Wiener Schnitzel is national dish of Austria. It is basically thin,breaded ,fried cutlet made from meat like veal,pork and turkey. Crisp and crunchy from outside and soft,juicy from inside.
But hey,this sounds weird for a blog's name,right! Yes it might to most of you,but it very well describes my recent Austrian experience with my fellow mates as a crew member for Race Around Austria and beyond. Just as the Schnitzel, it was adventurous,challenging and yet full of emotions the same time.
Let's have a look into the making of our Schnitzel.
INGREDIENTS:
Ingredients acts an initiator and the most basic thing in any recipe. So here we have:
Ammar Miyaji, an enthusiastic rider from Nashik, having done his SR series( Series of rides of 200km,300km,400km and 600km in a single calendar year) on his mitochondria fueled MTB machine "Phantom cycle",along with two 1000kms brms and a solo finisher of "The Deccan Cliffhanger"( an ultra endurance race of 643kms from Pune to Goa with a cut off time of 32hrs) had qualified for participating in "Race Across America" which is a grueling 3,000 miles cycling affair to be completed under 12 days with the help of your support crew,in just a matter of 1.5 years.
Being a believer in raising his own performance and always accepting new challenges, he decided to participate in Race Around Austria event.
Divya Tate, one of the senior most endurance cyclist in India who has seen the length and width of the country on her power fueled cycle , as we know her she is India's very first female Super Randonneuse, Paris Brest Paris participant and has many solo long distance rides under her pedal. Also she is the head of Audax India Randonneur and Inspire India.
Her love for cycling has also taken her all the way to USA and Europe as a crew chief and co-ordinator for various cycling events specifically RAAM. Back home,she has always worked on taking the ultra racing scene in India a notch higher.
Miten Thakkar, a renowned cycling coach and the core member of Cyclozeal, has been a talented racer himself.He is known to provide scientific and method based training to national level athletes as well as fitness enthusiasts from various walks of life,be it for races,BRM,triathlons and more recently for the Mahajan brothers who were the first Indians to finish RAAM as a two person team.
Vilas Ingale,an avid cyclist from Nashik who is currently working with Bosch. Being a swimmer himself since many years,his love for cycling brought him back on the saddle even after undergoing an angioplasty two years back.Such is his dedication that he hasn't looked back since and has been participating in BRM and MTB races.
Devika Patil,a medical student by profession,I was drawn into the world of endurance cycling after my experience of riding from Manali Leh Khardungla and Leh Srinagar. Eager to test myself at long distance rides I completed SR series in 2015 and attempted Paris Brest Paris(1200km Randonee)last year in August.
THE ENVIRONMENT:
Once our ingredients are in place, its important to understand the nature of our dish so that the ingredients are in the proper quantity!
To give a brief about it, Race Around Austria is an ultra endurance racing event which literally takes the rider and his bunch of crew members all around the Austria covering a distance of 2,200 and 1,500 (these two being different distance category events) from the plains to the alps with a total elevation gain of 30,000m and 17,000m respectively. It starts from a town called St.Georgen attergau and ends at the same place. It is also a RAAM qualifier.
A dedicated crew who supports and takes care of riders need is imperative. Our rider,Ammar,always had a strong back up of his coach Miten Thakkar and his good friend Vilas Ingale,while I offered to help him with medical aid,diet and physiotherapy. Divya Tate was happy to provide an extended hand for the administration and logistical support.
Thus after the visa application and race registration process, we started having group meetings to understand the nature of the race and planning for it. Being the first Indian team( most of the solo riders and teams were native of Europe) to attempt a race in Europe we had many things to figure out for ourselves.
A simulation ride starting from Karjat Phata(enroute mumbai-pune highway) climbing bhor ghat (twice)all the way to Aamby valley in the month of July amidst heavy rains with the whole crew taught us a lot and put a light on our areas of improvisation.
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| Climbing Bhor ghat.
As our departure dates came closer, the team was ready to face and fight it out and follow the calling into an unknown land.
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Now fellas,here comes the main part of our recipe:
THE STEPS:
WIENER CHARM:
The morning of 4th Aug had brought a feeling of sheer excitement for me! With the bikes and luggage safely packed we left from Nashik in afternoon to reach Mumbai by evening and pick up Miten sir on our way to airport. The flight was scheduled at 9pm and had a 2 hour halt at Abu Dabi airport. We reached Vienna on the 5th august morning .Since we had ample time before we could check in our hotel at 2pm we decided to explore and get ourselves familiar with this new place.
