Pune Grand Tour: Cycls gear up for the unknown — a climb before end of second stage | Sport-others News

Professional cycls notice funny details. Like, afternoon heat spikes of the ostensible January winter and how the “good” grey asphalt feels under the wheels. But what they will most feel in the sinews of every straining muscle at India’s biggest international road cycling event, the Pune Grand Tour, is how a road stretch from Kondhanpur to Khadakwasla lake brutally ascends, testing their lung capacity on an up-climb.As the pro cycling caravan heads into race days in the city, all the buzz among riders is about Day 2 when Pune will exert their gasping breath. “After riding hard through the day, there’s a climb just 15 kms from the end of the second stage, that has a 10 percent steep upward incline which is whoa,” says the Netherlands team director Maint Berkenbosch, with a mock wince and whle, indicating a wickedly curated gradient challenge for all international riders. In true Marathi style, the winner of that day will unofficially get crowned “Ghaatancha Raja” (King of Climbs).
Frenchman Pierre Chartier, on a specialised S18 bike, poetically talks of how Europeans are coming from a “rude, harsh winter”, seeking warm sunshine in India, in a perfect start to the Road Cycling season. January-February tends to be pre-season training months for top riders, and the cycl who grew up literally watching pelotons of the Tour de France rush past his home window in the South France commune of Pau, says India sounded like a nice getaway from the frigid temperatures back home.
Perhaps the wisest old Gandalf of the Pune race is Belgian Timothy Dupont, 38, having raced at the Tour de France in 2018, has some sagacious advice for rookies, including debutants India. “In long sprints, many riders push the pace too early and get explosive and tired staying in front of the pack the whole day. After years and years of racing I know, you need to stay calm in the end. So it’s okay to stay back and then push later,” he says.
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India has a good mix of talent for what the senior-most of them and serial national champion Naveen John calls “chess on wheels.” The Kuwaiti-born, started cycling at American collegiate in the midwest on a steel-framed Raleigh (one of oldest cycle brands), happily dracted from his engineering course. The now-40-year-old is finally happy to race at home after years on pro teams in Belgium and has done 22,000 miles a year on the bike. “That’s more than most have in their cars,” he laughs. “We Indians are at least 10 years behind in hydration, technology, gear, supplements. But we’ve come a long way from when coaches would follow us on mobikes blowing whles screaming instructions. Now coaches get our data numbers sitting in England. With our Kazakh coach we have trained hard, and you won’t see a scenario where no Indian finishes! But remember, Europe has a 150 year headstart in this sport over us,” he explains of the challenge of maneuvering 2 mm rubber tube on road at 60 kph.
Pune is the spiritual home of Indian cycling with its legendary Bombay-Poona race going back 50 years, and taking it forward is Punekar Kashmiri Surya Thathu, who like Harshveer Singh moved from skating to road cycling. Harshveer was the best of Indian finishers in the prologue (like F1’s pole position) on Monday, and third best in Asia. Naveen and Harshveer are India’s GCs (general classification) — all-rounders — good at climbing and endurance, as is prodigious Punjab-Railways talent Vishwajeet who holds a bunch of national records.Story continues below this ad
Surya straddles sprints and climbs, while Sahil is a sprint special. Dinesh aces long endurance, and the air-force rider whose grandfather, an infra engineer and NIT passout, almost foresaw this day, when he bought him a BSA Mac, expensive back then at Rs 5000, is the hardest workers of them all. He would often sneak out late nights, and was finally discovered putting in extra gym sessions at 3 a.m to improve stamina.
Vishwajeet, an average rider till 2020 while hailing from a cycling family, emerged as outstanding during Covid. “Roads were empty, zero traffic, I had nothing to do. I improved dramatically because I would go out training for 5-6 hours with dad following on a motorcycle,” National records followed. The fourth generation cycl from a Patiala family had been ecstatic when he received the charming Italian-make Viner bike that had cost a princely Rs 2000. “Patli pipe waali bike thi but I loved it. Now our bikes cost Rs 20 lakh,” he laughs.

But cycling gets tactical, aggressive even, not unlike Rajput-Model college rivalries from movies. India’s Kazakh chief coach, Maxat Ayazabayev, says every day will throw up surprises. “Cycling part of a rider’s life is not funny,” he deadpans, “Once the race starts, everyone attacks. With 20 km to go on last uphill, there will be multiple point attacks. We will expect it, and react,” he says seriously, adding Indians will look to improve their best prior finishes.Naveen sums it best. “Cycling heritage, psyche is about who’s willing to suffer the most. It’s having your head in bucket of water at all times. But 170 others are suffering,” he laughs. Willingly.