This was a good pace for me and my HR was at about 165bpm (low z4). At this time a sub 100min ride seemed possible. Very soon I felt a mild pain in the IT band and didn’t want to push anymore. Took it easy from then on and took an additional minute for every kilometer. Finished the climb (1030m) in 107mins and felt happy to have done back to back climbs with a reasonable timing. Soon Naveen reached the hilltop and joined for lunch. Together we made our final descent to get the car. Saw Ravi at the 18th bend (close to finish point) and cheered him to finish. He was doing an easy Z2/Z3 ride like a real tour. We got the car back and after long chat with Yeshwin and family left Yercaud by 7:30pm and reached Chennai late night. Thanks to Ravi and Naveen for the wonderful company and for training together. ToT2014 – Here we come :)
Posted on: Mon, 01 Dec 2014 13:12:40 +0000
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