Two cycling enthusiasts, who completed a 3,500 km cycling expedition, ‘Saarthakam 2022’, from Belthangady in Dakshina Kannada district to Srinagar and Gulmarg in Kashmir, were felicitated at Hotel Moti Mahal on Wednesday.
The cyclists, Jagadeesh Kulal (24) from Belthangady and Shrinidhi Shetty (26) from Pakshikere, had gone on the cycling expedition to spread awareness about organ donation and environment protection.
Read | Cycling: Don’t lose track
Nandagopal from Mangaluru-based NGO Centre for Integrated Learning (CIL) said the 'Jeevasarthakathe' team had shared information about organ donation with the cyclists
They left Belthangady on October 1 and reached Gulmarg on October 26. The duo covered 10 states in 26 days.
“The weather condition was a challenge as it started raining heavily when we were in Pune. We had many breakdowns and the visibility was very poor,” Shrinidhi recollected.
The pollution levels were high in Gujarat and Rajasthan but the scenery was good, he added. They were greeted by a cold breeze in Haryana.
"We have pedalled in extreme conditions,'' he informed. “At Gulmarg, we held the flag of Tulu Nadu and the Indian flag. On an average, we pedalled for about 150-180 km per day in plain areas. It even went up to 200 km on some occasions. We could not pedal for more than 70 km per day due to the steep terrain in Jammu and Kashmir,’’ he said.
Throughout the journey, the cyclists tried the local food.
“We did not find any liquor bottles dumped by the side of roads due to a ban on alcohol consumption in Gujarat. Many people whom we met appreciated our initiative,” he said.
The expedition with the taglines, ‘Life is a gift, Pass it on’ and ‘Go Green Before Green Goes’, is part of the outreach activity of CIL. They revealed that they had been planning a cycling expedition for three years. ‘’We launched the preparations by building up our contacts and working on route maps in a year during our free time. As a part of the preparation for the expedition, we had organised a cycling expedition in high altitude Manali-Ladakh-Khardung La covering 500 km in 14 days,” said Jagadeesh Kulal.
"We had taken up a cycling expedition from Mysuru to Bengaluru and returned to Mysuru within a day," he said.
On their next three-day cycling expedition with heavy luggage, they had cycled from Mysuru to Hassan and Malpe via Chikkamagaluru.
The cyclists, working as production officers at Asian Paints Limited in Mysuru, have planned a few more expeditions for a cause in the coming days.
Lions District (317) past governor Arun Shetty, Mangalore Bicycle Club President Dijaraj Nair, former mayor and GM of Cardolite India Limited Diwakar, CIL Executive Director Sachitha Nandagopal among others were present at the event.
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