Anil Shet – Namma Kudla’s Intrepid Cyclist Who Clocks 1-Lakh Km

It was January 15, 2014, when I bought my first bicycle. It was an MTB those days, as road bikes were considered puncture prone. Early next morning I was ready for my first ride. I met cyclist Shabari who asked me to join him at 5.30am, I was there at 5.15am as I wanted to ride 6 kms and 20kms per week. But on my first ride itself he made me ride 20kms and I was totally exhausted. 

That evening I had a fever, yet the next morning I was there on time. Within a few days, the body pain subsided and was quite regular and within 10 days I did my first 50 km. From then on, the journey continued. 

I had bought this bike to fight my blood pressure and border line diabetes. It was not my passion but it eventually did become one. Dr Ramya, my wife and a dentist by profession advised me to buy the bicycle and not to depend on medication. As they say, behind every successful man there is a woman. Cycling, as I said eventually became a passion with me. Within 6 months of cycling my Blood pressure came to normal.  

Food too was always a passion with me but this new passion of cycling brought down my weight by close to 22kgs and gave me the liberty to eat as much as I wanted. Thanks to Godfrey Pinto who made me to join MACC, regular morning rides and long rides on weekends became the norm and helped me achieve this target. 

Thanks to Bhaveesh who has ridden with me more than 40,000 km and Dheeraj Hejmadi who supported me in all club activities. It was great ride to 750 kms to Kanyakumari and back with Shamlal in February 2019. Another memorable ride was the non-stop 600 km ride, with Shivanand Rao, which we completed in 33 hours, which made me a Super Randonneur in Feb 2018. 

To say a bit about my education and career, I graduated from Manipal Institute of Technology in Electronic and Communication Engineering worked for Bharat Electronics Ltd., Bangalore, then started my own business as a developer. I have completed numerous projects under the Beetle Developers banner. I currently have another project on the anvil, the Beetle Sanvi. 

Initially our MACC morning ride used to be of 20 km distance in 2014, weekends it would be 50 km, then later on in 2015 it increased to 25km and in 2017 it was 30 km in 2018 it further increased to 40 km and 2020 it was an average of 50 km/ day. In last few weeks it has been increased to 100 km/ day in 4 hours. 

When I bought the bike I never thought I’d achieve this target of 1-lakh kilometers. When I completed 20,000km in 2016 this was still a distant dream. I completed 50000km on 2018, 75000 km in Dec 2019 but in never thought I would do it so soon. Going forward, I would like to do relaxed rides 20 to 30 per day in the country side and guide more youngsters.  

When I bought my first bike Merida Matta 20 for about ₹30000, I was worried about what my mom would say about spending so much on a cycle, but later she realized that it was worth spending it. One and half years later, when I bought another Merida Ride 300 for around ₹70000 they were happy. I used it for 3 year. Sometimes after a ride when I got home, my mom used to say “this bike is old, you need to buy a new one”. I bought a full carbon Merida Ride 5000 for ₹1.5 lakh, thanks to Mubeen from Taj Cycles who gave a good discount on all my purchases and always gave first priority to repair my bike. 

I have ridden with many new cyclist and guided them and once I felt they were fit for 100 km ride, I would accompany them and ride 100 km distance at their pace. I still remember ride with Dr G K Hebbar when he rode his first 100 km at age of 60 and theme for that ride was 100 at 60. Once again I would like to thank all cyclist of Mangalore who supported me to achieve this target.

– As Shared By Anil Shet 

This post has been published in arrangement with Jaideep J Shenoy