‘It’s the best of the best here in Chennai’
TT Varadarajan and Siddharth Trivellore, the father-son duo responsible for bringing CSS to India, are both passionate bikers who experienced the school back in the 1990s while in the US, and realised the value of this kind of training to the Indian biking fraternity. They worked towards this goal and their efforts finally paid off when CSS first came to India in 2010. Now Siddharth is training with the school to become one of their world-class rider coaches, and we were able to catch up with him for a quick chat while at the track.
Bike India (BI): Since when have you been working towards becoming a CSS coach?
Siddharth Trivellore (ST): I started out last year when we had a comprehensive test they call the grilling and, maybe, one in 500 applicants gets past the grilling to qualify to go through the actual coach training.
BI: How has the training been?
ST: It’s extremely comprehensive. These guys take their jobs very seriously. This is the number one school in the world, and they want to make sure that everybody who is being trained grasps all the tech, as we call it. Riding is just one part of the whole exercise of training to be a coach. It’s a lot about listening to and comprehending what the students are giving you in terms of what issues they are facing, and trying to deduce their problems and coming up with solutions after watching them on track. It’s a lot of observing, listening and patience. Students range from really fast guys to absolute beginners, and you have to learn to work with each one differently.
BI: What prompted you and your dad to bring CSS to India?
ST: I did the school in the States in 1997 while my dad did it for the first time in 1994, after which he was completely hooked. We were hell bent on bringing the school to India because we have a lot of talented kids riding around but no formal training and no platform from which they could build on their racing. So they used to do well in the national circuit, but when they went abroad to race it was a disaster. That’s not because of a lack of talent; it’s a lack of knowledge and training. We tried to get the school down in the mid-1990s, but it was finally in
2010 that we were able to do so.
BI: How do you feel about successfully getting CSS to India?
ST: It is really exciting because this is the only school in the world where you get the best coaches from different parts of the world; there are people from the United States, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Greece, Turkey, so it’s the best of the best here in Chennai. The results speak for themselves — everyone goes back on Sunday with a huge smile and that’s what matters in the end.