Any art-work is attached to an enigma, which it creates by the virtue of its very presence in the domain of art lovers.
BBCh is enigmatic in it's own way and creating the certain vibe among the bicycle enthusiasts.
Year after year. Seventh year.
It's been almost one year since this account is refreshed. So I thought it must get an update.
Epic Nandi Race. 19th of July 2015. The last race of the road series. Elite category podium. Enautopoulus Gonzalakis of Spain, took the microphone to speak out few words from the top of the podium, wearing the winner's medal. Any organiser would feel shaky at that moment for sure. He uttered a few words in the next few seconds. Quote, I apologize to the organisers for shouting on them at the finish line today, but I'm thankful to you for organising such events one after the other consistently, this would be my last race in Bangalore as I'm leaving India shortly, but I've enjoyed racing here thoroughly, I'll miss this way back at home, I've grown up cycling in Europe and I must say that there is no platform like BBCh which provides such organised racing events every month and I'm going to miss this, unquote.
This provides ground under the feet of the organisers. It refuels them. It gives them the energy.
BBCh being a community driven and volunteer based platform, it has it's own strength which can scale at various levels. We have started working to build a 'Legacy' behind BBCh which will eventually evolve over a long period of time and we are hopeful about it. But it is a herculean task for just four of us ( Khuram, Promise, Marghoob & myself ) at the moment as organisers. If we have a vision of making a mark in the global cycling platform then the organisation has to grow and it should get required layering which will enrich the overall experience for everyone associate with BBCh.
Last season was a time when we were concentrating on perfecting the basics of each race. At the end of the last season, we realised that we have made substantial progress on that front and it is time to move up the ladder and try something new. After lots of deliberations with the existing Cycling Teams, we came up with a strategy where the Core organising committee will execute each race in collaboration with a particular Team who takes up the responsibility. This eased out a certain amount of time for the Organisers to concentrate on the things which are unexplored and necessary for future.
This sort of a collaboration has helped in one way and showed us the weak points which needs to be strengthened in coming time to make it more effective. Each team tried to do their best to bring in something new into the event to their capabilities. We saw couple of races got breakfast organised by the respective teams which were enjoyed thoroughly by everybody.
It is a realisation that an organisation like BBCh which is run by the self motivated volunteers, is extremely difficult to sustain that self motivation which are purely based on the volunteers' personal time, dedication and hard work. It is deliberated many times that to increase the sustainability of the volunteers, why don't we introduce an incentive system among them. That thought leads to the bigger idea of making the organisation more structured and legal. The back ground work for this is in progress and as all of us are peculiarly occupied to earn our living on a normal course, it is taking a bit longer time than expected but hopefully it would see the light of the day soon around the time of MTB series and it would be in full effect by the next season.
Apart from this, BBCh has seen few new approaches in different areas in this season.
We were thinking through the whole new branding system for BBCh and the first thing to do was to get a nice Logo which could come on everything that we do. We thought instead of doing it by ourselves why don't we ask the entire community to do that ! As we thought, we launched a Logo Design Competition. It was a mind blowing process which I thoroughly enjoyed and finally after a long process we got a lovely Logo for future BBCh and it would go through a bit of fine tuning before it comes to effect. You can see all the competition entries at this link : http://bbch.in/BBChLogoCompetition2015.htm . We have talent of every walk of life in the cycling community and it is just a tapping away. This thought was reinforced after we got a fantastic Logo which is designed by a young cyclist within the community.
And this prompted us to find out a lawyer also within the community which is really nice to work with for certain issues which we are currently working on.
BBCh has gone hitech with Drone coverage of the races which again one of it's kind in Cycling history of India and we have some plans to do a proper documentation of the events in future.
BBCh has gone on AIR through a popular city radio station 'RadioCity' which broadcasted a short interview on a prime time to spread the word among the citizens.
Transponder. It was a new word to me also. Then it pushed me to do little bit of homework about that before it sees the light of the day. Transmitter + Responder = Transponder. In short. There will be a small device called transponder which will be fitted to the bike's chain-stay and that would be synchronized with the timing device at the finish line which will give an automated timing once you cross the finish line. BBCh has seen this in effect in the last race of the road series. Even though it was a baby step with lots of hitches but this will go a long way in future.
With a very limited resources we are trying to do something meaningful which might be nice to do apart from the mundane work we do often.We take one step at a time and over time we try to hone it to the perfection. That keeps us going forward.
But we need lot of volunteers with us to take BBCh to the higher level and we are hopeful to get lots of our friends to come along and make it bigger day by day. The agenda is quite long and wide. All our hard works would be really rewarded if we can achieve all of that some day. Some day !
Volunteering in BBCh has become an art for me now and I would like to be in that enigmatic state as long as life permits !
