Dream to Reality of Ultra Cycling

(Subhajyoti Sen Sharma is the co-founder of Discover on Wheels, the first cycling club in Kolkata. In this short piece, he comes up with his thoughts after completing 600 km brevet on December 21, 2014)

At last, one dream has come true, but it was not easy to realise either. 

When i started cycling at a very tender age, it was a dream to be a good cyclist. With time, i changed my focus to make myself a better and better cyclist. Earlier, i used to ride in the morning but without any aim — just like a bird on wings. Later, i realised that i should change it to build on stamina and endurance that would make me a better long-distance cyclist in the future. 

Besides the on-track practice, i started getting in touch with international and national-level riders. I used to get tips on hydration, on-saddle nutrition, riding skills, building stamina and endurance among others.

Since i've already passed my prime, it might be difficult for me to join any pro-racing team but that did not deter me from dreaming! When i completed my first 200 km brevet in Hyderabad in July, my conviction of being an ultra cyclist rooted deep in me. Coming back to Kolkata from Hyderabad, i started focusing on endurance training.

I learned that ultra cycling is not only a game on saddle and pedals — it's all about mental strength and unlimited recovering capacity to boost yourself, motivate yourself, gain over ache all over the body. And, all this is enough to distract yourself from the right track and make one a normal person. But i had one goal: ultra cyclist. How can i give up when my bike dusted hundreds of kilometres already? No, there's no second option but to pedal on! 

On a chilly winter night, I participated in 600km brevet in Kolkata. I started pedalling at 00.30am from City Centre, Kolkata to Soro in Odisha. And, obviously, there was the return loop also. I pedalled on for the whole night with Sudipto Pal and Rahul Pasari. 

After 240km, I was very tired thinking to quit also. But i motivated myself that i have to cover more than 300km. That's what an ultra cyclist does! At the end of 39 hours, when i came back to Kolkata again, i thought that i would die of sleep deprivation! But the thought of death germinated the birth of a new being: ultra cyclist.

But it was just a beginning, as i hope to be Super Randonneur soon and later crack the RAAM one day.

Sunday Sunrise Rides

(Discover on Wheels started its Sunday Sunrise rides in March, 2014. Since then, the Kolkata-based cycling group has been organising such rides without any break for the benefit of citizens and fitness enthusiasts. Supratim Pal rides with Discover on Wheels since the club's birth. He shares his Sunday Sunrise ride experience)

My friends have asked me many a time why i wake up at 4 on a Sunday morning, take my bike down through the stairs from my fourth-floor flat, open the semi-rusted collapsible gate, put on the front and rear lights, check the GPS and hop on to the saddle. I could jolly well cuddled in the cosy comfort of blanket.

Let me chart some five issues that i've found while trying to look for replies within.

1. Hardly heat: Even during the scorching summer of April-May, we never faced problems to ride till 7.30 in the morning without being exhausted.

2. Traffic relief: At 5 in the morning, there's hardly any traffic on the road, except the trucks, which are hardly nuisance for cyclists. If it's Sunday, even people with early-morning or late-night shifts take weekly off also!

3. Pollution, what? The best part of Sunday Sunrise rides is riding amid less pollution. In a city full of dust and smoke, the early-morning rides are the best that can happen to the people.

4. Mind & body: I can go on and on... maybe riding lazy just to free my mind from the week-long stress at the workplace. The best way to let your thoughts run free is ride along the stretches of New Town or NH-2 beyond Dankuni.

5. Chasing passion: Again, the best time to chase your passion — if it has anything to do with nature — is Sunday early morning. I enjoyed such calm while i chased my passion of bird-watching for years. With the friendly bike, i can have a talk with nature, again.

(Pictures courtesy: Shahbaz, Subhajyoti and Harsh)

Leave your bicycle in the garage to rust!!

