WSSM Bopdev Climb Challenge

I first came to know about this local climb in the city only after getting a Facebook notification of the event. It’s a nice 4 km climb with 8% average gradient. It starts with a 1.5 km straight climb and then the road starts to turn with 3 hair-pin bends and the last 1 km stretch is again straight. It’s a perfect training climb. I did it a couple of times to get acquainted with the route. The challenge was to do 3 loops of it in a time-trial format, scaling to around 900 m of elevation. The competitive segment was only the climb part and the downhill was supposed to be a neutral zone. It was like a stage ITT and between each stage a rider got 40 minutes. If a rider exceeds that time in reaching back to the start point, he gets DNFed.

It was race day and I was all set. I reached the start point well in time and met some new and old faces. My strategy was to go steady in the 1st loop, then push hard in the 2nd and go all out in the 3rd. It was a risky strategy as you always tend to lose gas after the 1st loop. On the contrary, another strategy was to push hard in the 1st loop taking advantage of the fresh legs, try to sustain in 2nd and go all out in the 3rd. This was risky too as you might end up screwing your 2nd and 3rd loop. I somehow decided to go for the former one trusting my endurance.

I was the 8th rider to start with a 30 sec gap between each rider. The one ahead of me, Mangesh was a young talent. I saw him riding strong in the peloton during the Pune v/s Mumbai Road Race. The rider after me was Sudarshan, who was a strong contender. My turn came soon, took a gulp of water and off I went. The start of the section was a flat 100 m which helped in building momentum into the climb. I immediately saw Mangesh and another rider ahead of him some 200 m far. I decided not to get intimidated and just stuck to the plan to go steady. After a kilometre Sudarshan overtook me and it was not surprising enough. Without upping my pace I just ignored the fact and kept moving at my own pace. Soon I overtook Mangesh and soon thereafter another rider. The hair-pins were tackled neatly without any jerky movements. It was early morning so the weather was pretty good, but it was windy as hell. Cross winds were coming from everywhere and the wise thing to do was to get glued into your saddle and just pedal. In no time there was a volunteer standing in front of me with a placard saying 1 km to go. By now, I was breathing easily with no signs of fatigue or pain. The temple at the top was now visible which was near the finish line. The plan seemed to be in place till now. I finished the 1st climb in around 15 min which was surprisingly my personal best timing on the hill.

I then descended immediately without spending much time at the top. The 2nd loop started soon and I was feeling almost fresh. I knew I had to push hard in this loop, so I went off the saddle initially, till the windy section came. I overtook Mangesh pretty early this time and 2 more riders in quick succession. I was feeling strong and was keeping my cadence high. 2 km into the climb Sudarshan came close to me, but this time I wasn’t going to let him go easily. I tried to stick with him for quite some time and built a good momentum with him. His cadence was lower than mine which meant he was going hard as well and was very calm on the saddle. It was indeed a sign of a strong climber. Despite his injuries in the last race, he had managed to recover well and was here to make a statement. I had to let him go in the final kilometre, in which towards the end I caught up with another rider, Chinmay. We almost did a sprint finish to the top. This time I managed to shave off some 25 seconds compared to my previous effort. I was now getting into the rhythm and my legs were ready for even 10 loops.

I again descended and waited for the 3rd climb to start at the base. This time I had to go all out, but not in the beginning. So I started strong once again by dancing off the saddle. This time Mangesh was going faster and the overtaking happened a little later. It was in fact a double overtake for Sudarshan. I however, stuck with him for a while and kept pushing and panting. I was increasing the intensity now as the finish was approaching and went full throttle in the last kilometre. A sprint in the final 100 m finished the proceedings. This time I completed in just less than 15 minutes. So things went according to the plan. The fastest loop turned out to be the 2nd one and slowest one was the 1st one. All three efforts were in the range of 25 seconds. Although, not satisfied enough as a lot of work still needs to be done in the climbing department.

I could not stay for the closing ceremony as I had to be somewhere urgently, so I rushed back home immediately. Siddharth Hivarekar and his team of volunteers including Siddharth Khole and a few more who I didn’t know did an excellent job in organising the event. Everything went pretty smooth and all the arrangements were spic-and-span. The results were declared then and there and the top 3 riders for the Road Bike category were: Sudarshan (00:40:46), Vitthal Bhosale (00:43:37) and Mayank Tripathi (00:44:06). For the MTB category, the top 3 riders were: Bheem Bdr Rokaya (00:53:16), Tarun Mahajan (01:06:19) and Pragyaal Sharma (01:09:16).

Good to see such events happening which will help in building an ecosystem and we’ll see more riders getting encouraged to participate and compete.

Link to my Strava Activity: https://www.strava.com/activities/997833965

For more images and updates: https://www.facebook.com/events/915011791971746

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