That day, we saw the central area of Vienna called The City Plaza, a vibrant and a perfect mix of historical monuments,churches and modern branded showrooms.
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| City Plaza. |
Next day after having a sumputous english breakfast(specially crossaints and coffee which brought back Paris memories) we set out to do some pre race shopping for things like sim cards,thermal clothing and a few accessories and at the same time decided to spend leisure time in this beautiful city.Though there was a huge language barrier, as most of the common road signs and even the locals majorly spoke German language, we got comfortable travelling by metro in no time.
Once done with our work we headed to Schloss Schonbrunn.
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| Schloss Schonbrunn,first glance. |
Schonbrunn is an imperial palace which has 1,441 rooms and is a UNESCO world heritage site for its historical and architectural importance. It is surrounded by a huge garden.The first sight of the palace itself makes one fall in love with it!
After a quick coffee break,we headed to river Danube.It is a great place to indulge in recreational activities like running,boating,swimming, cycling with many cafes and bars around it. Seeing the mesmerizing sunset over Danube we headed back to our hotel,with our hearts totally captivated by the wiener charm!
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| Mighty Danube. |
LET'S GET WORKING:
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| Sun sets over Danube. |
Salzburg,is located very near to alpine ranges and was 50 kms from the race start point.
The morning of 8th august was bright and pleasant. We rented a car from a car rental company called Avis which we intended to use as our pace car.It had in build GPS system, which helped us to find our way to the start point,St.Georgen.
St.Georgen was a picture perfect town! Clean roads, wooden houses with colorful display of flowers from the balcony and friendly people. The race office was situated in the central area of the town.
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| Race office. |
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| Stage was set. |
The organizer and volunteers were excited to host our team and handed over the race kit to us. It consisted of bib number,stickers for car and bikes,a tracker,route book,souvenir tshirt and a few goodies. Seeing the route book, we were in the exact same state as a child on the day of a surprise test! Because it was entirely in German(the only comprehensible thing being the direction arrows listed in one of columns)!
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| Decoding the route book |
The english translator of the book(which the organizers had told us would be provided before the race) was just a document which had a list of a few german words translated in english which would be helpful to us while navigating on road. But the volunteer was extremely helpful and patient to clear our doubts and assured us that a bit of studying the route book and understanding a few german words would makes things definitely easy for us(felt like a few answers of the surprise test were leaked out!). Few of us spend the night understanding the route book and uploading the route in Garmin device for Ammar while the rest prepared the bikes and cars for inspection next day.
The morning drizzles on 9th of August dropped the temperature further which proved to be an advantage for Ammar's morning practice ride. Our car along with the bikes was ready for the inspection. Also today we had a pre race briefing meeting in English.
While two of us took care of the inspection,others attended the meeting and further cleared our doubts regarding the traffic rules, road diversions(as certain section of road was blocked due to construction work) with the race director Micheal,a very co-operative and jolly chap. After we were done with the official work we toll a stroll in the town and headed back to Salzburg in evening.
CLEAT,PEDAL AND OFF WE GO:
10th August was going to be the start of many things new, some anticipated and some not so anticipated. While all of us woke up early and packed our small back packs(for the days we were going to spend on the road), arranged the supplies in car, Ammar had his own time sleeping and relaxing. We checked out of our hotel at 11pm and left for St.Georgen.
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| Preparing our pace car. |
The whole town was in a festive mood! The roads were decorated and cleaned and were lined by many small food stalls. The flag off for the solo racers of 2,200kms had already started previous day. For our flag off, we were lucky enough to witness the presence of Fred Boethling, race director of RAAM. After having a lunch we lined up for our turn at 3pm. The interviewer on the stage welcomed Ammar and asked him to talk about his journey all the way from India to RAA, in short.
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| All smiles! |
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| Flag off. |
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| Sight to behold. |
One good thing was that the day was really long and it used to get dark only by 9pm.The temperature started to drop once the sun had set and as expected it started pouring heavily and continued for the next 4-5 hrs. As a rider, Ammar has always enjoyed riding in rains,but as compared to our monsoon,the temperature falls quickly here when it rains.It had now come down to 4-5 degree centigrade. Hence many of the major climbs of this section had to be done amidst the rains and cold, Ammar was riding consistently. It was a challenge for the crew as well to quickly shuffle from the cozy car seat to the road for the hand-offs. We were working in shifts(like they have in company) hence I decided to sleep for few hours while others took over.Dedicated to look after Ammar,Vilas kept up all night providing him food and his supplements.
