How I became a health pedaller

The period of mid and late childhood in Vile Parle, Mumbai, meant cycling on a standard black, single speed bicycle to school, for family errands, to meet friends and to visit Juhu beach. Joining a medical college put an end to this mode of transport till 1993, when as weekend husband visiting from Shimla, I had to pass time while the wife prepared for her MD exams at PGIMER, Chandigarh. On one such evening, a friend showed me a new 18 gear bicycle at a local store — I soon shelled out Rs 3500 and rode off, enjoying the smooth, wide roads and sparse traffic of the planned city. I again gave up cycling, while in Shimla, Delhi and for 12 years in Udaipur. It was the advent of better quality multi-geared bicycles in the Indian market – Firefox was the first brand, several others followed — that got me cycling again in 2009.

Since then, this pursuit has grown on me to the point that I commute to work and for errands everyday on a bicycle, and reluctantly drive a car when absolutely necessary. This is in addition to early morning and long Sunday rides. Udaipur is a small, hilly city of some 600,000 population, surrounded by the Aravali hills that are intersected by rivers, ridges, forests and lakes that are easy to reach directly — in short, a cyclist’s delight. I figured that any two villages of ancient India must have been connected long ago at least by a single-track foot path (paayvaat or pagdandi), and that a wide tyred mountain terrain bicycle could be used to travel on it. Hence on each Sunday or holiday morning, off go a small band of intrepid and curious cyclists, exploring rocky trails, river beds and forest paths along the Aravalis, regularly losing their way, only to find it later. My love of geography and mountains has come in good use. I have mapped over 50 cycling routes in the surrounding hills, earning the nickname Google Bavji from my pedaling colleagues. On some rides we climb up a hill side, helping each other haul bicycles up the mountain and cautiously ride down with heavy use of brakes. The nice thing about trail riding is that you ride over the roughest roads, get off and drag the bike where wheels can’t make it, and to cross large rocks or go up a steep hill, you can even carry it (14-15 kg) for short distances on your shoulder – this is the only vehicle that also can ride you! I am certain that my years of trekking in the Sahyadris in my 20s, contributed to this odd form of bicycle – trekking.

At this point, I own a fleet of bicycles – a hybrid for daily commutes, two mountain bikes for the hills and trails, and one road bike for those periodic fast-paced highway thrills. My knowledge of bicycle anatomy, physiology, pathology and therapy threatens to overtake that of humans. Over 14 years of regular bicycling since 2009, I feel I have harvested several gains – since 2015, I have been a founding member of Udaipur Cycling Club, most of whose 100 odd members are far younger people aged 17 to 45, and a sprinkling of seniors. Group riding brings me in touch with a set of young people from diverse social and professional backgrounds, which is a boon given that birds of similar vintage and professional feather otherwise tend to flock together. I have gone on hundreds of solo and group rides in the countryside (local people are warm and friendly, ever willing to help with directions), mapped 56 lakes in the Udaipur region (including some that are so inaccessible that tourists would never get to see them) and learned to appreciate the tough life that those living in these arid hills, must endure. Pedaling 600 to 750 km per month, each year adds 7500 to 9000 km, bringing a total of some 68,000 pedaling kilometers since 2009. A major benefit is that Aravali trail riding gave me the stamina and confidence to go on long Himalayan bicycle tours. These include Manali–Leh–Khardungla (2019), Manali– Chamba–Dalhousie (2021) and Manali– Spiti–Kinnaur (2022). My small group of mountain biking addicts is now planning to ride through Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. Each of these trips entail physical, mental and logistic preparations, and yet the ride is definitely worth the effort – the views are as humbling as they are breathtaking, the experience is as spiritual as it is strenuous. Riding at altitudes of 13000 to 18000 feet is indeed a rarefied experience that your heart and lungs remember for a long time after descending.

And then of course, there is the fitness dividend – a body mass index of 20, resting heart rate of 45 to 52 bpm and according to Garmin, a fitness age 9.5 years younger than chronological age. I must however hasten to add that all of this does not come from cycling alone – I have followed a regular strength training routine, regulated diet and worked on getting adequate sleep (the last is proving to be a difficult barrier to overcome – clearly, the pressures and facets of modern life succeed in keeping us awake). My friends who additionally run medium to long distance do even better – I am unable to run, thanks to early osteoarthritis.

And yet, a bit wistfully, I observe that trail riding is not very popular among the emerging crop of young riders. Once they get beyond the beginner’s stage, the adrenaline and endorphin rush generated by road cycling on highways gets them hooked to chasing and breaking speed and distance records. I personally find highway rides monotonous, and as a doctor am more than conscious of the safety dimension of trundling on India’s busy highways. In contrast to highways and paved roads, trail riding is quieter, slower, closer to the environment, and more about appreciating the ride as it unfolds amidst nature, than about reveling in personal performance statistics afterwards. It is about the lived experience rather than accumulating records. I guess, I hope, that the passage of individual years will encourage more of my young riding friends to take up trail riding more than once in a while.