Whenever Shijoy Jacob leaves home for a cycling expedition, his mother, Pushpa, worries about his return.
“I feel scared when he goes,” she says. “I don’t even want to sleep until he comes back.”
She remembers a time when her son struggled to walk. Today, she watches him set off on journeys that take him hundreds of kilometres away from home, sometimes across international borders.
In 2026, Shijoy, 38, was pedalling from Cambodia into Vietnam with three friends. There was no support vehicle following them. They carried their own luggage, repaired their own punctures and sometimes cycled more than 100 kilometres in a day. Along the way, they stopped for tea and meals, taking their time to explore the places they passed.
But growing up in Mumbai, Shijoy had once wondered whether he would even be able to run alongside his friends.
Pushpa once took her son to hospitals so he could walk comfortably. Today, she watches him cycle across countries and trek in the Himalayas.
“I was born different, but I don’t think that should define me and stop my dreams,” he says. “If I have thought of any goal, it should be achieved.”
Today, Shijoy has cycled through India, Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, and trekked to 15,000 feet in the Himalayas.
‘Will I be able to do it?’
Shijoy was born in Mumbai with a congenital limb deformity, commonly referred to as clubfoot or congenital talipes equinovarus. Both his legs were twisted inward, with the left more severely affected.
When he was born, his parents took him to doctors in Mumbai. One of them put both his legs in plaster and asked the family not to bathe him for nearly a month.
It was only after an uncle took the family to another hospital in Worli that they realised something was wrong. The plaster was removed, and his mother, Pushpa Jacob, was asked to massage his legs regularly.
For Pushpa, the months that followed meant repeated hospital visits, treatment and uncertainty. She had asthma herself, but still travelled from Vikhroli to Worli with her young son. Eventually, she left her job so she could care for him full-time.
After further treatment, Shijoy underwent surgeries on both legs. As he grew and began crawling and walking, he wore corrective joint shoes. Later came heavy, ankle-length orthopaedic boots that he wore until he was around eight.
As a child, Shijoy wore corrective footwear for years as he learnt to walk.
“I was a kid that time, so I don’t remember much,” he says. “But I remember feeling sad because I wasn’t able to do what other children were doing. I used to wonder, ‘When will I be able to do it? Will I be able to do it?’”
His parents, however, kept telling him that he would.
By around nine, he had stopped wearing the heavy footwear and slowly began participating in activities that had once seemed out of reach. But the fear of getting hurt stayed with him.
“I thought something might happen to my leg,” he says.
For Pushpa, watching her son slowly become more mobile was an emotional experience. “I used to have a lot of pain in my heart when I saw him,” she recalls. “I always prayed to God that his feet should get better.”
She had no way of knowing what the years ahead would bring, but she kept doing what she could to help him walk. As he grew, that meant getting customised footwear made for him.
“I didn’t think he would be able to play like this,” she says.
The 10-kilometre run that made him trust himself
For years, Shijoy’s approach to physical activity was cautious. But sometime after college, he began testing his limits, one small step at a time.
He started running a little, played cricket, and gradually became more comfortable with physical activity. Around 2014-15, he took part in his first 10-kilometre race.
For Shijoy, completing those 10 kilometres was a breakthrough. “Slowly and gradually, I started challenging myself.”
The run gave him the confidence to move forward without constantly worrying about getting hurt. It also changed the way he looked at his childhood.
He began to understand that what he had experienced could be part of his story without becoming the definition of his future.
Shijoy’s first 10-km race helped him trust his body and opened the door to longer runs, treks and cycling expeditions.
That growing confidence was tested again in 2021. While trekking in Maharashtra’s Sandhan Valley, Shijoy fell and dislocated his shoulder. The terrain made it difficult to simply be carried out, so he tied a cloth around his injured arm and trekked until he reached the exit.
Despite the injury, he had managed to complete the trek on foot. And the following year, he would take on a different kind of challenge.
From Mangaluru to Goa: The ride that started it all
Cycling entered Shijoy’s life in a serious way in 2022.
