Cycling
Roads & Rides
Two wheels, an open road, and the freedom to go exactly as far as you choose.
My cycling journey
How I fell in love
with the road.
I started cycling as a recovery tool between running training blocks. What began as cross-training quickly became something I looked forward to more than the runs themselves.
There is a particular quality to cycling that running can't replicate — the sense of covering real distance, of watching landscapes shift gradually from one thing to another. A 60 km ride takes you somewhere. A 25 km run brings you back to where you started.
I ride early mornings, mostly solo, occasionally with a group. The ghat roads around my hometown have become a second home. I'm still a student of the sport — learning to climb better, to read the road, to trust the machine.
What cycling gives me
Clarity
Two to Three hours on a bike resets my mind in a way that nothing else quite manages. By the time I return, whatever felt complicated feels smaller.
Progress
Every route has a benchmark — a time up the climb, a distance in the legs. Cycling makes improvement visible, measurable, satisfying.
Presence
You cannot be anywhere else on a bike. The road demands full attention. That forced presence is, paradoxically, the most restful thing I know.
48
Rides logged
2,840 km
Total distance
100 km
Longest ride
28,400 m
Total elevation
Top 3 logged rides
Rajpur to Kanpur Road
Uttar Pradesh
My first century ride. The last 20 km were a negotiation between pride and pain — pride won, barely.
Distance
62.0 km
Duration
3h 12m
Elevation
1,240 m
Rajpur to Pukhrayan
Uttar Pradesh
The ghat section humbled me completely. Twelve hairpin bends and a gradient that turns your legs to lead.
Distance
50.14 km
Duration
2h 46m
Elevation
980 m
Mountain Ride
Rishikesh, Uttarakhand
Off-road, unplanned, magnificent. Gravel riding forces you to stay present in a way tarmac never does.
Distance
48.5 km
Duration
2h 35m
Elevation
1,560 m
What's ahead
Goals & future rides
The step from century to randonneuring. Different discipline, same obsession.
5,300 m passes, barren landscapes, and a road that exists between seasons.
Panniers, camping gear, and nowhere to be — proper cycle touring.
The speed benchmark I'm working toward. Getting closer every month.
“The bicycle is the most efficient machine ever created. For a human being on a bicycle, the energy cost is almost nothing.”
— Something I remind myself at kilometre 40 of a 60 km ride, when my legs are screaming and my lungs are on fire.