When Anu Palnitkar, 54, rolled up to the Washington Monument at noon on Sept. 21, she became what her team believes is the first Indian American woman to cross the United States on an unsupported, unpowered bicycle.
Riding beside her were Jai Rawat, 57, and Samir Palnitkar, 58, who believe they are the first Indian American men over 50 to complete the feat. The claims are based on research by Jai’s wife, Jyoti Rawat.
The three Indian Americans set out from Santa Monica, California, on Aug. 1. Fifty-two days later, they had covered 3,168 miles, climbed more than 100,000 feet and crossed 14 states, carrying everything they needed on their bicycles with no support vehicle following them.
Their journey carried unmistakable touches of home. Jai named his blue specialized bikepacking bicycle “Chetak,” after Maharana Pratap’s famed blue horse, and mounted a yellow duck named Bubbles on its handlebar. He wrote Hindi poems inspired by the road. And on Raksha Bandhan, Anu tied a rakhi around his wrist.
More than 500 people followed their progress through a WhatsApp group, where the cyclists shared daily updates.
Entrepreneurs, a dietitian and decades of adventure
Off the bike, the riders bring long résumés. Jai is a serial entrepreneur with 33 years of business experience and 19 technology patents. He earned a computer science degree from IIT Kanpur and a master’s from Iowa State University.
Samir, also an IIT Kanpur graduate, has founded five startups over 34 years. Both men count Zinrelo, Obongo and Mojo Networks among their companies, acquired by Scaleworks, AOL and Arista, respectively. Samir’s other ventures, Ingot Systems and I2P, were acquired by Synopsys and Lattice Semiconductor. He holds five U.S. patents and has written two books on semiconductor chip design.
Anu trained as a dietitian at Delhi University and San Jose State University. After several years in practice, she began teaching at a school for children with special needs. She has run three marathons, walked 100 kilometers from Pune to Mahabaleshwar in 24 hours and visited more than 100 countries.
Jai, Samir and Anu have completed numerous treks in the past, including Everest Base Camp, the Annapurna Circuit, Mount Kilimanjaro, Patagonia’s W Trek and the Tour du Mont Blanc. Jai has run 50-mile ultramarathons, and in 2018 he and Samir cycled about 600 miles from San Francisco to Los Angeles. That ride showed Jai how cycling could reveal a place differently, and he wanted to go further.
For Anu, an endurance athlete who started with “little to no cycling experience,” the ride was a new kind of challenge, one she accepted when it was proposed.
Each rider took on a role. Samir handled logistics, served as chief mechanic and posted daily historical notes. Jai documented the ride through photographs, videos, poems, quizzes and contests. Anu led the morning warmups and shared her own reflections from the road.
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Jai trained for about two months, combining long rides and climbs with strength training, yoga and hiking. Anu and Samir trained for more than three months on an indoor trainer, alongside strength training, yoga, hiking and running. They planned the route using Adventure Cycling Association resources, choosing cycling-friendly roads, avoiding the steepest climbs in the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains, and booking hotels in advance.
Heat, highways and Route 66
The ride began at Santa Monica Pier, heading east on historic Route 66. The first day brought temperatures near 96 degrees and two punctures. The heat left Anu with cramps and nausea, forcing a stop of several hours and stretching the day to 13 hours.
On the second day, the cyclists found themselves on the shoulder of Interstate 15 as large trucks passed at high speed. Riding beside heavy traffic on narrow or missing shoulders remained among the most difficult parts of the trip. Jai called it his toughest experience, worrying that a single distracted driver at 65 mph could end the journey, with potentially fatal consequences.
For the first 36 days, the heat was relentless. Temperatures often ran from 95 to 106 degrees, with heat advisories on many days. The riders began as early as 3:15 a.m., yet the heat index often remained above 100 degrees when they finished. By the fourth or fifth day, Jai said, they were already considering abandoning the trip.
Day 25, in Oklahoma, stood out as particularly brutal, with 12-15mph headwinds and temperatures around 100 degrees. Jai said the only time they smiled that day was for photographs.
Unleashed dogs chased the cyclists through much of the first 34 days, and one knocked Anu off her bicycle in Oklahoma, leaving her with scratches. Road debris caused six flats, two per rider, all repaired on their own, and a nightly tire inspection became routine.
The route also delivered unexpected moments. In Seligman, Arizona, they visited Angel Delgadillo’s shop, the barber known for helping preserve Route 66. They entered Petrified Forest National Park before opening time and had it largely to themselves for nearly two hours. They crossed the Continental Divide at about 7,881 feet in New Mexico, and after 36 days, said goodbye to Route 66 beneath the Gateway Arch in St. Louis.
Anu’s falls and the decision to keep going
Anu fell three times during the journey. The most serious came on Day 34, when she accidentally grabbed her front brake and her bicycle somersaulted. She was taken by ambulance to Rolla, Missouri, with forehead and shoulder injuries and spent four hours under observation.
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Showing great mental fortitude, she was back on the bicycle after just two rest days. She fell again on the Great Allegheny Passage on Day 50. Getting back on after a fall, she said, was one of the hardest parts of the trip, and the experience changed her considerably over the course of the journey.