He had learnt to cycle as a child, but until then, it had mostly been something he did casually around his neighbourhood. Then, three friends suggested a longer ride from Mangaluru to Goa.
His first reaction was disbelief. “Mangaluru to Goa? That is too much. I thought I wouldn’t be able to do it,” he recalls thinking when his friends first suggested the ride.
But despite his doubts, Shijoy decided to give it a try. He and his three friends took their bicycles by train to Mangaluru, where they began their journey towards Goa.
On their very first day, they covered around 105 kilometres.
In 2022, a cycling trip from Mangaluru to Goa changed Shijoy’s idea of what he could achieve.
His friends had been prepared to wait for him if necessary. Instead, Shijoy kept pace.
“That was next level,” he recalls. “Even my friends were like, ‘You said you can’t do it, and you are hitting 100 kilometres.’”
That first ride gave him the confidence to attempt longer journeys. The group later cycled through Tamil Nadu and Kerala before deciding to take their bicycles outside India.
In 2024, they flew to Sri Lanka with their cycles and covered more than 600 kilometres across the island, travelling through both hilly terrain and coastal stretches.
Then, in 2026, came their Cambodia-to-Vietnam expedition.
None of them are professional cyclists. All four have full-time jobs. Shijoy works in HR, and their trips are planned around their limited annual leave. Usually, they set aside around 10 days for a cycling expedition.
They do not follow an intensive training schedule either. About a week before a trip, they meet for a single practice ride to see if they can still handle the distance.
For Shijoy, the most important preparation happens in the mind.
“Your mind should be strong,” he says. “A lot of people can ride for 10 kilometres, but they give up before reaching that distance.” For Shijoy, the lesson from these journeys is clear: “Endurance is important, but your mind is the main thing.”
Shijoy and his three friends have cycled across India, Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, planning their expeditions around full-time jobs.
The group has cycled through temperatures touching 40 degrees Celsius, carried five to seven kilograms of luggage, repaired their own punctures and navigated unfamiliar roads without knowing where they would find the next cycle shop.
Yet the journeys are not simply about covering kilometres.
They stop for tea and meals, enjoy the company of one another and soak in the places they pass.
“We don’t want to hurry too much,” Shijoy says. “We want to explore the world at a slow pace.”
A 14-kg backpack, snowfall and his toughest trek yet
While cycling had helped Shijoy grow more confident about travelling long distances, his first Himalayan trek brought a different set of challenges.
In May 2026, he travelled alone to join a trekking group for a seven-day Himalayan expedition that reached approximately 15,000 feet. It was his first Himalayan trek.
He had been nervous about it from the beginning. He had also fallen sick during the training period and could not complete the prescribed preparation. At one point, he considered cancelling.
With no support vehicle, the group carries its own luggage, fixes punctures and navigates unfamiliar roads, making every cycling expedition a test of endurance.
But he went.
The trek was very different from cycling. He carried a 14-kilogram backpack and climbed higher each day while dealing with cold, rain and snowfall. As the altitude increased, the reduced oxygen made even a few steps exhausting.
“There were times when taking five steps was difficult,” he recalls. But he had made up his mind to complete the trek. “I didn’t want to go back and just say I came back.”
He completed the trek with his backpack.
For the boy who once watched other children run and play while he stood on the sidelines, reaching 15,000 feet was a milestone he could scarcely have imagined during his childhood.
And through every expedition, one person remains at the heart of that journey.
“All credit goes to my mom,” Shijoy says. “She is the one because of whom I am here today.”
From his first 10K run to cycling across countries, Shijoy continues to prove to himself that every big journey begins with a small step.
Pushpa once carried her son to hospitals because he could not walk on his own. Today, she watches him carry his own backpack into the Himalayas and his bicycle across international borders.
She is still afraid whenever he leaves.
But that fear now sits alongside pride.
Shijoy, meanwhile, has no intention of stopping. The distances have grown since his first 10K and his first 105-kilometre cycle ride, but he still approaches each new challenge one step at a time.
“Take small steps, one step at a time, and it will take you to a lot of places,” he says.
All images courtesy of Shijoy Jacob
