At 6.30am we woke up and had a quick shower. I was fresh enough for the days cycling. I think I had a good sleep overnight. Everyone was present in the breakfast table at 8.00am. We had a good chat in the table while having the hot breakfast with coffee made by Mr.Barry. In the mean time the support team is back with the car. Badri did not forget to ask us whether we need to check the tyre pressure of our bikes. We loaded the bags back in the car and took a couple of snaps with Mr.Barry before we said good bye to him.
The team did not forget to do some stretch exercises (not much) before starting. At 9.00am we started pedalling for the day. Fortunately we started in the opposite direction of the way we came (I was happy that we have avoided the uphill to start with) on the previous day. First hour passed happily without much strain. I have recharged myself physically and mentally overnight for today’s cycling. Time passed by, we took a right turn to enter a village, and we saw an uphill there, I thought I am going to walk in that stretch, finally decided to follow Rahul as he leads us in any uphill. Got thru that and was amazed to see another uphill which is steeper than the previous one. I decided to put my gears down to the lowest and move up slowly. As usual Rahul was there on the top even before I started pedalling. Suddenly we saw Rahul running down just to encourage us pedal fast. Next to reach the top were Ram and Giri, followed by Smita. Varun managed to reach the top with his full efforts. Finally there comes Vinod to the top (you would have watched Mr.Bean pedalling very fast and moving very slowly in the movies. Exactly the same thing happened there with me cycling to the top. Ram did see Mr.Bean in me at that point of time). This was the steepest uphill till now. We stopped there for a couple of minutes to take rest. There were around 50 cyclists passed us at that time in the hill without much effort, at that point I thought why we have to do regular workouts to keep myself fit. Smita took some photographs of the team and we started to move on. Things were pretty cool after that.
The actual route is to go thru A45 for 21 miles which is a busy stretch with single carriage way (it is called expressway), so we were advised to avoid that road as far as possible. Initially we have to cross thru that road for around 2 miles in the morning. We were so close to the vehicles and I remember somebody hitting Giri with a bunch of paper from the car which is a major distraction for any cyclist. We had our first stop in a petrol station to refill our water bottles. We have requested Badri and Aunty to come to the petrol station. Varun decided give some rest to his bike and to his legs and took a break from the cycling team and joined the support team. I think that was quite a long drinks break for us than expected. Utilised the time to speak to Veebha for a quick update on the teams progress.
Now the team have decided to avoid the A45 for the remaining distance and to take a different route with some additional 8 miles for the day. We took a cycling route to Newark for 14 miles. In between we stopped for lunch at round 1.45pm. Ram’s mobile as well needed some food (charge) from Badri’s car as the mobile as the key member in our team which is helping us navigating to Lincoln. We were so hungry and again it was a feast for the lunch. Chicken biriyani prepared by aunty for non-vegetarians and puliyodharai and curd rice prepared by Badri for vegetarians. We literally sat on the road (since that was a cycling route not much of a traffic) to have our lunch. Every time we meet Badri, he did not miss to encourage us and about the speed we progress.
Post lunch was very nice to cycle. Had another 28 miles to complete the mission. All the roads were very calm and we crossed couple of villages, Rahul and Ram were heading the show, followed by Smita, Giri and myself. Most of the places we cycled were green and it was pleasant as well. Climate did understand our problems and it was fine thru out the day for cycling. As time passed by whenever there is an uphill, I struggled to climb that. Other than that things were pretty good.
We have another 18 miles to complete the mission. Dr.Raghuraman and Krishna joined us on their car which was a second support vehicle. There was another photo session in Dr.Raghu’s digital SLR. Next hour was quite good, especially the roads we crossed during the hour was too good. There was one stretch of a road which was covered by trees on both the sides for about one and half miles. Now there was a slight confusion in the route we have to take. Ram browsed thru his navigator to finalize the final route for the destination which is 10 miles away now. Our hero Varun is back on track again in his bike to cover the final distance.
After a quick break we started to pedal again. We can see sign boards now saying Lincoln. Everyone was happy. Just before entering the town we had another quick break in the near by petrol station to refill our water bottles, another 5 miles to go. The team was just waiting to reach the destination, so we started quickly and were crossing the town centre. We saw a beautiful city on the top of a small mountain. Myself and Giri were talking about Drs.Ian and Rama should not have bought their house in the hill, but unfortunately their house was in the top of the hill, by now you guys would have guessed how difficult it was for me to pedal that last mile. The team was waiting in a roundabout for me and Giri. I remember we took the third exit in the roundabout and we heard loud applause on the other side of the road, yes there were people standing across the road giving us a warm welcome. HURRAY!!!! WE DID IT.
We had a good number of audience to receive us and for the charity evening. After having a quick shower we were introduced to the guests by Dr.Rama. Giri made a quick and crisp presentation about Sanjeevini and what we expect from the audience for Sanjeevini. There was a question session as well in the end of the presentation. Dinner started at 7.45pm and the team really enjoyed every moment of the evening.
Thanks Rama and Ian for the excellent evening.
It has been unanimously decided that the Hero of the entire trip was Varun. He has almost cycled 80 miles. “Good Job Varun – Keep It Up”
I would like to thank personally the entire team which encouraged me for the full two days to complete the cycling without any glitch.
Thank you Giri. But for Giri I would have never thought of doing some work for a Charity. Thank you Ashok and Radhika. But for you guys I would have never met Giri.
The team reached back Shirley at 10pm. Badri drove Ram’s family and Raghu drove us back home. I have to underline here and say without the help of Aunty and Badri the trip would have not completed so easily. “Thank you both of you”.
And it is time to drive back home from Ram’s house in Giri’s Espace. When we reached home, there was a surprise waiting for us. Veebha baked a cake in star shape to mark the completion of the cycling event with Hanuman (Sanjeevini Logo) made by Ramya in it.
And finally thank you Veebha for everything, without your support and encouragement definitely I would not have completed this UPHILL task.
