Riding at night, engineer clocks 10k km to deliver food on time

Riding at night, engineer clocks 10k km to deliver food on time

Charan.Sadu@timesgroup.com

Bengaluru:29.10.2020 

How can a hardcore cyclist strike the perfect balance between his profession and passion? By mixing them! That’s what engineer Rajesh Nayak did when he was feeling low about not being able to cycle as much as he wanted during his stint at a consultancy company.

After working for over three years, Nayak’s 10am-5pm “sedentary work” made him think of a part-time job that would allow him to pedal to the maximum. So he joined Zomato in May last year to deliver food after his office hours. He cycled till midnight daily -- and till early hours on weekends --satiating his hunger for cycling, and that of customers by delivering them food.

Rajesh has been a cyclist for a decade. “I got to taste long-distance cycling when I was studying engineering in Mysuru during 2012-16. I enjoyed taking part in Dasara races too,” he said. But it’s the Hollywood flick ‘Premium Rush’, which he’d watched three years ago, made him to shift gears. “The bike-messenger theme (where the protagonist cycles in New York to deliver parcels) had always been on my mind. So I thought of living the character in Bengaluru by working for Zomato in night hours,” he said, adding he took the part-time work seriously after the pandemic ate up his job at the consultancy firm.

As the cycle ID restricts the boundary of food delivery partners to 5km, he chose the two-wheeler ID as it permitted him to go longer distances. “ I cycled thousands of kilometres which not only made me earn, but also helped me prepare for high-endurance rides,” he said.

Till his birthday on October 12, the 26-year-old clocked 10,000 km by criss-crossing JP Nagar, Jayanagar and BTM Layout which together marked his boundary. The distance, recorded on an activity app, includes 25 century rides (each of more than 100km) and 68 half-century rides. In 155 days that he worked for Zomato (he didn’t work during lockdown and when it rained), he made over 1,500 deliveries.

On one particular day, he rode 183km in 20 hours, by which time he had made 29 deliveries. “I did this as part of preparations for tough rides,” he said, listing some of them: Goa-1,200 and Jog-1,000. Rajesh has not made any customers wait for their food. Revealing the secret of delivering in under 30 minutes, he said: “It’s easy for a cyclist to manoeuvre traffic. I walk the cycle to avoid being stuck in red signals.”

Summing up his 10,000km food-delivery journey, the native of Chikkamagaluru said he feels gratified over not leaving a carbon footprint. “I’m also trying to drive home the anti-pollution message,” he said.

“We’ve been working towards bringing more cyclists in our delivery fleet and Rajesh is an inspiration for all. He strengthens our objective of a sustainable future and he is great with customers also,” a Zomato spokesperson said.

Rajesh Nayak (in pic), who is working as a food delivery executive to keep his passion for cycling alive, made over 1,500 deliveries in 155 days. By riding a cycle, he is trying to drive home the anti-pollution message as well