Jai had his own scare when an insect, possibly a bee or wasp, struck his lower lip while he was riding. The swelling affected his face for three days.
Cornfields, history and kind strangers
After St. Louis, the cyclists crossed the Mississippi River on the Chain of Rocks Bridge into Illinois. The deserts of the West gave way to corn and soybean fields through Indiana and into Ohio, where they found some of their favorite bicycle trails.
Samir’s daily notes covered the origins of Route 66 in 1926, Lincoln’s Illinois and the Hanna coal mine disaster, turning the ride into a running account of the country rather than a record of mileage. Jai reflected on the Midwest’s role in the nation’s growth and on the scars interstate highways left on towns that once depended on Route 66, a trade-off between efficiency and community.
In the second half, rain replaced heat as the main worry. Frequent thunderstorms and warnings forced the group to adjust schedules and look for safe windows to ride.
Along the way, strangers stepped in. Ted, a mechanic in Kingman, Arizona, repaired Anu’s wheel without charging her. A motel host named Manoj washed their wet clothes and dried their shoes in his own laundry. Todd in Oklahoma offered water and Gatorade from his home, Carly in Quaker City helped refill their bottles, and a New Mexico convenience store gave them free coffee.
Samir’s sons, Aditya and Sahil, traveled to meet the group twice and were at the finish. Jai’s daughter, Rishika, also met them at the finish line. Anu’s takeaway was simple: people are much the same everywhere, friendly and willing to help when needed.
Days followed a practical rhythm: wake early, stretch, eat and ride. Evenings meant food, showers, laundry, charging devices, tire checks and posting updates. They ate what they could find, from morning protein shakes to pizza, bagels and Taco Bell, and Anu was especially happy whenever they came across dosa and idli.
Poetry on the road
Jai’s Hindi poems moved between the beauty of nature, the exhaustion of climbing hills and the determination to keep going. One, inspired by the wild donkeys of Oatman, Arizona, wondered whether the animals might be freer than people caught up in life’s complications “मैं गधा कि तू गधा!” Another captured the struggle of riding through punishing conditions:
“जब लगे कि टाँगें रुक गई हैं,
कमर तुम्हारी झुक गई है
ऊर्जा नस-नस की फूँक गई है”
(When it feels as if your legs have given up, your back is bent under the strain, and every ounce of energy has been burned away.)
Or the struggles of waking up early without adequate rest:
“अभी तो आँखें खुली नहीं हैं
क्षितिज की स्याही धुली नहीं है
अभी तो मुर्गा तक भी सोया है
जग गहन अंधकार में खोया है
कर लो तनिक और विश्राम
फिर पूरा दिन न मिलेगा विराम”
(Your eyes are barely open yet, the black ink of the horizon hasn’t faded yet. Even the rooster is fast asleep, The whole world lies lost in darkness deep. Rest just a little longer, take a pause, For once the day begins, there will be no stop.)
His most persistent theme was home. Away from his wife, Jyoti, and their children, Rishika, Yashvi and Rohan, he wrote about missing everyday family moments:
“सफर बेइंतहा हसीन है, लेकिन घर की सड़क क्यूं याद आती है,
हर खिले हुए फूल में बच्चों की मासूम मुस्कान याद आती है।”
(The journey is stunning, yet why does my heart yearn for the street back home? In every blooming flower, I see our children’s innocent smiles.)
Jai said the time outdoors gave him space to reconnect with himself and write spontaneously. It also reminded him how little he needed. He managed with two sets of cycling clothes and two of regular clothes, and reflected that even his five-bedroom home could feel small when filled with possessions.
On Raksha Bandhan, Anu tied around Jai’s wrist a rakhi she had carried since the first day. Jai called her “the perfect little sister I never had.” For her, the journey reinforced a belief that people can find happiness anywhere when they are doing something they genuinely love.
The finish line
The final stretch began with a demanding climb into West Virginia, including a day with 3,800 feet of climbing and grades of 12.5%. The group then joined the Great Allegheny Passage, the roughly 150-mile rail trail between Pittsburgh and Cumberland, Maryland, riding through tunnels, across viaducts and past rust-red waterfalls left by old mine drainage.
Rain made the rough C&O Canal trail unsuitable for the last approach, so the group carried their bicycles to Virginia in a minivan. From there, they rode the paved W&OD Trail and crossed the Potomac River into Washington.
At noon on Sept. 21, all three reached the Washington Monument, raised their arms and held their bicycles aloft. “Oh my God! It feels so unreal,” Anu said. Jai marked the moment with his traditional headstand and a verse from Harivansh Rai Bachchan’s “Madhushala.”
Anu thanked Jai, who she said had supported her unconditionally and become family, and Samir, who she said had believed in her more than she believed in herself.
The ride is over, but its story may continue. Samir said the group plans to publish a blog and is seriously considering a book.
Jai, for his part, found meaning in the numbers. Day 52, he noted, was “like a deck of cards… and today is 21, the perfect blackjack hand!!”