50K in Bangalore!

28th Jan 2011 is a very proud day for me! It is my answer to skeptics around me who discouraged me from starting on this activity almost 11 yrs ago.

If some of you thought it is running 50km in a day, I am very sorry. Here I am referring to a very very different 50k. This is my 50000 km of cycling in bangalore! Basically commuting to work on cycle in Bangalore.

My cycling in Bangalore started after my first job in 1999. I found going by bus (no Volvos in that era, even decent pushpak buses (cream and brown stripes) were considered luxury!) very suffocating. Buses were not clean, and very crowded. It was not an inspiring thought to get into the bus in the morning -- it was indeed a bus travelers night mare. (Please note that this is the pre-volvo era). Add to that the occasional arrogant conductor who found well dressed IT guys from outside Karnataka very upsetting. Its no wonder Rajnikant left BMTC (Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corp) conductor job and went on to be an actor!

An year of bus travel convinced me that this is indeed not the way to go forward. I thought of buying a cycle or a bike. Finally the cost savings decided it in favour of the cycle. And I am thankful to this day that I took that decision! Though it was very simple and clear to me that cycling was fun, most of my friends and well wishers were shocked. Very shocked. They said pollution and traffic will take a toll – and it did! Not on me, but on those very folks who made those sincere but misguided statements.

Paying a one time cost of 3500 Rs to get a brand new 5 gear Hero Hawk in 2000 sounded like a real bargain. Just 3500 Rs to get rid of the bus ride and get to work taking in the (then) fresh Bangalore morning air! Wow. It was too irresistible an idea. However, not everyone thought the same way. In fact some of my relatives clearly did not like the idea of my going to their home on a cycle. It was so déclassé, according to them. Of course, they did not tell it directly, but their actions spoke louder than words.

But once I was on the bike, the world did not matter. It is one activity that I enjoyed to the max, absolutely no questions about it. If you do not enjoy the process, there is no way 50k is possible commuting through the city. Rain or shine, my bike was out. Day after day, month after month, me and my bike was out and running. Kilometers accumulated…

On weekends I used to do 100+ km per day. It was godforsakenly tiring, but heck! It was fun. Real fun. A lone man fighting against himself. The time when Hyderabad NH was two lane and no new airport, not even the talk of it, in devanahalli.

In 2004, I met a fellow cyclist and my cycling life would never remain the same. His name is Shreekumar, and he is an engineer with HP. Brilliant chap. He guided me on long distance cycling and in apr 2005 we cycled to Salem from Bangalore, a distance of 195km in a day! Had it not been for Shree, I would never have attempted a feat like that on my own. Shree had all the credentials – he had cycled Chennai Calcutta at that time, and practically all of south India upto kanyakumari. Shree also told me about electronic cyclometers which give you speed, average, distance, odometer and a variety of other functional in one small unit. He is also the one who introduced me to the global positioning systems (gps).
Lesson: best to learn from someone who has done it already and is willing to teach you how to!