Pedalling for pleasure: How cycling is becoming an increasingly popular recreational fitness activity in India

The last two years, especially, has seen a never-before-seen surge in people from urban India signing up for cycling

Photographer Kunal Daswani and his friends used to be regulars at Chennai’s Presidency Club. Clutching cue sticks, they would chat around the snooker table, with the sharp taps of the coloured balls punctuating the conversation. When the pandemic forced pretty much every place in India to shut down for several months, since March 2020, Kunal missed two things: a sport he liked to play and a social circle. Both, during the lockdowns, were essential — for physical and mental health — yet difficult to engage in. That’s when he did something that changed his life: he rode his brother’s bike.

“My brother had a cycle. He said it’s a good sport but he didn’t really like it. So, I took the cycle out once or twice. I started liking it a lot,” he says. Cycling was among the few outdoor activities allowed throughout the lockdowns. Soon, his snooker gang started meeting up for early morning rides.

Kunal, 39, calls this a lifechanging activity because it helped him, among other things, to wake up early, shed excess bodyweight, optimise his heart-rate, improve his mood, think of creative ideas, and make new friends. The traffic-free rides also allowed him a chance to explore the city more extensively than he has before.

He is among the many people across India who started pedalling, especially for recreation, during the pandemic. Though exact numbers are unavailable, cycling enthusiasts and industry analysts attest to this surge. On Strava Metro, the urban data service from the Strava fitness and networking app, the number of recreation cycle users went up from 21,673 in July 2019 to 37,529 in July 2020 to 51,685 in July 2021.

According to industry trackers, CRISIL Ratings, India, which is the second-largest manufacturer of bicycles in the world, saw a decade-high demand growth of 20% last year. “The pandemic-induced constraints on fitness and leisure options increased the demand for bicycles, especially in the premium and kids segments,” said its director, Nitesh Jain, in the report.

Rohan Kini, founder of Bums On The Saddle, a premium bicycle and bike accessories brand in Bengaluru, says his company’s sales figures in the last two years were four times more than usual. “There is no doubt that more people jumped onto the cycling bandwagon. It was one of the few good things that happened due to Covid,” he says.

Even if we discount the Covid-induced surge of recreational cyclists, this community in India has been steadily growing over the last few years. Actor Arya, for instance, has been cycling since his school days. “It has been a part of my life for almost forever. But I started doing long-distance rides seven years ago,” he says.