My Sporterra Sport became a month old today. So far, it has run around 650kms. Quite a few long rides in those 650kms - twice to Lavasa and back (~100kms each), then twice over the Katraj Ghat (around 50kms each), and couple times to Pirangut and Mutha ghats (around 30-50kms each). I can feel the stamina and muscle improving. I can feel my heart, lungs and legs getting in better shape and getting stronger. This was not the case when I had just got the cycle though.
Since my last Lavasa climb, I had started cycling frequently. Fresh air and lack of traffic in the morning, opens up quite a few routes around Kothrud/Chandani-chowk area for cycling. One is along the bypass through the new Katraj Tunnel, take a u-turn at Shindewadi and take old Katraj Ghat - old tunnel - Katraj bypass - Pune bypass - chandani chowk: ~50kms. This route can be done other way round as well and that involves old Katraj Ghat climb which has quite a challenging gradient. Another is to Pirangut and back: ~30kms. If you have got time or start quite early in the morning, Mutha Ghat climb is even better and is around 50km ride.
One such Mutha ghat climb, which is around 50km ride, had taken me 3hrs for to-and-from journey and had given me a confidence boost about my improving edurance. I was feeling the improvement and was getting psyched up to tackle the grand-daddy of them all - Lavasa - again.
So I woke up one fine morning, did some stretches (important!) as usual, and started for Lavasa at around 5:30am. There were 2 goals: one was to reach the top in 3hrs and second was 5hrs of total to-and-fro timing. Given the experience of first time, both the goals looked tough and I was expecting around 3:30hrs for the top and 6hrs to-and-fro. Also, this time I had Sports-Tracker as my ride tracker, and given its excellent power management, I was sure I would be able to lock in the whole ride's data without battery issues.
The sky had just started lightening a little when I reached Pirangut descent. This is one of the best descents out there, and it's here where I have clocked my top-speed of 60.4km, which I haven't been able to manage on the descent of any other ghats despite standing up. By the time I reached the point where Mutha Ghat starts, I had taken 2 breaks - one for ATM and another for buying an extra water bottle; just in case. The ghat climb was done without any amount of exertion. In fact I reached the cusp, when I was expecting further climb. I remembered my last time when I was huffing and puffing and desperately waiting for the top. I was in much better form and shape this time round.
While climbing up Mutha, I saw couple of bikers speeding up and down the ghat perfecting their cornering skills and enjoying the adrenaline overall. Lack of traffic early in the morning, cool air, excellent road condition and the twisty nature of the Mutha ghat makes for a rider's heaven. No wonder these adrenaline-junkies, fully dressed up in protective gear, were whizzing up and down it.
Subsequent descent and Mutha town came by quickly. "Lavasa: 18km" read a board. 10kms more and I was at the Temghar wall. Saw a lot of school-children on the way to school. Oohs and aahs and laughter and comments passing would ensue when they would catch sight of me. The cycle indeed attracts a lot of attention, especially of the younger lot. And the older teenagers out of these school-goers are not always nice. Some of those jackasses pass quite nasty comments trying to attract attention of the girls (walking behind) and win brownies by deriding the urbanites. More power to you hillbilies.
Reached Temghar dam in next half an hour. Took one final break at the Temghar wall which marks the start of the much awaited Lavasa climb. Sip of water, a little stroll, stretches and I started up. Last time I had climbed, I had wondered if anybody would be able to do it in a single shot, without a break from Temghar wall to the Lavasa top. So this time round, the goal was to do exactly that - go up without a single stop.
I took it easy in the start, trying to conserve energy for that horrible Lavasa-4 to Lavasa-3 stretch. Noticed the same pair of Mutha riders (all helmets look the same), labouring up and down the slopes of Lavasa now. Cornering is a bit more challenging here due to switchbacks.
By the time I got to the Lavasa-4 milestone, a bit of exhaution had set in due to continuous climb. And boy, the Lavasa-4 to Lavasa-3 stretch was just as horrible, as brutal, as pure-inferno as it was the previous time. But this time, I somehow held up. There were few more leg muscles this time round, which allowed me to partially power through some of the trecherous climbs. I persisted without a stop. And finally, there it was - the cusp! It took me 40-45mins this time to cross the 8kms of climb. The total 'to' journey - from home to lavasa - took 2:36hrs -- 24mins shorter than the goal I had set. There was a tremendous sense of achievement.
On the top, I took some breakfast, and in 15-20mins left for home. The return journey was not much eventful apart from the Mutha and Pirangut climbs, which appeared more gruelling due to some level of exhaustion. On reaching Chandani Chowk, I realised I had done around 88kms and would need 12 more kms to complete a century. Took a detour along Warje, Nal Stop route and got back home after completing 100.7kms in 6:02hrs.
Here is the full GPS track of the ride; and here is the speed elevation profile of the route -
Interesting Correlation
The elevation profile of this Lavasa ride in Sport-Tracker struck as a familiar curve. Initially I thought of it as the impulse response profile of a 2nd order control system. But that curve has an envelope which reflects over X-axis. This elevation profile is on one side of x-axis, i.e it doesn't have a negative elevation. So not applicable.
