'There is a great future for cycling'

Bangalore is now known as the cycling capital. Emphasising all the more on this fact was the launch of the Specialized Kynkyny Cycling Team (SKCT) for the year 2014 recently.

Now in its third year, this team is one of the leading competitive teams in the country and is responsible for the changing scene of competitive cycling in India.

Talking on the different advancements in the world of cycling, Rohan Kini, owner of ‘Bums on the Saddle’, said that more Bangaloreans are cycling nowadays.

“The situation is very different now from how it was six years back when I used to cycle to work. From then, we have reached quite far. There is a great future for cycling. More people are willing to give it a shot and even experiment with long-term travelling on it,” said Rohan.

There are many who take up cycling as a recreational activity, a fitness solution and an environmentally-sound mode of transport.

There are some who even take to pro-bicycle racing.

Vivek Radhakrishnan, team director and avid cyclist who was also at the event, discussed the different types of cycling competitions that are seen across the world and spoke about how a competitor had to prepare and behave differently at each competition.

“Qualities like endurance are often tested as cycling events like time trailing require one to fight against the wind. In such a case, the cyclist is racing against himself,” he stated. 

Vivek also emphasised on how much the new team had been working towards perfecting itself for the national championships, which will be held in October. 

“The team also focuses on promoting cycling as a fun and environmental-friendly option of transport,” he said.

With seven wins at different competitions in 2014 itself so far, the team has put in extra efforts in terms of training.

On being asked what the team is doing differently, Vivek said that the team now knows what goes perfectly with what and how to plan accordingly.

'We all learn from mistakes and now, we know that we need to plan more for each terrain. So while heading out on a route, we make it a point to plan accordingly,” he said.

The team consists of members like Naveen John, Lokesh Narasimhachar and Fariyal Jamadar, who is its first female rider.

Naveen, who was in the USA for a while, said that more technological advancements have been included into the training this year, with a gadget that monitors their heartbeats and how much they are exerting on their workouts.

“This gadget has the capacity to store data. So we can do comparisons too,” he said.