Mighty hearts

Putting into practice what he preaches, Dr Aashish Contractor, head of the department of preventive cardiology and cardiac rehabilitation at the Asian Heart Institute, exhibited heart and sole to cycle non-stop from Bombay to Poona on April 4, 2011. Riding over hill and dale, Contractor and his training partner Jaideep Khanna, head of investment banking, India, Barclays Capital, covered the tough 167.44 km distance in a time of seven hours, 10 minutes. Two days before the event, they asked family and friends to pledge money for charity — and raised for the Akanksha Foundation and the St Jude India ChildCare Centres more than Rs 11 lakhs!

On a moonless night, the pair started off from the Air India building at Nariman Point at 1.40 a.m. to beat the heat of April. Khanna’s car followed them, lighting up the road ahead and carrying the much needed fluids and carbohydrate gels for the riders. The journey through Bombay was not too bad, describes Contractor, since the late night revelers were "all partied out on Saturday night itself after India’s (cricket) World Cup win!” A few of Khanna’s colleagues followed them on their bikes (Enfield motorbikes, not cycles!) for the first few kilometers. "So for a brief moment in the sun, or should I say darkness, we felt like Tour de France riders with escort bikes on either side and a car following with a spare bike. To add to that feeling, we were kitted out in Lance Armstrong’s RadioShack jerseys. They (the motorcyclists) peeled away at Chembur and then it was just us and our friends, the truckers, who for good measure would stick their hands on to their wonderful pressure horns…” Contractor narrates in his blog on the website www.cyclists.in

The Panvel-Khopoli stretch, though it appears fairly flat, is quite undulating. The ride to the base of the Bhor Ghat was super, he continues, "though as we neared, a sense of anticipation, mixed with a healthy dose of anxiety, crept over us.” The ride involved, in aggregate, an ascent of over 1,200 m, with the steepest section of the old Bombay-Poona road climbing 600 m in less than nine km, notes Khanna. The thought of raising money for charity provided the motivation, he adds, when legs were flagging, heads sagging and butts reminded them that they are not designed to be perched on five-inch wide cycle seats for several hours non-stop!

Dr Aashish Contractor (right) with Jaideep Khanna: cycling for a cause

They started climbing at around 5.15 a.m. in the darkness. "There was no strong breeze to greet us at the start of the Ghats, unlike in our last practice ride, which made our life miserable,” 39-year-old Contractor narrates. "It’s funny, but the obvious struggle of the trucks up the steepest portions of the Ghat somehow gave me a sense of how difficult the climb was and made me feel better. Maybe it was the knowledge that I am not the only one suffering!” Reaching Khandala was a relief, though the next 20 km were still a gentle uphill. After Lonavla came the Kamshet Ghat which, after the Bhor Ghat, seemed like a piece of cake! Though his cycle chain came loose on the way, Contractor was able to fix it in under a minute.

Cycling on gamely, the duo reached the gates of Poona University, the scheduled end point. "The Garmin (navigation and communication devices) however showed 167 km, while we had promised to do 175 km for charity (with pledges being per km completed). So after taking a few pictures, we hauled ourselves back on the bikes and rode back another 10 km,” Contractor relates.

Training for the event had started in January after the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon, with which Contractor has been involved for a number of years. Starting with 40 km and steadily increasing the distance on their long rides every Sunday, the doctor and banker completed Bombay-Khandala, Bombay-Khopoli-Bombay and Panvel-Poona practice runs. "In addition we did one more day a week of hill training on the slopes of Napean Sea Road and strength training two days a week,” he adds. A bottle of Gatorade (sports drink) as well as a pack of carb energy gel every hour kept at bay the perils of dehydration during the ride.

The money raised was donated equally to the Akanksha Foundation, which works towards the education and welfare of underprivileged children, and the St Jude India ChildCare Centres, an organization that provides free stay for deserving children and parents who come to Bombay for cancer treatment. Most of their medical expenses are subsidized through the trusts recognized by the Tata Memorial, Wadia and Raheja hospitals. St Jude provides the emotional and physical support for the children to complete their treatment. "All in all, it was wonderful to have set a goal and then systematically gone about achieving it… We were overwhelmed and humbled by the response (for charity) we got in 48 hours, before we even got on the bikes… It really helped power our legs, through all the time that self-doubt crept in and in the end the whole endeavor seemed so worth it,” the doctor states.