Mission Crusader 2020

A friend of mine recently shared some posters about a cyclathon / cycle rally

He knew that I have been cycling a bit recently. He asked if I wanted to come. I said okay and started planning for this event

The theme being “pedal to fight cancer”. The fund from the event would go to Cancer children at Adyar Cancer Institute in Chennai, where I live

The first thought was - it’s too early 😂 But I just registered. They asked I needed a cycle or if I can bring my own. I checked where the start point was, for some time, I was thinking of going to the venue - SRM Easwari College, 11 kilometers from my house by my rented cycle and then continue from there. Later somehow I decided to go by cab and booked a cycle too for me while registering

The registration - I did it in the last minute - the registrations were closed, but since I paid a volunteer directly and then told him about it, he said it’s fine and that he will register for me. Or else I wouldn’t have gone to the event 😅

After registering, I got my message

The event happened today morning. Yesterday night I was in a dilemma. I thought - “well, I’m going to cycle in the event, but to go to the event I go by cab? What? It’s like going to the gym by vehicle. It’s better to walk or whatever, and have the gym nearby”. Unfortunately, the event was happening far away like I mentioned and I couldn’t change that. Anyways, finally, today morning I decided to go by cycle if I get one. That’s the problem with cycles - it’s not certain that I’ll get one. Usually I do. Still. So, today morning, this is what happened - I was struggling to find a good rented cycle. Previously I would just get any cycle and go on. Later I realized that if the air in the cycle is even a bit less, then the amount of energy that I need to pedal went really high. Recently I have been taking cycles which have really good air in both tyres - so good that they are rock hard, and then have good brakes and good bells and seats are adjustable - sometimes it’s too tight and hard to adjust! Brakes - mostly it’s good, not always, same for bells. With this criteria, I couldn’t get a good cycle, so I just decided to get a cab. And this was around 4 am in the morning 😂 I was roaming around to find that good cycle. Anyways. Something to add is - I had my helmet and bottle, since I thought I would be riding to the venue. I would have surely had my bottle in any case. Now, I got my cab and went to the place

I went inside the college, got my “I1” label which I wore on the left side of my tee shirt. And then waited for a long time, for the event to start. I think the volunteers wanted almost everyone to come and be ready for the event to start 😅 We did some warm up exercise and Zumba dance :P and then got our cycles. Now, they also had helmet with the cycles. I had my own helmet and bottle too. And there was no basket or bottle stand in the cycle. I then gave the cycle’s helmet and my bottle to a volunteer and used my helmet. It was a cycle with lots of gears. A cool cycle! Unfortunately it didn’t have bells though :P I realized it only while riding 😂

I got help to increase the seat height for my cycle and asked about the gears. There were gear controls on both the left and right handle. I was like “what is this?”. Then I was told that gear 2 or 3 on the left is good and the right is for going really fast, and something about the chains coming out and I got super scared and decided to just use left gear control and not even touch the right one. :P

So, the race started finally. Pardon the blurry pics xp

And we were off to go for around 9 kilometers. Everyone was cycling so close. It was a bit scary for me. Also, we started only at 6:30 am or so, when were supposed to start at 5am. I felt that starting early is safer compared to later when more and more people wake up and get on the road and go in high speed :P and cause traffic too

We were given instructions to pair up and go in pairs. But no one followed 🙈😂 But most of the time, everyone was safe. I heard two people alone fell once. Small injuries. But no big issues. There were first aid teams :) There were also some folks helping with road traffic management - to help everyone cross big roads and traffic police also helped. And many volunteers went on two wheelers and took pics and videos with Go Pros. I think they captured everyone :)

It was quite cool. We finally finished. And they had already said that there were no winners or losers. And I was no where close to first 😂 But I did ride good and I rode fast at times :P I was trying to ride in places where there were less people - less dense, unlike more dense, where people rode the cycle very very close, which I didn’t want to do because that’s a safety issue - sudden breaks, possible clashes and what not, so yeah. Some people were talking and riding very close. Like, each person was on a different cycle, and they were riding close and talking. I was talking too a bit in between, while riding 🙈 but only a bit and then I could see myself not being able to cope up, so I just chucked it and moved on to ride alone. It feels good to talk to friends. It’s entertaining. But, I usually feel the roads are not safe for talking and riding :P especially not safe for the folks doing it and for others too. Also, I’m okay with people talking as long as it doesn’t affect others but themselves since they took that decision intentionally. But usually it affects others too. Anything a person does on the road usually affects others too - good or bad. So, I would advice everyone to not talk with their friend on the other vehicle while they both are riding - they both could stop their vehicle on the side and talk. 🤷‍♂️

Enough advice, now, back to the cycle rally :P We then took pics after finishing

And this is the green cycle I rode -

This is the map from strava -

And then there was a post event thing. They had some vote of thanks, some speeches - from lots of people, volunteers, event sponsors and partners. There were refreshments, and then we got our certificates, medals, and seed balls! The crowd -

And then it was all fun ;) People were dancing and all.

I then gave feedback to the volunteers about the event - good stuff and the stuff to imrpove - like timing since they started late. 😅

And then I got my friend to take my pics with my certificate and medal ;)

And then I started off. I booked an Uber and came back home :)

The certificate and medal pics -

That’s all, till next time’s mission crusader 👋 ! Or, may be next time, I’ll just go cycling all by myself and donate funds separately to such institutions! :D