(For Nishant, cycling is everything. He takes you out on the road like the days when he hits the tar or the rock on his own with no one to accompany him)

Trust me it does…riding a bicycle sucks.
It takes ages to go somewhere. Most of the time you are sweaty and smelling like a pig. Moreover it's human powered...so you don't have a choice.. you have to pedal and you always get headwinds. There are no bicycle lanes (except a few cities in the world). You are not respected by either a motor vehicle or a pedestrian. You are nuisance for them….gosh!!

If these reasons are not challenging enough…then read on. If not, then you are, well, may be the holiday package guy who loves to reach his destination in an aircraft and enjoy a chauffeur-driven car for sightseeing.

Here are few reasons, why you should leave your cycle in the garage to rust!!

Too much of freedom
Which route should I take --- the off road or the normal motorized one? Should I stay back or keep going? Ahh this is such a nice spot for a camp tonight. I don’t feel like riding today. Let's just chill here or let's set a personal day record --- this kind of freedom is such a terrible feeling. If you don’t like this…stay away from that bike.

It's tooooo slow
You just cannot rush from one spot to another. Instead, you have to endure the pain of watching all the amazing landscapes which you could so simple avoid by a taking a nap in the car or just taking a flight.

Its so damn tiring! Aaaaaaaaa
There is always a headwind and those inclines…uff hills after hills. It is tough to be in shape to tame those hills. Those hills will make you wonder…why why?? It could be so much simpler to just fall asleep in a bus or a train. On a cycle, your brain goes numb and you just can think…your problems disappear…issues with girlfriend, wife, job, boss, politics…who cares…not at least you head…no more stress!! Yes, after a full day ride, you feel so free from stress and you still have energy and sometime more to go on the next day again. Too tiring definitely.

No tourist spots on the way
While on your bicycle, the distances between services and cities is hours and sometimes days apart. This means you may not find any decent restaurant, hotels and you may have to sleep with friendly strangers. You will have to always put up with people whom you have never met before and who promise to always remember you and keep in contact with. So much adventure for what? Meeting real people and eating authentic local food and to know about their life and culture.
Sometime you just don’t want to move any further and set up a tent in middle of nowhere with no lights and no sound. For company is only the Milky Way which you can never see in you polluted city. Now isn’t this really what travelling is all about?

Such good health
A few days back, I met a 94-year-old Bengali gentleman who used to be a cycle tourist and rode 7,500 miles across India in 1939 at a time when the bikes used to be made of iron and literally no roads. If I wasn’t told, I would have easily passed him for a 60-year-old person. He lives alone in a two-storeyed house, does all the household chores himself and was speaking fluently --- telling me thrilling encounters of his riding days.    

Riding a bike makes you kick the butt; push the booze and love life! But isn’t the true enjoyment of life in smoke, hallucinating, hangover and choking your heart… it's so much painful to live longer with a strong beating heart and legs of steel. At an age when people sit around the park talking politics and discussing how soon the world will see the doomsday…cyclist in their 70-80s are roaming the world, scaling every hill, capturing every landscape…
But why take the trouble… everything has its own time… isn’t it??

You cycle and play as a child --- then study --- take up a job--- wife --- have children --- then retire and wait for God to meet you … ohh I missed those family holidays to nearby seaside and hill stations …  Yes.. it's very important to have those family holidays… but what about taking out those few hours for yourself ….for your well-being and your good health... stuff which you wanted to do… but can't because today you are too occupied and stuck midst office, home and family… if you cannot stay fit and hearty …how will you take care of your family then? I m sure we do not want to become sick and dependent and a burden … there is no thrill in that!

Personally, cycling has brought discipline in my life… Days when I cannot workout are bad days…the days when I hit the saddle, I feel I am the KING OF THE ROAD!

(Pictures by Manish Lakhani. He is an explorer, adventurer and a travel photographer. He is an avid cyclist and has completed an incredible solo trip of 14,000km in India covering almost all states in 5 ½ months in 2013. Ladakh is his winter home. For more such mesmerizing pictures visit http://withmanish.com)

STARTING AT 30

(Nishant Maheshwari is the founder-member of Discover on Wheels, the first bicycling club of Kolkata. He comes up with a fascinating story on why and how he started chasing his passion — bicycling — at the age of 30)

I used to be active in sports in childhood days and continued playing cricket till my graduation days. It was only during one winter morning after graduation when I went for light jog, I felt a sharp pain in my back because of wrong footing. Blame the bad roads or whatever. Strangely, after that incident I seemed to have lost shoulder strength. I couldn’t throw a ball properly. Believe me or not, but a casual yawning gave me a stiff neck. So, I had to yawn keep my head straight. Funny!!  

