Quote:
Originally Posted by aargee Well...I combine fuel breaks with water break; when I drink water, its nothing less than 1.5 litre combined with Electrol (sometimes), drink mostly Slice (sweet, sugar, energy). But I started following this only recently.
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To me, its more of mind over matter; if one had made up mind to ride, the distance doesn't matter ![Wink](https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/images/smilies/wink.png) |
I will tell you, one of my mind over matter stories
In Dec 2010, I attended a friend's wedding in Nagpur. I work in Bangalore and my hometown is Mumbai. I rode from Bangalore to Mumbai on Day 1, stayed home a couple of days and then rode slowly to Nagpur over 2 days. Wedding celebrations went on till 11 PM in the night and I started early morning at 5 AM from Nagpur the next day. I had hardly 3.5 hours of good sleep that night.
The ride out of Nagpur was pleasantly cool... Then I started passing through barren/townless stretches of Gadichiroli. I had a cutting Chai at one Town that I passed through at about 9 AM. As the sun rose, the shine back from the barren plains started to hurt the eye. It was about 11:30 now. I was about 100 km from Hyderabad. I could feel the fatigue, and the sun started hurting my eyes to the extent that they started watering. I put on the Oxydoes to cool down my eyes. The relief was so good.
I immediately started yawning hard. But I did not stop, keeping the to-be-had Biryani at Hyderabad in mind. I pass the bypass for Kamareddy town, then I overtake a TATA Truck from the right lane
[Blank Moments]
Suddenly I see myself leaning over with the bike, although the road is straight . The bike slams the road on the right side, the leg guard grating against the tarmac, I slide along for a good hundred metres [all of this lasts for less than 10 seconds]
I could feel some pain in my left leg. I look back for help if any vehicle is coming towards me, I see the TATA truck that I had just overtaken a second ago. I expect for him to stop and help, but he moves on [I don't blame him]. Then follows a rickshaw behind it. My right leg was trapped under the bike. I had a trekking bag (rucksack) hoisted on my back. So lifting myself up was difficult. Thankfully a fellow jumps out of the rickshaw, helps me up. I try to hoist myself up on both the legs, but horrifically the left leg gives away with shuddering 'katt' sound! That is when I realise, the left one is broken. The owner of the TATA Ace into which I had rammed, comes running over to check on me. All the locals around help out. The guy from the Auto offers to drop my bike to RTO station down the road. They call in the Ambulance and the rest is a long and sad recovery story.
From post-analysis, this is what happened: My eyelids dropped shut, the moment I crossed that big TATA truck. Then I went on the rear end into the TATA Ace off-centred towards its rear-right. My left side of the handlebar, crash guard all ram into its rear, the guard bends, and impact gets transferred to my left tibia. I guess the relative speed must have been 50 - 60 kph. My left hand finger I cut and the tibia gets completely broken into 2 after I trying standing over it.
Lessons Learnt:
1. Always have a good night sleep before the ride next morning.
2. Always take breaks to stretch, rehydrate, rest your eyes atleast every 2 hours.
3. Do not try to make any records while riding. Ride within your limits. These are public roads and not a race track.
4. Keep your body fit enough to endure and face it, if you ever get into a mishap.
And I wasn't exactly a newbie to riding when this happened to me. I was just foolish to ignore the signals of my body.
I was accustomed to long stretches of riding without food, I had done Mum-Bangalore in 16-17 hours, 5 times over already in that year. My ride then was an RE TBTS, top speed 100-110 kph
All said and done, I haven't stopped Riding. I still do the stupid long rides. This month I again went home on the Duke, and it was an all nighter[1073 km, 17 hours in total, 4 PM to 9 AM]
But I would think twice before attempting a saddle-sore for sure [1600km in 24 hours]
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