NAVEEN JOHN
Pedaleur & engineerd, nudging #IndianCyclingForward
Born and brought-up in the desert heat of Kuwait, I headed out west for college, and snagged an electrical engineering degree from Purdue University. It was there that a friend introduced me to collegiate racing. I went for the weekend road trips, and I stayed for the unadulterated fun of bike racing.
Somewhere along the line, an idea came up -- of winning the Indian National ITT title -- and that's where the story of my life jumped the shark. In 2012, I moved home to Bangalore. I raced on, and helped run India's first elite amateur racing team. 2 years later, in 2014, I won my first National ITT title by half a second.
In 2015, I decided that I wanted to try and do more in my sport and for my sport in India. So I chased a couple opportunities sleeplessly, and in 2016, I became the first Indian to be signed to a UCI Div III Continental team, down in Australia. I also earned the opportunity to represent India at the 2016 UCI Road World Championships in the ITT in Doha, Qatar.
In 2017, I came back home to India to work on an incremental goal -- to top-5 at the Asian Cycling Champs. I intend to achieve this by leveraging the rich and storied Belgian kermis racing calendar over the summers and competitive Aussie crit racing season over the winter, to drive the physical progression necessary to achieve my goal.
My macro approach to progression in the sport involves:
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Squeezing the physical max out of myself daily i.e. being "professional"
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Adopting and adapting best practices in the sport to local constraints
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Leveraging already existing robust systems outside India
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Networking with good people all over the world within the sport
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Defining & keeping the focus on process, less worrying over outcomes
- Executing all of this on shoestring budget
The pathways I tread, the lessons I learn, and the support I am extended, I work to pay it forward through the:
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coaching work I do over at WattBombs coaching
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mentoring the next generation through the IndianCyclingProject
#KaamKaro,
NJ