Three Hundred, One Shadow

Raising the bar, and wondering why

After finishing my first 200-kilometre brevet, I should have been satisfied. Any sensible man would have framed the brevet card, eaten a celebratory jalebi, and returned to a life of shorter rides and longer breakfasts. But cycling has a peculiar way of altering the mind. It makes you forget discomfort quickly and remember only the glow that comes afterwards. It also introduces you to a dangerous thought: if I did that, perhaps I can do this.

That is how the idea of a 300-kilometre brevet crept into my head.

It was not a heroic plan. It was, if I am honest, a slightly impulsive one. The number looked impressive, and the route sounded manageable in conversation. The event was scheduled for 31 December 2016—an odd day for such an adventure. While the world prepared for parties and countdowns, I was preparing for the kind of celebration that involves electrolyte packets, bananas, and the steady humiliation of your own muscles.

The route ran from Nagpur to Deori in Gondia district and back, along Asian Highway 46. The time limit was eighteen hours. Eighteen hours is a long time to sit on a bicycle, long enough to discover which parts of your body are truly loyal to you and which ones are waiting for an excuse to rebel.

Fortunately, I had Abhishek Raut with me.

If long-distance cycling has taught me anything, it is that companionship matters, but not in the dramatic, Bollywood way. It matters in the small ways: a rider who stays close when you begin to slow, who notices your silence, who offers a banana at the right moment without making it sound like charity. Abhishek did not ride ahead to prove a point. He did not hang back like a babysitter. He simply stayed within reach—sometimes in front, sometimes behind—like a shadow that adjusts itself quietly to the changing light.

The start: cold air, warm optimism

We began before dawn. The early morning cold had that sharp, clean quality that makes you feel awake even before your brain has agreed to participate. The city was still asleep, and the highway looked unusually polite, as if it had decided to behave for a few hours.

The first stretch of any long ride is always deceptive. The legs feel eager. The mind is cheerful. You begin to believe that perhaps the warnings about fatigue are exaggerated, perhaps people are simply weak, and perhaps you are—miraculously—an exception.

That optimism lasts until the body begins to do arithmetic.

At some point, the kilometres stop feeling like scenery and start feeling like currency. You begin to calculate time, speed, distance, and remaining energy the way a householder calculates expenses at the end of the month. If you waste too much early, you will pay later. If you under-eat, you will crash. If you under-drink, you will suffer. If you get too confident, the road will correct you.

I had no desire to be corrected again.

The brevet rule I finally began to respect

By this time, I had begun to respect the most unromantic rule of long-distance cycling: eat before you are hungry, and drink before you are thirsty. It sounds like something a grandmother would say, and yet it is the difference between finishing and collapsing into a melodrama at the roadside.

So I did what experienced riders do. I ate steadily. I drank regularly. I did not wait for hunger to announce itself. Hunger is an unreliable messenger; by the time it arrives, you are already in trouble.

I also learnt that a long ride is not won by heroic bursts of speed. It is won by avoiding mistakes. Cycling, at this distance, becomes less about strength and more about discipline. You do not chase excitement. You chase consistency.

The road, the lakes, and the strange comfort of repetition

Asian Highway 46 offered a mix of rolling roads and long, steady stretches. There were moments when the landscape felt repetitive, and yet repetition has its own comfort. The body likes predictability. It settles into rhythm. It stops protesting and begins cooperating, as if it has accepted that this is the day’s work and there is no escape.

The ride offered small sensory gifts that I had not expected to enjoy so much. The cold breeze in the early morning was bracing, almost medicinal. By afternoon, the winter sun became pleasantly warm, not harsh. The light changed slowly, turning the highway into a ribbon of shifting colours. There were lakes along the way that appeared suddenly, calm and indifferent, as if they had no idea that cyclists were suffering nearby.

I found myself watching the road surface too, with a kind of clinical attention. Smooth tarmac felt like kindness. Rough patches felt like betrayal. Even a mild slope could feel personal after enough kilometres.

Abhishek: the steady presence

Abhishek remained close. He moved in and out of my shadow, as if he was managing my morale without making it obvious. There is a particular generosity in riding with someone who is capable of going faster but chooses not to leave you behind. It is not pity. It is partnership.

We did not talk continuously. Long rides do not encourage constant conversation. They encourage brief exchanges, practical questions, small jokes, and long stretches of silence that feel comfortable rather than awkward. The silence itself becomes a form of companionship.

Every now and then, Abhishek would ask, “All okay?” and I would reply, “Yes,” even when I was not entirely sure. But I meant it in the larger sense. My body might complain, but my mind was still willing.

The mid-ride appetite: eating like a man who means business

At some point in the ride, I began to eat with the seriousness of a man who has understood consequences. I drank like a fish, ate like a horse, and stopped feeling shy about it. There is no elegance in long-distance cycling. You eat because you must. You drink because you must. Pride has no role here. If you try to be dignified, you will be punished.

It is a strange thing, this business of fuelling. In the hospital, I have lectured students for years about metabolism, electrolytes, and energy balance. On the road, I discovered that the body does not care about your lectures. It cares about what you put into it at the right time. Knowledge is useful, but timing is everything.

The long evening: when the day begins to stretch

As the day progressed, the ride began to feel longer. Not harder, necessarily, but longer. The sun started sliding down, and the light softened. The body, which had been cooperating, began to remind me that it had limits. There were moments when I felt a dull ache in the shoulders, a quiet soreness in the back, a growing heaviness in the legs. Nothing dramatic. Just the steady accumulation of effort.

This is where mental discipline becomes more important than physical strength. You do not think of the remaining distance in one chunk. You break it down. You ride to the next landmark. Then the next. Then the next. You learn to live in small victories: one more hour, one more checkpoint, one more stretch without stopping.

Somewhere in that long evening, I realised that a 300-kilometre ride is not a single event. It is a series of negotiations with yourself. Each negotiation ends with the same agreement: keep going.

The finish: not fireworks, but quiet relief

When we finally rolled back towards Nagpur, I expected to feel dramatic. I expected a rush of emotion, perhaps even a cinematic moment where I would lift my hands, grin wildly, and declare victory to the sky.

Instead, I felt something quieter and more satisfying: relief mixed with disbelief.

The bicycle had held up well. My body, to my surprise, had held up well too. There was fatigue, yes, but not the crushing kind. There was soreness, but not injury. There was the dull ache of effort, but also the glow of completion. I had crossed a distance that once seemed absurd.

Ashwini drove us back to Sevagram, carrying our tired bodies and our bicycles home. It was nearly midnight, and the world was busy celebrating the new year. I was celebrating something else: the discovery that I could stretch myself further than I had assumed.

What the 300 taught me

The 300-kilometre brevet did not make me a champion. It did not turn me into a faster cyclist. It did not erase my age or my vulnerabilities. But it taught me something important about endurance: it is not a talent you are born with. It is a habit you build, slowly, through repeated discomfort and small acts of discipline.

It also taught me the value of friendship on the road. Not the loud kind, not the performative kind, but the steady kind that rides beside you and makes the distance feel less lonely. If cycling has a secret ingredient, it is not speed. It is companionship.

When I lay down that night, the body was tired, but the mind was strangely calm. I had not just completed a ride. I had learnt how to last.

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