Hyderabad: Rajesh Krishnamaneni, Pradyumna Penmatcha, Gautam Narne, Sadananda Reddy Vundyala, Sayi Ramakrishna, Krishna Kunam and Jeetender Dadvai are bravehearts from Hyderabad who took part in the recent London-Edinburgh-London (LEL) cycling challenge.
LEL is one of Britain’s greatest cycling challenges, which scales a distance of 1,441 km long (with 11,128m elevation i.e. more than one kilometer of climbing) to be completed in under five days, or 117 hours and five minutes, to be precise. As many as 1,500 riders from 59 countries took part in this once in a four-year ride. Out of 59 Indians, seven riders were from the city, affiliated to Hyderabad Randonneurs.
The City riders were more than prepared as they are all Super Randonneurs (SR), multiple times. For those not familiar with long distance riding, an SR is one who completed a series of 200 km (within 13.5 hours), 300 km (20 hours), 400 km (27 hours) and a 600 km (40 hours) within a year. They went even further, finishing 1,000 km and 1200 km brevet rides as well.
The cyclists train routinely in Ananthagiri hills, multiple climbs of Movie Tower area (on Gachibowli-Shankarpally road) and Whisper Valley climbs, just to name a few. Some do extensive cycling in Nilgiri Hills too. All the training came in handy at LEL.
