Ride3- IITB-Saravalli village,Biwandi-IITB

Total distance=60Km.

Total time taken= 2.5 hours approx excluding breaks.

Route taken

To: IITB-Thane(Eastern Express Highway)-Saravalli village(Mumbai-Nashik Highway).

Fro: Saravalli village - Thane(Eastern Express Highway) - IITB

Team: Sangeeth, Anuj Karkare, Chandan Das, Shailesh Sahu

From left: Anuj, Shailesh and Myself

From left: Chandan, Shailesh and Myself

Short Description of the ride

The ride commenced by 6.00am from IITB. Eastern Express Highway was populated mostly with heavy industrial trucks and some random dangerously over speeding cars early in the dawn. Since we stuck to the expressway throughout the trip, except for few instances till Thane the roads were largely kinder on our forks. The Mumbai-Nashik highway, barring its shorter width (which lets some heavy duty trucks precariously shave past you within your palm width! ) is a much smoother road to ride on. Apart from many other cyclists enjoying this road, we also witnessed a lot of motorbike enthusiasts relishing their machines. We turned back from Babosa Industrial park at Saravalli village.

Crimson kiss of horizon at Ullas river

Less wider Mumbai-Nashik highway

Beautiful scenery along Mumbai-Nashik Highway

Predecided guidelines of pit stops every 40 min for energy nourishments was followed. Nourishment included Ritebite nutrition bar, Sneakers,biscuts , bananas, raisins. Electral and glucose premixed water was carried for ion and carbohydrate replacements.

One difficulty I observed when cycling as a team was in the coordination (more so for pit stops). Riders usually forget that when you are cycling as a team the speed of the team must accommodate the slowest rider. Since physical communication(like hand signals) are possible only in one direction (to the riders behind you), it becomes imperative that every rider keeps an eye for the rider immediately behind him to ensure that they don't lag behind. Agreeing to some standard signals apart from keeping an eye will ensure effective coordination within the team.

Lesson learned: Learn/create awareness and implement an effective physical communication system.