Cycling Into The Wild

Close Shaves With Bears and Living Off the Grid—inside Dhruv Bogra’s Epic Solo Crosscountry Tour of the Great American Continent

- Lubna Amir

When a man is on a solo cycling trip for nearly a year, the comforts of modern life begin to fade and all he is left with is nature, harsh and majestic by turns. Travelling for days without meeting a soul, he becomes attuned to the rhythms of the wind and the mysterious ways of animals. Alone at the end of a long day, he learns to grapple with his demons.

Dhruv Bogra, a 49-year-old former corporate executive from Delhi, is on this remarkable journey right now. Currently in South America, he is only a few months away from accomplishing a feat unfathomable for the average person: riding through the Pan American Highway, from Alaska to Argentina, in its entirety if everything goes to plan.

A dedicated cyclist in his youth, his passion fell by the wayside once his corporate career took off. A few years ago, he met someone in Mumbai who cycled his way to work. On an impulse, he bought a mountain bike for himself. From that moment, his biking dreams were reignited.

The Beginning

In a conversation from Peru, Bogra reminisces about rediscovering his passion as an adult. On weekdays, he often woke up at 4.30 a.m. to cycle while weekends were meant for biking to the outskirts of either Mumbai or Delhi, wherever he was based for work. He also made friends with a group of cycling enthusiasts. The group’s weekend rides started to get longer and soon enough, they were training to cycle from Manali to Khardung La.

That journey, undertaken in 2011, was arduous and heady, and was Bogra’s introduction to touring cycling. He says, “The success and the achievement of this [tour] spurred me on to start looking at bigger biking goals for myself.”