I have been cycling for the last few days, after a long break of about 12 years. I had my doubts if I will be able to utilise it for the purpose I had planned for. Recently, I changed jobs, and my new office is twice as far as my old one. So riding to office daily, or even twice a week is completely out of question now.

It’s been just over 2 weeks, and I have done 75 km already. By this year end, I am planning to complete at least 3000 km on my bicycle. I think that’s a decent target for me.

I thought I should do about 12-16 kms a day, at least 4 times a week. Not from the very first day, but gradually reach that target in a few weeks. The very first day, I did about 5 km. The next, 11 km and yesterday 15 km. I got to my target pretty quickly, which I had never thought I could. Cycling is a lot easier than running in the treadmill I thought. But I used to run about 30 minutes and complete 5 km. So, I thought to reach the 15 km mark, I have to push really hard. But I got to that pretty easily.

Talking about the roads, about 30% of the distance I bike is just gravels or pot holes. The other 70% of it is quite decent. But the BBMP is hyperactive all the year round. And you should expect the unexpected when it comes to roads here. One fine day, you notice, the road you always take to your office is dug up and you would barely able to be walk over them. At times like this, you feel elated and proud when the frustrated gas guzzlers are sitting ducks, and I just lift my bike up and cross over to the other side.

Even on roads which are pretty bad for cars and motor cycles to vroom by, I could still maintain a decent amount of pace. I lift myself up from the seat, curve my shoulders and flex my leg muscles to prepare for those rattly shocks from the rocky terrain, and feel like John Abraham, when my bicycle overtakes all the traffic, and I murmur to myself, “Dhoom machale!!!”.