Anil Kadsur's Cycling Mania

The Bengaluru-based physical trainer has ridden 100 kilometres every day without a break for more than 1,000 days, and is showing no signs of slowing down

- Shail Desai

On the 2nd of August, 2020, Anil Kadsur decided to ride 100 km for nine consecutive days alongside other cyclists from Bengaluru. The first day panned out smoothly, and Kadsur was surprised to have ridden the distance with relative ease, despite a long training break due to the pandemic. It was no different over the next eight days; by the end of it, a little celebration unfolded for the cyclists, who had managed to ride the entire 900 km.

As the celebrations died down, Kadsur was up in the dead of the night. He wanted to take on the 100 km distance yet again, and there's been no stopping him ever since. As of May 25th, the 44-year-old has logged 1,027 consecutive days of going the 100 km distance. According to Strava, a popular Swedish phone app used by cyclists to track their timing and distances, Kadsur rode 40,004 km last year, which he says is the most distance logged by an Indian. So far in 2023, he has passed the 15,000 km milestone.

"I had ridden 100 km for 30 days in 2016, so I wanted to see if I could still do it again after all these years. Those nine days soon became a month, then six months, then a year and before I realised it, I had been riding for over two years. Then somebody informed me that I was close to the Guinness World Records mark, which stands at 764 days, so I went past that as well. And then I thought I should just keep going as long as I can," he shares. "There was a lot of negativity that I experienced during the pandemic. So, once the first lockdown was over in 2020, I decided to make the most of my time. Cycling for me was just right."