BENGALURU : Bengalureans Bhagyashree Sawant and MJ Pavan recently received a certification from the Guinness World Records for breaking the record of an Australian cyclist Benjamin Woods. The colleagues rode 19,400.83 km from October 2017 to April 2018 covering 18 states and five union territories. They started the ride in Palampur, Himachal Pradesh and ended it in Bengaluru. Though they finished the ride in 2018, it took almost a year to get a certificate from the Guinness World Records due to their rigorous verification process.
‘Cycling is easier than following guidelines’
Sawant says she’s relieved to have received the certificate for breaking the record. “The wait was finally over in February 2019 when we got a confirmation from the Guinness World Records. They had to verify the evidence we presented,” she said.
Adhering to the guidelines of the Guinness World Records was harder than cycling. “We had to click pictures after every milestone and had to maintain a logbook and witness book with details of our rest period. We also had to collate all the media clippings and GPS data. By the end, we had a 2,000 page document,” said the 27-year-old assistant professor of Psychology.
Her co-rider MJ Pavan, a 26-year-old engineer, who is also a national badminton player, says all the time and hard work they invested had paid off. “Breaking a world record has made me more confident in life,” he says.
Since documentation was time-consuming, the duo had trained the driver of their support vehicle carrying all the emergency tools and spare parts. But their car had broken down mid way and they had cycle from Diu to Mumbai without the support vehicle, carrying all the load on their hybrid bicycle. “We rode without the support vehicle for two weeks,” said Sawant. This was least expected when the duo was planning the ride for almost a year.
Riding for a cause
Every day they cycled for about 70km and gymmed for a year. They also learnt basic repairs of a bicycle since the guidelines had stated that the bicycle cannot be changed during the journey. “Our tyres would get punctured at least three times every day. During the ride, we cycled for 100 or 150km a day. Once, we had cycled for over 290km from Bengal to Assam. We were burning 4,000 calories a day, we would consume calories of same amount,” said Sawant. The duo decided to go local with food and also spread message of literacy and polio eradication. They also visited over 300 government school on their ride across the country.