Crosswinds and Confidence

A Double Century, Again

On 14 November 2016, I hit a double century again—200 kilometres on a bicycle in a single day. Even as I write that sentence, it sounds slightly theatrical, as if I am borrowing someone else’s life. But it happened, and I remember the day not as a grand triumph but as a long, honest negotiation between my legs and the wind.

This success mattered more than the number suggests because it came after a phase where cycling had already taught me its favourite lesson: it does not reward confidence alone. It rewards preparation, patience, and the ability to keep moving when the mind begins to invent excuses.

By then, I had tasted both sides of the sport. I had experienced the high of finishing, and I had also swallowed the bitter tablet of a DNF. The earlier failure had left a mark—not a wound, but a memory. It made me less dramatic, more alert, and slightly less eager to behave like a hero at the start of a ride.

The Highway Looked Friendly. The Wind Didn’t

The route that day took us from Nagpur towards a little beyond Pandhurna and back. The national highway was buttery smooth, the kind of surface that tempts you into optimism. It makes you think you can ride forever, and that perhaps the body has no expiry date.

But the weather had its own plans. Crosswinds arrived early, strong enough to sap energy and test the mettle of even confident riders. A crosswind is not like a headwind that blocks you openly. A crosswind is sly. It pushes you sideways, disturbs your balance, forces you to grip harder, and drains you slowly without announcing itself.

There is a particular fatigue that comes from constantly correcting your line. Your legs may still be pedalling, but your mind is doing extra work, staying alert, refusing to relax. It is like walking through a crowded OPD corridor while carrying a tray of glass bottles—your pace slows, your shoulders tighten, and you begin to feel older than you are.

Still, the road helped. The surface was kind, the gradients were manageable, and the wide highway gave us space. Experience also helped. I was no longer the wide-eyed novice who believed enthusiasm could substitute for strategy. I had learnt, through small humiliations, that long rides are won by small decisions—when to eat, when to drink, when to slow down, when to stop pretending you are fine.

Not a Race, Yet Not a Leisurely Picnic

A brevet is described as non-competitive, and that is true. Nobody hands you a medal at the end or announces your name on a loudspeaker. Yet, there is a quiet intensity in the air. The clock is always present, even when you don’t look at it. The body keeps doing calculations: how far, how fast, how long, how much left.

The difference between a brevet and a casual long ride is discipline. You can’t drift. You can’t waste time at stops. You can’t turn it into a sightseeing tour just because the sky looks pretty. A brevet may not be a race, but it certainly does not tolerate laziness.

That day, I rode with like-minded friends, and that made all the difference. Cycling alone can be meditative, but cycling with a group adds something else—shared rhythm, quiet companionship, and the subtle pressure of not wanting to be the first person to complain.

When the wind grew stubborn, I found myself watching the others. Not in envy, but in reassurance. If they could keep their line steady, so could I. If they could pedal through the gusts without swearing loudly, I could at least swear silently.

The Body Learns, Slowly

By November, my body had begun to understand the demands of distance. The early rides had been full of surprises—sudden cramps, unexpected fatigue, mysterious aches in places I didn’t know could ache. But now, my legs had developed a kind of memory. They still protested, but less dramatically. They had learnt that I was serious.

I had also learnt the unglamorous habits that long rides demand. Eat before you are hungry. Drink before you are thirsty. Don’t wait for the body to send you polite signals, because by the time it does, it is already angry.

I kept nibbling through the ride, refilling bottles, stretching briefly at stops, and reminding myself that the goal was not speed. The goal was completion. At sixty, ambition has to be redesigned. It cannot be about proving anything to others. It has to be about proving something to yourself—and doing it without injury.

The Quiet Power of Company

Somewhere along the highway, as the wind kept pushing and the kilometres kept falling behind us, I realised what was truly carrying me forward. It wasn’t just fitness. It wasn’t even the bicycle.

It was the simple fact of being surrounded by people who understood this strange hobby. People who didn’t ask, “Why are you doing this?” People who didn’t look at a 200-km ride as either madness or midlife crisis. They treated it as normal, which made me feel normal too.

In a small place like Sevagram, it is easy to feel that your life is made entirely of duty—wards, teaching, administration, decisions, responsibilities. Cycling gave me a parallel identity, one that had nothing to do with prescriptions or meetings. On the highway, I was not a professor. I was just a rider trying to reach the next checkpoint without losing my mind.

And the friendships that formed around cycling were unusually pure. There was no hierarchy on a bicycle. There were only legs, effort, and the shared struggle against weather and fatigue. On bad days, someone rode beside you. On good days, you returned the favour. It was simple, and therefore rare.

Back Home, With a Different Kind of Satisfaction

I completed the ride in about ten hours. When I reached home, tired and sun-touched, I felt that quiet, deep satisfaction that comes only after effort. Not the loud satisfaction of achievement, but the calmer one—of endurance, of staying with a plan, of not giving up when discomfort tries to negotiate.

The crosswinds had almost taken the winds out of my sails, but they also gave the ride its meaning. A smooth highway alone does not make a memorable day. A challenge does. That day, the challenge arrived in invisible gusts, and I met it without drama.

Later, sitting at home with sore legs and a content mind, I found myself doing what cyclists always do after a long ride: planning the next one. Two double centuries were now behind me, and the idea of a 300-km brevet began to hover at the edge of my thoughts—half temptation, half threat.

I did not decide immediately. Wisdom, I have learnt, is sometimes just fatigue speaking.

But I knew one thing clearly. With every long ride, I was not becoming faster. I was becoming steadier. And at my age, that felt like the better victory.

← Previous

Contents

Next→