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Pedal power

Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy

Jaw-dropping Every Wednesday, Samim cycles to and from Mysore twice

The grocer near Samim Rizvi’s house must have wondered why the Rizvi family bought so many eggs every week. A normal family would buy maybe a dozen eggs a week but 20 dozen per week? The answer to that mystery is that Samim Rizvi cycles quite a bit to keep in training and after covering about 2,000 km per week he needs to replenish a lot of calories and so eats the egg whites of about 20 eggs everyday.

Apart from that, Samim has to weigh each ingredient of the rest of his meal like pasta, rice, noodles etc so that he gets the perfect amount of carbohydrates and does not put on any excess weight.He also has to have plenty of wheat chappatis, lots of spinach and fruits and plenty of water to drink. Take one look at Samim Rizvi and you see a man whose frame has just the right amount of muscle and flesh.

Samim got hooked onto cycling when he was in France in 1998. Watching the large number of cyclists in the Tour de France, Samim nursed the hope that he too would one day be a participant.

If things fall into place for Samim, he could just about be on the start list. But before the Tour de France, Samim will show his mettle participating in the Paris-Brest-Paris cycling race in 2008 and the Boston-Montreal-Boston event in 2009.

He will also try to make the start list in the Race Across USA to be run over 5,000 kms in eight to ten days. This event would see contestants cycling for 22 hours each day and getting about two hours sleep over the eight to 10 days.

These are not easy targets to reach. To be fit enough to make the start list a cyclist has to cover the distance of 1,200 kms (Paris and Boston races) in 90 hours. Samim is presently working hard to cover the distance of 1,200 km in 40 hours and the Limca Book of Records will be monitoring Samim’s timings.

Samim’s training routine will make anybody’s jaw drop with amazement. Every Wednesday, Samim cycles to Mysore (up and down) twice. That’s a distance of over 500 km in one single day. On other days he cycles up and down Nandi Hills about three times. The rugged athlete once ran all the way from Bangalore to Mumbai in 22 days and then cycled back from Mumbai to Bangalore in five days! After the Mumbai run, Samim had a stroke of good luck. Reading about Samim’s exploits, Dinesh Reddy of Red Rooster Racing was impressed. Through a mutual friend, Pirosh Shah, Samim met up with Dinesh Reddy who by then had decided to help Samim realise his ambitions.

Dinesh Reddy signed up Samim and the duo went to Singapore to buy the best cycle available for Samim’s training and racing. The model, called “ Specialized” was recently displayed at a Press meet that Red Rooster had organised.

Samim’s training routine includes doing Pylometric work-outs for physical fitness. He has been able to get Lance Armstrong’s trainer Chris Carmichael and cycling coach David Styles to help him out with his pro-training on-line.

What problems does Samim face in his every day training? People’s response is mixed he says. “It’s not unsual for motorists to curse me for being on the road. ‘Get out of the way’ is commonly heard.” However, some auto and bus drivers “are very nice and quite encouraging,” Samim adds. Samim has some big plans. With the help of Red Rooster Racing, he hopes to re-establish a velodrome for cyclists in Bangalore. The one that was there had been demolished leaving a lot of cyclists upset.

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