Food supplies like various breads,cheese,jam,turkey and pork slices(for sandwich),nutella,cereal bars,gels,fruits,yogurt and electral had been stocked up in our car and the back seat of of our car had turned into a mini kitchen with me as the chef! But unlike in India or USA there were no restaurants or food chains which were open 24*7( infact the closing time for shops in Austria was 6pm and for restaurants was 8pm! No wonder so many people indulge in leisure activities in evening) due to which there was no option of providing a hot meal(we are so much used to having a kadak chai or coffee at roadside dhabas at night). Specific diet plan was followed which kept his energy level intact.
The night was rough but we had made it through.
The next day 11th August, Just after dawn, Ammar had a power nap and was refreshed to carry on ahead. Our duties were now swapped. Divya took over driving, I helped with navigation ,Miten took care of Ammar's diet and riding and Vilas relaxed for a while.As we needed to replenish our food supplies too, we stopped at a departmental store(Billa,tabac and Spar are the most extensively found departmental stores all across Austria).
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| Going strong. |
Crew decided to arrange for a hot meal for the rider and stopped at a local restaurant.
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| First hot meal halt. |
The place was very cozy but none of the people present there knew English and the menu card too was in German! The itch to investigate the menu made us open Google translators and we managed to place a nice order of fries,potatoes and sausages with cappuccino and expresso (victory dance!). It took us a while to find Ammar back on the route.
His taste buds relished every bit of the hot french fries and cooked vegetables along with a cup of cappuccino.
Throughout the route there were a total of 40 time stations where we had to note down the timings ourselves(unlike in RAAM ,the officials have to be informed on reaching every TS). Till 3:10pm(24hrs since the start) Ammar had covered a distance of 361kms along with almost 4691 m of climbing. The weather was now bright and sunny. Cruising at a good speed, we reached a village called Drosendorf stadt(some german words are a real tongue twister!) where we met few race officials. They we happy to welcome us. And since it was already evening, we decided to refuel Ammar with a nice hot meal and some sleep.Thin crust veggie pizza was the last thing we had expected but that exactly was our treat! Our stop was at a small lake outside the village and it was the most exotic and beautiful place of the entire route for me! With the sun rays hitting the lake water,all of us had our own moment of solace.
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| Mesmerizing lake. |
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| Crazy crew people! |
As the sun set, temperature dropped again,this time around 5 degree centigrade(thank god no rains this night).As a part of Ammar's diet plan, he was on supplements like heeds and perpeteum( which are basically energy enhancing sports drink comprising of essential electrolytes,complex carbs,sugar and micro nutrients).The overall combination of supplements,dry food(no facility of warming food or water in the cold weather) was slowly leading to an upset stomach for Ammar.He was still keeping his breaks for the bare essentials.Sleep breaks were no more than power naps of 10 to 15mins.Trying to keep his digestion in place,we got in touch with our dietician Meghna Surve who instructed us very well about the the feeds to be provided within no time. Following that, we avoided certain supplements and food items. Inspite of this, Ammar was doing his best to catch up.Sleep was slowly catching up on crew as well(Miten and me, who were awake that time at night).To avoid doozing off, we gulped redbull,kept the music at a high and chatted our night out of it.
The morning of 12th august, Ammar had recovered well and our sleep too had vanished. Divya took over to driving. Though the morning was foggy it was mildly cold.
At a certain point at 566km,there was a major road block. We were handed over a separate manual for the alternative route to follow in this section.We were following this route correctly until a few turns,after which just one wrong turn(due to the misinterpretation of the german road signs by me) brought us back to the exact section of road block. Immediately we called up Micheal and asked him to help us out. He was very patient and told us to re-route and get the rider back on route. Fortunately we were just a few meters off the route. But due to lack of interpretation of the manual and road signs we ended up spending more time into this than we thought.
