Lessons learned!

Unspoken rule - do not drop your phone on your Idlis

There are lots of things we learned about ourselves on this journey. While this is Matt's second tour, the location, weather, prep and support are a bit different than his first. For myself and Shruti, this was our first multi day bike ride. We made so many assumptions about our fitness levels, that when taken out of your day to day routine and become the focus of your 24 hours are very different.

LL#1 - We vastly underplayed our fitness levels
An assumption Shruti and I made was that we should stick to 50-60 miles per day. If we did any more, potentially, we may blow a gasket. :)

This was based on that neither of us had ridden over 54miles in one stretch prior and neither of us had done 200miles in a week, let alone 4 days straight! As we were planning I had in the back of my mind that we would have plenty of sleep and didn't have to go to work so I knew we would manage, I just thought it would have been more painful.  

During the trip we vastly went past our assumptions. Upwards of 87 to 104 miles per day. *touch wood* there was no gaskets blown, cramps, or even major muscle pain. We did it and it was quite nice. You can see our distances on the previous blog here: Nerdy Stats & More :)

LL#2 If you are going to a hot & sunny place - bring sunscreen!! Or at least plan better
This one really applies to me as Matty saved us by bringing the only small bottle of lotion that actually worked! Shruti at least tried and brought one that expired in 1995 and acted more like cooking oil :) I figured in a country that has so much sun, finding sunscreen would be easy. It wasn't. We went in to a shop and we ended up buying brown tinted sun screen. I felt like I was in a broadway show. ** brown jazz hands **

If you are going to a tropical climate and you are a human and have skin, then you need to bring sunscreen and/or some light long sleeved shirts. I ended up wearing my long sleeve neon green heavier shirt [ thank god mrs steve bought me it for fathers day last year ] which saved me on days 7 and 8 as my charred tinted skin's healing factor kicked in with the help of a boat load of aloe lotion.

Unspoken rule - Do not let Matty near the popadoms

LL#3 It helps to have someone who speaks the local language
Matt brought this up as you will see in the next blog post's video that having a local speaker definitely helps. I didn't feel it so much, maybe because I let Matt and Shruti be the operational people [ since I carried the bags ], but it didn't seem too bad to me ... and of course we had super G! :)

LL#4 Watch where you are rolling your bike!
okok ... to be fair, I will definitely take some of the blame for Shruti's two flats. Even though I hate this hump backed pic of me, I did kind of select an area that has a massive thorn bush next to it. :)

Lesson learned... watch where you are rolling and stepping. Matt and I both stepped on thorns that went right through our sneakers.

** pix below ... safe, safe, unsafe :) **

LL#5 Don't get too far ahead

Unspoken rule - never pass food to Shruti
unless you have taken some already

Again this was my fault, I would get too far ahead and there were certain instances where I blew by a turn. So I guess the take aways from this are if you have one person doing the maps, let them lead, or get walkie talkies so that regardless of the country and mobile coverage you can have a quick communication!

LL#6 Stretch!
I think all 3 of us to varying degrees since we have been back home have noticed our leg muscles are a bit tight. During the trip, none of us stretched at all! Since I have been back, i have tried to get back in to my gym/lifting routine which has gone ok, but squats on that first day back were impossible. The tightness around my kneecap literally brought tears to my eyes when i tried to muscle through it. After 3 sessions over a 2 week period i finally was able to bang out some very light sets. Next time, definitely a stretching routine after each day's ride!

LL#7 Prep better for the kids
Having 3 kids of my own and all 3 of us having a soft spot for children in general we dedicated this trip to helping the kids of India through raising money for the charity Bhumi that helps kids across the country.

One item we should have prepped better for is bringing things to hand out. Pens, crayons, little pads, toys, really anything. Shruti made a pit stop half way in to the trip and in a matter of 1-2 days had given away everything. This was either to solo children making their way to school, or when we were in Manapad staying across from a school and giving them packs of pens/pencils. You always want to do as much as possible ... I feel like we could have done more.

Some fantastic kid pix below.....

next blog... Amateur tools of the trade!