Then I thought of it to be a sinusoid damped by Gaussian function. Still the Gaussian function curve dies pretty quickly and one doesn't get enough peaks before the sinusoid damps dead.
Finally after couple hours of mathematical and graph plotting jugglery, I could place this curve as - an exponentially damped up-shifted sinusoid, riding a standard normal Gaussian distribution curve. Here is the equation that I came up with -
And here is the graphical plot of the equation -
You will agree that this plot shares a good deal of correlation with the elevation profile of the Lavasa ride. Interesting, isn't it?
Since my last Lavasa climb, I had started cycling frequently. Fresh air and lack of traffic in the morning, opens up quite a few routes around Kothrud/Chandani-chowk area for cycling. One is along the bypass through the new Katraj Tunnel, take a u-turn at Shindewadi and take old Katraj Ghat - old tunnel - Katraj bypass - Pune bypass - chandani chowk: ~50kms. This route can be done other way round as well and that involves old Katraj Ghat climb which has quite a challenging gradient. Another is to Pirangut and back: ~30kms. If you have got time or start quite early in the morning, Mutha Ghat climb is even better and is around 50km ride.
One such Mutha ghat climb, which is around 50km ride, had taken me 3hrs for to-and-from journey and had given me a confidence boost about my improving edurance. I was feeling the improvement and was getting psyched up to tackle the grand-daddy of them all - Lavasa - again.
So I woke up one fine morning, did some stretches (important!) as usual, and started for Lavasa at around 5:30am. There were 2 goals: one was to reach the top in 3hrs and second was 5hrs of total to-and-fro timing. Given the experience of first time, both the goals looked tough and I was expecting around 3:30hrs for the top and 6hrs to-and-fro. Also, this time I had Sports-Tracker as my ride tracker, and given its excellent power management, I was sure I would be able to lock in the whole ride's data without battery issues.
The sky had just started lightening a little when I reached Pirangut descent. This is one of the best descents out there, and it's here where I have clocked my top-speed of 60.4km, which I haven't been able to manage on the descent of any other ghats despite standing up. By the time I reached the point where Mutha Ghat starts, I had taken 2 breaks - one for ATM and another for buying an extra water bottle; just in case. The ghat climb was done without any amount of exertion. In fact I reached the cusp, when I was expecting further climb. I remembered my last time when I was huffing and puffing and desperately waiting for the top. I was in much better form and shape this time round.
 |
| View from Mutha Ghat Top down the Pirangut-side Valley |
Subsequent descent and Mutha town came by quickly. "Lavasa: 18km" read a board. 10kms more and I was at the Temghar wall. Saw a lot of school-children on the way to school. Oohs and aahs and laughter and comments passing would ensue when they would catch sight of me. The cycle indeed attracts a lot of attention, especially of the younger lot. And the older teenagers out of these school-goers are not always nice. Some of those jackasses pass quite nasty comments trying to attract attention of the girls (walking behind) and win brownies by deriding the urbanites. More power to you hillbilies.
 |
| At the Temghar Wall |
I took it easy in the start, trying to conserve energy for that horrible Lavasa-4 to Lavasa-3 stretch. Noticed the same pair of Mutha riders (all helmets look the same), labouring up and down the slopes of Lavasa now. Cornering is a bit more challenging here due to switchbacks.
 |
| At Lavasa Finally |
By the time I got to the Lavasa-4 milestone, a bit of exhaution had set in due to continuous climb. And boy, the Lavasa-4 to Lavasa-3 stretch was just as horrible, as brutal, as pure-inferno as it was the previous time. But this time, I somehow held up. There were few more leg muscles this time round, which allowed me to partially power through some of the trecherous climbs. I persisted without a stop. And finally, there it was - the cusp! It took me 40-45mins this time to cross the 8kms of climb. The total 'to' journey - from home to lavasa - took 2:36hrs -- 24mins shorter than the goal I had set. There was a tremendous sense of achievement.
On the top, I took some breakfast, and in 15-20mins left for home. The return journey was not much eventful apart from the Mutha and Pirangut climbs, which appeared more gruelling due to some level of exhaustion. On reaching Chandani Chowk, I realised I had done around 88kms and would need 12 more kms to complete a century. Took a detour along Warje, Nal Stop route and got back home after completing 100.7kms in 6:02hrs.
Here is the full GPS track of the ride; and here is the speed elevation profile of the route -
Interesting Correlation
Then I thought of it to be a sinusoid damped by Gaussian function. Still the Gaussian function curve dies pretty quickly and one doesn't get enough peaks before the sinusoid damps dead.
Finally after couple hours of mathematical and graph plotting jugglery, I could place this curve as - an exponentially damped up-shifted sinusoid, riding a standard normal Gaussian distribution curve. Here is the equation that I came up with -
And here is the graphical plot of the equation -
 |
| A Graph That Correlates with the Elevation Curve of Lavasa Route |
2 comments:
I Love the description of this fabulous ride to Lavasa.
i like the graph part..
the colours, i mean..
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