Meera Velankar loves cycling so much that today it has become her identity. “From being known as Dr Meera, I am now popular as cyclist Meera,” explains the cycling enthusiast, who adds it all happened accidentally.
Meera, a PhD in life sciences, hails from Mumbai and came to Bengaluru in 2011 with her family after her husband “got a great job here. We shifted base to this city. But, I just could not get any opening here professionally. As we had no support system here, I started taking care of the house and almost went into a depression as I am aggressively ambitious.”
Bengaluru Karnataka 11/10/2017 Cyclist meera Pic to go with Metro plus report . Photo: Sampath Kumar G P
One fine day, narrates Meera, “after packing off my family to work and school, the bicycle gifted to me by my husband caught my eye. I read that people cycle a lot on Sivas Road. Impulsively, I put the bicycle in an auto and landed there and simply started cycling.”
Meera was 36-years-old and a mother of two when she started cycling. She made it a point to pedal for 15 to 20 kms everyday even to buy vegetables. “I lost weight and cycling calmed me down.”
She soon started her own website Pedalmummy.com where she started posting all her cycling expeditions on. “Exploring Whitefield (where she lives) was my first passion.” She has been cycling and promoting it in and around her neighbourhood. Meera, today is a three-time Limca record holder in the field of Long distance or endurance cycling. She is also the first to do the Tandem 200, 300, 400 and 600 km rides with partner Rafi and has earned the title of Super Randonneur on Tandem bike in India. She has even completed the Half Ironman in 2015.
Bengaluru Karnataka 11/10/2017 Cyclist Meera Pic to go with Metro plus report . Photo: Sampath Kumar G P
“My speciality is cycling. So I started encouraging women to start cycling. Whether they are single or married. Through Pedalmummy.com people started reaching out to me. Then I created my own group and started conducting events for children in the neighbourhood and also do corporate talks, where I talk about my journey from being a mother to an athletic person.”
Meera adds she “did not start off to give any message. But the change in my lifestyle became a message to other women and they too started taking to it. That way, I feel I have contributed to helping quite a few women take to cycling,” beams Meera. Recently she organised a trip called “Tour de Teens”, where she took six children to Kerala. “We took a bus to Kerala. There, we hired bicycles and did 90 odd kms in three days. We taught them about giving up junk food, helped them get off their mobiles, and just enjoy the ambience on their cycles. This became an educational trip. One day we went to the spice garden and the next we went for Kathakali performance,” says Meera who now works in the edit team of the magazine Crank with Procycle.
“It has given me an identity. I feel that I have a life now besides marriage and kids. I want to encourage women to take to it as most of them go through a lot of guilt if they even embark on taking up a hobby. I want to tell them to just buy a bicycle or even rent one out and start pedalling around. Cycling is a life changer.”
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