Riyan Kumar cycles 109 km non-stop; His feat is recorded in the World Book of Records.
Your child may not take to your profession, but chances are high that they will take up your hobby if you make them a little curious about it. Maybe they adjust to you faster than expected—when their shoe is barely half your size. Retired naval officer Gauri Mishra would agree with that post, only superficially re-creating it by replacing the shoes with pedals.
Gauri gives a glimpse into the dimensions of her son Riyan Kumar’s world, “His two pedals are the equivalent of one pedal on my bicycle, whose Doppler-shift indicates that it is not too far from the world of dog goal-focused adults .
With his seventh birthday still a month away, Ryan holds a cycling record: the youngest to have clocked 109km non-stop, a feat monitored and recorded by the World Book of Records, London, this July.
Gauri is a randonur with Madras Randonneurs, having completed a 200km brevet. His enthusiasm for cycling rained on Ryan just as his mother did.
Gauri says, “My mother Prabha Mishra was a national level cyclist.
She underscores the characteristic of Ryan’s achievement: it arrived at the back of a rudimentary cycle. Ryan has so far sat on a regular 16-inch kid’s bicycle with no gears and doesn’t seem to have been stretched in any way for a record-setting long distance ride.
“First of all, I have not found a road bike suitable for their size,” says Gauri.
“The disadvantage of having a regular, gearless bike is that it gets very little assistance from it when it’s climbing a flyover.”
So, Gauri puts Riyan through various bends in Chennai, and the practice has made her flyover hard.
“There is a small flyover in the port area where we live, where we trained him, and then follow it up with the flyover near the Savera Hotel and then the Gemini flyover. He was never bored with these flyover-climbing practice sessions,” says Gauri.
The family lives in the staff quarters on Flagstaff Road at the Island Ground. With its laid-back environment, the geography is suitable for leisure cycling, but cannot support the intensity of the mother-son duo association with cycling, which requires a wide terrain.
“On October 10, Riyan and I attempted to ride 150 km from Chennai to Puducherry down the East Coast Road, but ended up back in Kalpakkam as the road has been treacherous for any cyclist since then, especially for a six-year-old. for. However, on his way back to our home in Flagstaff Road, while roaming in Kalpakkam, he covered a distance of 150 km,” explains Gauri, adding that Riyan’s ride is recorded on a GPS-powered cycling app, with which he “ has been registered. Ryan the Lion”, and this ride was no exception.
“There’s cycling three days a week – two days during the work week and one during the weekend. We’d start around 3 a.m. and be back at about 8.30 a.m. before traffic increased. Like a six-year-old for five and a half hours.” Keeping interest isn’t easy, but it’s never been a challenge for Ryan.
Gauri has his own long-distance cycling ambitions, but to become a supporter for Ryan has put him under suspension.
“Currently, I ride a hybrid cycle but will switch to a road bike only when Ryan is ready for one. I now have to ride with Ryan’s kid’s cycle and having a fast road bike doesn’t help.”
It is the smallest of the sacrifices. His retirement after 16 years of naval service was partly shaped by Ryan’s desire to be able to pay more attention to details as he grew up.
“For almost a few years, our family of three was living in three cities – my husband was posted in Mumbai, I was posted in Chennai; And Riyan was in Delhi with my sister.
In January 2021, when my husband was posted in Chennai, the three of us were reunited,” shared Gauri. “When I used to visit Riyan in Delhi, I used to help him with short cycle trips, running as well as cycling. This house in Delhi has a big lawn, and I will put up suitable toys to make a zigzag cycling course for him.
In January, when I took him on my cycle tour in Chennai, I noticed that he enjoyed it.
What happened after that is in front of everyone.
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