Steve Cycles The World: Day 4 : Test your metal / mettle

Day 4 would turn out from a hopeful downhill glide to a true test of everything we had physically and mentally thanks to 95f heat, super dry conditions, more miles than we had racked up ever before and gale force winds from the east, which was exactly what we were heading in to. The night before, as mentioned in the previous blog post, we were working on the route. The shortest and nicest we could come up with was 67miles. Longer than our longest, and that still put us on the border of Ramanathapuram where G would pick us up and bring us to a hotel in Rameswaram. We would then have a rest day and see the ghost town, temples etc.

As we started the morning leaving CGH Earth hotel behind, we packed our breakfast, loaded up my panniers and sailed on. We blasted through the first 20miles in no time. Stopped and had something to eat. We all couldn't believe how fast the first 20 went by. We took some nice cycle selfies and Matt showed off the abilities of his apple watch and phone by taking an asphalt POV pic.

We decided we would take 20mi rest stops along the way to keep us going through the 67 miles. The next 20 flew by as fast as the first as we winded through a labrynth of a town and some pretty uneventful country side. I personally thought that this day's views were the least impressive. We did catch some nice spots, took some cool videos, but it was no Day 3. We did cycle by the first massive garbage dump... ahh reminiscing about Staten Island. =P

garbagio

The elevation going down to Ramnathapuram was a pretty nice decline. We had set off to do about 68+ miles which would have been our longest day yet. Along the route we felt almost like it was too easy, we had downhills, clear roads and sped our way through a labrynth town to the first 20miles and a breakfast break. That is when Shruti wanted to take bicycle selfies because the roads were so clear...and of course Matt is showing off his Apple watch to phone gadgetry. Shruti believe that maybe Matt is actually from a future time and has brought back this technology for us to marvel at. :)

1989 Rap Cover

The conditions were lulling us in to a false sense of security. We hit another little town for a pitstop and the residents were amazed at the map on Mattys phone. We took some selfies with the little kids and gave them cookies and really whatever we had. This has become a running theme. See cute little kids and take some selfies. We had a high-five contest running for a bit, but it got out of hand and we had to stop and name Shruti the winner. Who knew she was so competitive? She was high fiving everyone she saw, whether they wanted to or not! I saw her almost take an old ladies arm out of her socket...so for the safety and well being of the great people of India ... I called the contest. :)

These last 20miles were really nice putting us at around 40ish in 4 hours with some minor stopping.

pouty :)

miss bollywood

Matty boy conducting a lesson at the Apple genius bar south India branch

As we approached Ramnathapuram is started heating up, started getting windy [ right in to our faces ] and the sun came out to say hello. The next 30 or so miles were very difficult. Once we got in to town the pan was for G to pick us up and drive us to a hotel on Rameswaram which was another 30+ miles away. He would then bring us back to this point the next morning so there is no break in our route and we would press on. Matty and Shruti were mentioning me cycling the whole way to Rameswaram. This would put me over 100 miles for the day. Before India I hadn't cycled more than 54 in one shot. I was tired, but with this amazing opportunity, how could I say no? The team didn't mind me doing it, so I went for it. First I had to rag wash 70miles off of me and get ready for what turned out to be another 34, but not just 34miles, 34 miles in the sun, 34miles after a somewhat hard 70 and to make it worse I was going DIRECTLY in to 30MPH winds! Along the way I continued to wave at every person who waved at me and say hello, viacum [ hello in Tamil ] and stopped a few times. This was the hardest cycle I have ever done and I clocked in about 12.5 hours from start to finish. I felt about 3 pounds lighter honestly even though I had been snacking all day.

The mapping and route and strava stuff still needs to be compiled, but you can see the maps below.

70 or so miles

the 34miles of death

my attempt at artsy photography

Then after about 22-ish miles we all met at the Rampan bridge and cycled to the hotel. There is a lot of interesting history of the bridge, a Tsunami that his the area about 50/60 years ago, the washing out of the land bridge that connected India to Srilanka, the ghost town we visited on day 5 etc etc. Im just going to show you some pix. :)