While much of India and the world battened down the hatches last year, IT professional Andrew Menezes, saw an opportunity. With the roads relatively free of traffic, the Mumbai local saw the chance of a lifetime and embarked on a pan-India cycle marathoner, or cyclothon if you will, while also remotely working on the move, from attending zoom calls on the road to doing Work From Dhaba. Between October to December of last year, Menezes traveled over 3,000 kms on the highway and stopped at 23 cities, with the main route being Mumbai-New Delhi-Pune- Goa. Some of the other cities that he covered on his trip include Nashik, Indore, Ujjain, Chittorgarh, Ajmer, Agra and more.
Excerpts from an interview:
Have you always been an avid cyclist? Did you have to practice for this marathon endeavour?
I started taking cycling seriously only since the lockdown began. Before that, it was an occasional activity, since I preferred playing football. When the lockdown was in place, football was out of the picture, so I got into cycling. Over the months leading up to October, I got good at cycling, and was able to cycle atleast 2-3 hours at a time. The practice I required was to try and balance work with cycling. To do this, for three days straight I cycled around 60kms daily and then got back home to continue working. This allowed me to get a fair idea of my average speed and also test the waters with respect to working remotely
Would you have attempted the feat if much of the country hadn’t been under lockdown and so the traffic much more manageable?
No. I attempted this because there was a lockdown and we were to be working from home (or remotely). Because of the lockdown, the roads were empty, the hotels available (and cheap due to the low demand), and the places of interest for tourism were practically deserted. Moreover, since it was the onset of winter, the weather was perfect to cycle.
Given that you visited a number of different cities, how different was life under the pandemic in those parts of India?
The further away I was from a major city or town, the lesser I felt the effects of the pandemic. Covid was practically nonexistent in villages and towns. In fact, people were surprised to see me on the road. I got a lot of cheers from the children I saw along the way. It was only when I reached a major city that I would feel the effects of the pandemic. People were not really afraid of the virus, at least not the ones with whom I interacted on the highways. This quelled any fears I had about the virus.