Cycling: what a wonderful sport
Cycling, considered to be one of the most boring sport by many and especially in countries like India where cycles are looked down upon by most people. I have always been a fan of cycling but never did I watched it as a sport. I always loved taking rides on my bicycle, whenever I felt sad, agitated, or depressed, cycling always helped me in clearing my mind. I don't know why Indians society looks at the cycle as a poor men's mode of transport. If you go to any place on a bicycle, all the eyes on the road will be at you as if you are an inconsequential person. A car driver will try to dominate a biker and a biker will try to dominate a person on a cycle. The bigger your vehicle is more you will try to dominate and this is especially true on Indian roads. Back in college, I expressed my love for cycling and said that if I get a job near my house, I will try to go via bicycle, that person laughed at me and said, dude, these things are only good for saying, no one actually does it. To all the people who mock cycling, I did go to the office on my cycle in India as well and now I live in the place which is heaven for cycling, Belgium. So, I'm definitely taking my cycle to the office.
We as Indians are always trying to pick things from the west be it shredded jeans or spiked hair, but to my despair, we never pick up things that are actually good for us like cycling, or openness to others' ideas, or work ethics. We hear a lot about the freedom given to the people in the west but at the same time, we also need to look upon their responsibilities as well. Let's not stray away from the topic of cycling, we'll discuss the social issues of India in some other blog. Belgium and Nederlands are considered to be the most cycling-friendly countries in the world. We have got cycling tracks on almost every road of the country, there are a lot of roads where motor vehicles are not even allowed. To make the situation safe for cyclists there are strict laws regarding cycling, there are some serious fines of up to 1000 euros if a car hits a cyclist. Most of the roads give privilege to cyclists over cars and bikes. In my viewpoint, cycling is one of the best mechanical devices ever built, it keeps you healthy, solves the problem of traffic jams, solves the problem of pollution, and saves you a ton of fuel and repair money. What more can you ask from it? I know that you can't go huge distances but often our commutes are less than 10 km. Now, a few of you will come and complain to me about the sweating, first of all, people don't ride even in winters and secondly, we can easily reduce the problem of sweating by using electric-assisted bicycles. I have ridden it a few times and the effort it takes to ride those e-cycles is very little. Here in Belgium, even people of age 75 rides bicycle regularly (of course the electric-assisted ones). On average, Dutch people ride 1000+ km in a year (national average) just imagine the health benefit and the money we save by not going to the hospitals. You know, if I tell someone to buy a cycle for 2 lakhs they will rather buy a bike but never a cycle, why can't we look at bike, car or cycle as just a mode of transport? Why do we need to attach our ego and power with our mode of transport? The USA is not the only west, there are so many great things happening in small European countries that we should try to incorporate into our lives like the cycling culture of the Dutch or the education system of Finnish people. And if you worry about carrying cargo look at these cargo bikes, very easy to ride and it can carry the same amount of luggage as a car.
Enough with cycling for general use, let me talk a bit about it as a sport. After coming to Belgium, with each passing day I'm falling in love with the sport. I'm extremely fortunate to recently witness the world's most elite athletes in the UCI world championship which happened in the Flanders region of Belgium. I should let you guys know that it is an extremely tough and interesting sport just like we have cricket in India. Although you just see the Pelton (group of cycles) for few seconds, people wait for hours to see that. The race we had last weekend was 268 km, from one part of the country to another and there were people waiting on the sidelines all along the way for 268 km. Don't think that people don't watch cycling, it's just that people in India don't watch it, Dutch people are crazy about cycling and have tremendous respect for the sport. Cycling is considered to be one of the toughest sports in the entire world and pro cyclists are among the fittest sportsmen in the world, if not the fittest. To give you a little more perspective, I recently tried cycling with a wattage meter, I was clocking around 170 watts for around 12 seconds and the peak of 220 watts for 1 second (similar performance by all my friends). Pro cyclists produce around 450 watts for hours and peak around 2200 watts for 12 seconds (most electric heater takes around 1500 watts, probably the most energy-consuming device in our homes). Generating this level of power is insane, exceeding the professional footballers and other sportsmen. To put this in terms of speed, pro cyclists average around 50-55 kmph and can go to 80-85 kmph for short durations. Just imagine this much speed on a bicycle, at this speed, our lovely hero honda starts shaking, and there are pro cyclists who can ride cycles at these incredible speeds. On the descent, speeds can go up to 130 kmph, this is what most cars can hit in India.
Few more stats of cycling (Tour de France, one of the most famous cycling events):
- -5ºC to 40ºC temperature range
- 21.4km distance of the Tour de France’s toughest climb, Mont Ventoux (average gradient 7.6 per cent)
- 3,500km average total distance covered in 21 days
- 6W/kg climbing power needed to be in contention for the GC
- 2,802m highest mountain pass — Col de la Bonette
- 8,000kcal energy is needed every day
- 5,200m most climbing in a single stage — stage 11, Vuelta a España 2014
- 1L/hr peak rate of fluid loss when riding in heat in the mountain
Pro cyclists are extremely hardworking and gifted athletes, our stationary heartbeat is around 70bpm, these guys push it below 40 bpm with their training. Reducing stationary heart beat greatly helps these athletes as they can provide more blood to each part of their body in times of extreme physical strain.
Just look at this race to know how demanding it is as a sport (from olympics 2021)
And for those who think that there are no strategies in this game, you can't be far from the truth, it's just that you haven't dwell deeper into this incredible sport. I wish a day would come when I'll see entire families traveling on bicycles in India, not because of less money, but out of their love for the cycle.
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