Bhavin Shukla

Recently, Prisha, my daughter, persuaded me to go to a lemon orchard. Yes, I signed up for a three-day, 300-kilometer bicycle ride from Slovenia to Venice, with a total elevation gain of about 1400 metres.

When life delivers you lemons, they say to make lemonade, but how?

Being blessed with wisdom from birth, I made the decision to routinely exercise/practise, but this did not work out. With only three weeks left and Indian blood coursing through my veins, I finally started searching for the ideal Jugād. To those who are new with the phrase, Jugād refers to workarounds, shortcuts, etc., but it also refers to more than that, i.e., the workaround need not always be morally righteous, lawful, or ethical. My Jugād: my younger daughter had her important GCSE exams that week, so I told the organisers I couldn’t go. They rejected this right away, and I was categorically told to choose between doing it now or never.

With Jugād attempt failed, finally, I got my hybrid bike out and rode 2 to 3 times going in total 20 miles. Thinking this should be good enough to get me from Slovenia to Venice. With one week to go, destiny chose to help me. I ended up into A&E due to severe abdominal pain. Kidney stone was identified as the cause. I happily announced to the organisers about the status change. This was once again upfront refused, the organisers were all doctors and the UK’s top urologist was also cycling along. So the insensitive people assured me that if anything happens then I will be taken care of during the trip, I understood that empathy is a rare find.

Before I left for the trip, I asked my younger daughter, Krishnakeli, for any tips that she can give me. She said, “quote Dori 🐟”, i.e. just keep swimming. Her advice was, don’t worry dad just keep cycling, it is that easy.

The trip started, we landed in Ljubljana (Slovenia) a night before. Our bikes were brought there before we began. There were in total 50 people (mostly professional bikers, yep!) taking part in this event. To let you know that I realised during my 20 mile workout that I will need a road-bike. We bought the road-bike from Halfords just on the day when the van was going from UK to Slovenia. I had never tried the weird handle bike 🚲 before.

As it happened, I literally cycled for not more than 3 to 5 miles and of all the 50 people, police 🚓 caught me while I was cycling. Came to know that this was a no-cycling zone, i.e. a motorway. I felt at peace, thinking they will now put me in their car and drop me to Venice. The police shouted, screamed and were very aggressive, but this time sadly full of empathy, they let me go.

The first day was extremely hard, really tough. With hardly any practice, new bike and ascent of 1250m, I appreciated the mountain in front of me. But I kept Dorying, as per the advice received. Then the joy and light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel thing happened. It is said that if you fail an exam and your best friend tops, there is nothing more sad than that, I experienced an opposite phenomena. The “pro” and some of the friends who have been cycling and going to these trips for years, I saw them 20-50 metres in front of me. They were all struggling and feeling miserable. The ascent was 8 degrees in some places and 12 degrees at others, it was a 12 km ascent of 1250m and 18 km descent, it was tough. This was my aha moment, my dose of glucose, everyone was suffering and struggling, i.e. I was not alone. Now I realised the true meaning of, keep cycling.

I was the last one to finish on day 1 and day 2, but picked up my spirit on day 3 and ended as part of the penultimate group. By day 3, I could fix people’s bike chains, which I had no clue to start with. In fact, only after day-2 I found out the right way to put the cycling gloves. In short, I managed to get my lemonade🥤.

The important lessons learnt on the trip, and the lemonade recipe:

🏹 Set Targets 🎯 – Ambitious Ones 🥇

Ambitious but realistic targets are important to push us beyond our comfort zones. I was surprised by what I achieved within these three days. The body has unlimited strength, we need to challenge ourselves to raise the bar at every given opportunity. Also, you want to get a sense of achievement at the end of the activity, this is only possible if you have given everything to overcome new challenges.🏅

🧭 Plan in Advance

Day-1 was absolutely brutal. At every turn and corner I felt that I will get a chance to relax for a while before climbing again, but it just kept coming, it was relentless. Still no one gave up, the main reason was that all of this was happening in paradise. Slovenia is a beautiful country, the people have done an amazing job to preserve its natural resources. Not just the trees, forest and mountains, the rivers and lakes are transparent and beautiful, of sea-green colour. This was not a coincidence but the organisers planned this to perfection.