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| The manual for the alternative route. |
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| Bridge before Donabrucke. |
It was a huge relief for us when we got back to the original route. At this point ,by 8:10am Ammar had rode 600kms with over 6000m of climbing. We were now approaching river Danube at TS13 called Donabrucke.We decided to have a quick change over of clothes for Ammar and a power nap while we also could freshen up. It was also time to stock up our food supplies and have a hot meal for all of us.The town ahead called Altenburg, had very minimal shops and restaurants where we could stop by.But since we couldn't afford finding a new place we made par with whatever we could find at that place. A few ticks over the shopping list and a quick expresso , we were ready to catch up on Ammar ahead(since direct follow wasn't mandatory during daytime, we the window to do our errands and then catch up on the rider again).Following the duty shift,it was my turn to relax for a while now.A comfoy sleeping bag and the coffee put me in a perfect sleep mode!
After about 2.5-3hrs ,I was very much refreshed and back to my job. On the way, we again stopped for a quick coffee break at a lovely little cafe and packed a hot coffee for our rider.
THE MOMENT OF IMPACT:
Ammar had now crossed 650kms. The overall average was a little short than what we had calculated to be as.Around mid afternoon, we got a call from Micheal. Micheal informed us that as we were too late to make the cut off at 860kms for which we were alloted 48hrs. He further said that he didn't have the required road permission to allow us to officially race past this point after 48hrs, we would have to stop racing at that point. We had hoped to be able to continue racing inspite of all the setbacks in terms of temperature, terrain and Ammars stomach issues which did not allow him to perform fully. We were hoping to attempt to make up time on the second half though we were aware that there was even more climbing and tougher terrain ahead.
Unaware of the happening around him, Ammar was clearly fighting it through. The crew thought that it would be wise to pull ourselves till the cut off point at 860kms and then reveal the series of events. Right or wrong,important was not to stop and to keep him racing.
In evening, we were approaching a 12km climb.Our minds were just full of anxiety. Whatever lied ahead, we had to face it.
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| The climb. |
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| Atop the climb in evening. |
On the bottom of the climb, 51 hrs and 750 Km completed, the moment of truth had arrived. Though just looking at the numbers it appeared we had completed half the distance in just over half the time, this race is far tougher in the second half.Some tension was evident on in our behavior which was sensed by Ammar. Finally we placed the things in front of him, as they were. Many questions followed,to which no one really had an answer to. Accepting the facts was really important which all of us now had come terms with. Being the kind of person we know him to be, Ammar was already talking about coming back for RAA next year and nailing it. Such was his spirit.
Going downhill into the next nearby we took a decision to stop. Once the whole motivation was in question there was no point going ahead and pulling it more
As it was already past 8pm(closing time for all hotels and shops) we had to arrange for our stay for the night. Making online booking, we decided to cross Austrian border and enter a small town called Torony in Hungary(hardly 10 kms from the point we stopped).
The night was difficult to go through. Emotions flooding our minds and our minds trying to find an answer to it.Politically we also had to decide on our plan for the next day .
The third section of the route had major climbs including the highest pass in Austria called Grossbockner at an altitude of 3798m.Instead of going straight to Salzburg directly(where we had our booking after the race),we hit the race route again to see Grossbockner.
We reached the pass the next day early morning at 3:30am after driving all night. The road was covered with snow on both sides and it was 4degrees outside. We woke up to a new day, a new assuring day.
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Road upto Grossbockner |
When I had first seen RAA logo,it's tag line read "We create emotions".How weird was that for renowned ultra endurance cycling race. It always made me think about the reason behind it, until I as a crew, as a cyclist, as a friend got to experience it during the race. RAA was so much beyond a race for us. In one go it had opened our thoughts,our vision to so many new things and unleashed our own emotions which we had developed for the race in course of time.Lessons learned,yes,definately on the technical and management aspect. But what it really taught me was to deal with things in whatever form they come as and to have the nerve to accept your own shortcomings however big or small it is.
Endurance is not only about the physiological stress that one can endure. It's a lot about being psychologically sound come what may. Three days of racing and crewing experience couldn't make us an expert in it, but it gave us a huge glimpse of what to expect.As a team we had our own shortcomings, which were cleared once we analysed the situations after the race,some of which could have been avoided and some which weren't in our control per se.
Things we learned are going to stay with us for a long time.All said and done having the courage to venture into a different race, seeing it, experiencing it and coming out wiser and stronger is what I and my team would see this as.Our learning curve just got curvier with this!
We would be always grateful to all the people including family,friends,well wishers and our sponsors for their tremendous support and encouragement.
Lastly, I present to you our very own Austrian schintzel,the whereabouts of which I tried to write down!
Next season calls in for a tastier Austrian Schintzel!
