Toba Gran Fondo Day 2 - Nothing but a spectacular finish!

I'm glad that the cycling route for Day 2 was mostly flats with some rolling hills. Phew! Remember the crazy and dangerous 500 meter downslope to the resort? Unlike most Joyriders, I got over-enthusiastic and thought I would do the climb up the slopes to the starting point of our Day 2 ride. I ended up pushing at least 200 meters up the slope instead.

The starting point for Day 2 was a not-so-gentle downslope as we roll down the hills. As the roads were still a little wet due to the rain last night, we were more careful and applied brakes when necessary.

Once we were on the flats, the roads were dry and that's where things got a bit more serious. Pelotons started forming at faster speeds. Everyone was a little worried that we might not get back in time for our evening flight home. I stuck to a peloton where we were going at around a comfortable 35 km/h pace.

After the intense climbs experienced yesterday, the shorter climbs today seemed like a piece of cake!

At the first check point, we were rewarded with yummy durian puffs (not that we needed the energy boost). I managed to find Richie and Sigi at the check point so I rode off with their pack towards the finishing point.

As the ride on Day 2 had a much more scenic view along the coast and was less intense than Day 1, we had more time to stop to enjoy the lovely scenery along the way.

In last night's post dinner drinks discussion, everyone was really curious about the descent towards the end of the ride because the map in the event website had a few steep descents. One of them looked as though we were doing a free fall down the cliff!

The good news is that we didn't have to jump off a cliff. The bad news, the descent was scary as hell! So scary that I didn't have photos to show you because both of my hands were holding on the handlebar at all times. That's how scary it was!

Sigi decided to go slow as he didn't want to have overheat his carbon clinchers so I was left by myself to cruise down the steep descent. As a newbie rider, I was scared as hell because I've never rolled down a hill at 45-50 km/h on my own. Not to mentioned the roads weren't as well-paved as Singapore. Looking back at my Strava record, I was going as fast as 60 km/h at some segments!

Fortunately I was able to find Ernest along the way so I was tailing the experienced Joyrider down the remainder of the descent, following his lead all the way. The descent was also very rewarding as it was along the coast opposite the city and we were rewarded with an awesome view of the city from the top. How cool is that?

Once we got back to town and into the resort, things got into a frenzy as we had limited time to pack our bikes, load them up the trucks, clean ourselves up and have lunch. But everyone cooperated and worked together to get things done quickly.

On the bus to the airport, we were escorted by the local police as promised by the event organisers. That made the journey to the airport really quick. Too quick. Because the police were clearing the way, the bus driver was going very fast and we had quite a few close shaves where we narrowly avoided collisions with incoming traffic as the bus driver was overtaking cars on the two-lane road.

Needless to say, we got to the airport in record time. Unfortunately, the trucks carrying our bikes weren't that lucky. They didn't manage to reach us in time for our flight and everyone was very worried about not checking in their bikes on time. It was very unfortunate because everyone had to work the next day so they couldn't afford to cancel their flights and fly the next day. Not to mention the costs that would be incurred.

Lucky for us, we learnt that our Indonesian Joyrider, Obed volunteered to stay behind to help us coordinate with the event organisers to ensure that our bikes would be flown back the following day. I'm very grateful for that because we didn't know how the problem was going to be resolved.

All in all, this overseas ride was a ride of many firsts for me, climbing up a mountain on my road bike, descending in insane speeds (for me, at least), forging tight friendship with fellow joyriders whom we probably won't interact as much on our usual rides.

Thanks again to those who helped make this trip a success!

Type: 
Ride
Workout_type: 
default
Date: 
2016-08-21T01:00:09Z
Avg Pace: 
2:30/km
Elevation: 
1891.3
Distance: 
88225.5
Moving time: 
13268
Activity id: 
683870343
Strava title: 
Toba Gran Fondo Day 2
Total photo count: 
7
Title: 
Toba Gran Fondo Day 2 - Nothing but a spectacular finish!
Summary Polyline: 
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Average speed: 
6.649
Language: 
English
Cover image: 
https://dgtzuqphqg23d.cloudfront.net/Q-IXSDOCofXcUpHk4SAGX8sNVtsrDAReY1zuSsiodcg-1024x768.jpg
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