I could not run or play cricket for the next six years. I was detected with problems of frozen shoulder and cervical slip disk. Doctors advised no forward bending and weight-lifting. Pillows were a big no no. I was doing neck exercises and going for physiotherapy with 80-year-olds for company. The acute pain gave me many sleepless nights and off days from office. No sports but weekend parties started making me a big fat miserable shit. I consulted few more specialists but they just prescribed pills which gave me relief for few days but never cured me. It was a waste of years which I could never get back.  At 5'5" weighing 84kg, I was nothing but a pumpkin. 

It was only on my 30th birthday when I was watching a documentary on Discovery about a man who was celebrating his 30th birthday in pub with friends just gets up and started running. He went for a 30-mile run and broke down. He had to call his wife to pick him who thought his husband had lost it. Dean Karnazes today is a ultra-ultra marathoner and continues to inspire millions worldwide. Aahhh!! No I didn’t go running right after watching this on TV. But it certainly shook me up and I decided to give it a try. So it was January 2013 I started doing light short-distance runs and a few stretching yoga exercises. And believe me, I started feeling better. There was no pain after a few days. Still, I was not losing weight because I had no diet control. But the pain was not there and only came back when I was not running. I realized that exercising was warming up the muscles and helping my spasms. 

Once a doctor explained me that going on and off a particular exercise regime gives muscle spasms. Say for example, if you are working out in a gym and then after few months you discontinue because of certain reason. The muscles which you had worked on again become weak and go into slumber. Then after few months again you decide to hit back the gym and start working out. This on and off exercises, especially weight training, can give you muscle spasms – which had exactly happened with me. Adopt a exercise which you can continue for a long term and without breaks. It could be a simple brisk walk also but has to be regular.

Nevertheless, the running which I had started made me active but not fit. I started scouting the blogs, videos, journals for research to do it right. They said – cross-train. The only activity which I could think of was cycling. In younger days, I used to be on my saddle all the time. I used to cycle to school which was 15km away when I used to miss my school bus and sometime I used to miss it on purpose because I loved to RIDE. Yes I loved riding too. And yes I got my first bike in March 2013. An entry-level MTB bike.

Initially, I used to do solo 15-20km rides until I met Subhajyoti Sen Sharma in April 2013 who not only helped me understand biking better but introduced me to the concept of touring on cycle. The first tour was a 120km trip to Diamond Harbour — a port town in south Bengal. I had been there only once before in school days for a day picnic. It was a shocker for my friends and others who just wouldn’t believe that a person could go so far on a cycle. But that was just a beginning.

People's awe was a motivation for me. It was the jaw dropping, believe it or not expressions on people’s face which inspired me and made me a serious rider. Social networking helped me connect with more cyclist nationally and internationally. I am a randonneur today and planning to complete the Super Randonneur series in 2015. 

In India, cyclists, those are mostly 30+, used to ride in a group and adopting cycling as healthy lifestyle. Kolkata at that time did not have any riding group and no riding culture. Cyclists were riding in their colonies or apartment compounds. We wanted to fill the void and give all Kolkata cyclists an opportunity to come together and have some fun in riding. This thought transformed in a Kolkata cycling group called Discover on Wheels which I started in January 2014 with my buddies Supratim Pal, Subhajyoti Sen Sharma and Chandranath Banerjee. On 1st September, 2014, the Facebook group page of Discover on Wheels had 1,500 members, including cyclists and non-cyclists. 

The enthusiasm of the cyclist in Kolkata has continued to inspire and motivate us till date to continue to do something new and fresh. Hope to see Kolkata soon on cycling map of the world.