Day-2 and Day-3 were almost flat. We could have started in Venice and rode to Slovenia, but then the hardest course would have been left last. Again, getting the most difficult thing out of the way upfront was meticulously planned.

The stay for 50+ people, setting up a support team, choosing the right course and destination, selecting the time of the year – bank holiday weekend, organising food, picking up the right company of riders – not open for all, etc, all this required planning in advance.

🦸🦸‍♀️ Have Support Team Around – you need super humans!

You need a support team, who you can depend upon for any 🆘 or team available for shoutouts 📢 for the smallest of the concerns. It gives you mental assurance that there is nothing to worry about. The entire trip was so smooth and hardly there was a realisation that we were cycling 300km. The support team waited for us almost every 20km to ensure our well-being, constantly having conversations and keeping us hydrated.

There were technical mechanists, to give an idea, e.g. we had someone from Redbull’s F1 team ensuring that we and our bikes are in good shape. There were support cars passing around us giving constant strength, motivating us that we are not left far behind. There were lunch breaks organised midway and 3/4 of the distance for the day, for us to energise. They were ace!

🤗 Be In Good Company – People With Similar Mindset 🧠

You need to be in a company of people having similar mindset and likings. These types of challenges are more about crossing mental blocks than overcoming physical boundaries. If you are in a good company, half of your battle is won. On these trips, there are formation of small groups and pelotons, as riders have different bikes with different speed, navigation skills and likings. These pelotons are super strong and looks after each other very well. Pick your peloton wisely.

🛠️ Get Relevant Tools

You need appropriate tools for these type of trips. I do not think that it would have been possible to climb the mountain on day-1 with a hybrid bike. I bought a bike with good gear system and disk-brakes. Disk-brakes were super helpful during the steep descent.

🎢 Enjoy the Ride Journey

Enjoying the ride is a must. Getting sense of achievement reaching to the goal is not long lasting, it is just one moment. Real fun is the actual journey.

🏋️ Train well

Train, train, train 🚂 – I was wrong in not training for long distance biking. With training, I would have enjoyed the journey even more. Physical training is good, but not enough. I do meditation and yoga daily, I believe my mental positive state and breathing control really helped me in the trip.

🔚Avoid Being Last

I found out in the trip on how hard it is to be the very last in the last peloton. It is painful if you are not able to ride at your own pace, this is because you are constantly trying to catchup with the previous rider. It is mentally and physically exhausting. When you know that there is no one behind you in a middle of nowhere, it is a dreadful place to be.

🍹My Lemonade

To conclude, what a trip. Met new people, who I would not have met otherwise, and made new friends. Loved being in company with my daughter. Saw a new country, Slovenia is mesmerising. I would not have appreciated the beauty by travelling to these places by car. Without getting involved, it was not possible to recognise how much effort and planning goes into organising these close-circle events. And I believe, I have picked up a new hobby because of this trip. The only thing that did not go as planned was that I had to let go off my precious, the Kohinoor 💎I was carrying, the roads were more efficient than country’s best urologists (wink!).

I do not believe that the lemonade recipe is limited to specific type of lemons, I think it should work while facing any challenges, in life or at work.

And last but not the least, every ascent/climb will have a descent, and vice versa. Success and failures are complementary to each other, so just enjoy the journey and the views, you are in a paradise, everything has been meticulously planned for you. This is nirvana. So, “Keep Dorying!”

Enjoy your lemonade!

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About the Author:

Bhavin Shukla has been working as an IT Consultant in the data space for more than 25 Years. As a Data and Analytics professional, he has worked extensively for years on complex IT Transformation Programmes within Healthcare, Finance, Insurance and Telco domains.

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