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Day 7 was definitely the scariest day of the tour for me. The route of the day was supposed to be a simple one with a descent at the beginning and a climb at the end and rolling terrain in between. This was a long ~120 km ride. The ride till SS1 was good. There was shade all through. The route was heavily populated unlike the routes on the other days. This presented an interesting problem for cyclists who hydrate frequently on the ride.:-)
SS1 for the day set in the middle of beautiful tea gardens. I was looking forward to the downhill section after SS1 and hoping that it would compensate for the time on climb at the end of the day.
In the pre-ride briefing, we were told that the downhill section had loose gravel on it. I was mentally prepared to go slow but I was not skilled enough for the section. I was gathering more speed even with my brakes working hard. Deepak and Navin were waving madly at me to get off the bike. They were signalling me even before I had entered the section. I did figure out the urgency in their gestures until later. My wheels started skidding on the gravel as I was frantically slamming the brakes(Completely wrong technique). I was prepared for a fall but somehow I got of my saddle, managed to get both my feet down and stop the bike. I had one bruise where the pedal hit my ankle but otherwise I was sound. The location was amazing to look at. The valley was green and I could hear the sounds of a waterfall close by but the drop from the road to the valley was terrifying. On the other side of the road there was a gutter and the rocky face of the hill. Not quite comforting to fall on that side either.The road itself was too steep for my skill. I decided to walk for a little while before attempting to ride again.
I made another attempt to ride a little further down. This time I narrowly averted crashing into the lady riding in front of me and fell into the gutter instead. I totally dismissed the thought of riding further down this stretch and started walking my bike. A little while later, I met a group of fellow riders at a chai stop and celebrated survival with a cup of lemon tea.
After the break, Namit, Prithish and me decided to walk down the stretch before riding again. The stretch I had though of as a time saver in the morning actually ate up a lot of time. Once we got down from the ghat section, the terrain was only rolling gently. By the time we reached SS2, we figured we had a good chance of completing the days ride. From there on till SS3, it was a grind in the sun. We tried to maintain a decent pace to give us a good chance of finishing the days ride. A short distance after SS3, we entered Karnataka through a national park. This also marked the beginning of the last major climb of the tour. As we kept going, we found another group of riders fixing a flat. We joined up and rode through the park together as it was getting dark. The climb was tough. Coming at the end of a long ride, it felt harder than the Ooty climb. Howevr being a large group helped. The guy from Pegala kept us going and all of the group finished the climb and reached SS4. Prithish and I made one last push to try and beat the clock and avoid getting swept at SS4(My top speed at this point was 9 kmph). We did make it to SS4 before the group but the light was already fading and the organizers stopped the ride there. SS4 was again set in a beautiful location with a lake for the background. I got a few photographs of the riders and the organizers at the lake. We took a ride to the hotel in one of SUV's and called it a day.
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