“What, a trip on cycle?”, “Are you crazy?”, “You must have missed the word “Motor” with Cycle.” These were the kinds of replies received by my friend (Sheel) when he posted this mail to some of his friends about cycle trip to a place near Nagpur. But the good thing was, a few of them replied positively.
The rally was one of the occasions to bring IT professionals together to improve the Eco friendly habits and awareness and promote health consciousness, not to forget the fuel conservation. So we had decided to attempt this thrilling & challenging journey on Cycle. The biggest challenge for us to ride a cycle for more than 5Kms. We were recalling our days at schoolyards.
So after lengths of chain mails & a bunch of chats we finalized our venue and date. “Zilpi lake”, a spot 25Kms from our office on Hingna road. Again, a few of us were not too confident on their stamina for a 50Km trip on cycle. But it was not very difficult to encourage them, as “Hum sath the na yaar..”. The reason why we selected Zilpi lake was because we could avoid Highway traffic and pollution.
As I was excited for this trip, I collected information about place and route. Google map helped us locate the exact route to Zilpi lake.
Listing out required accessories, food, etc was one of the major parts of this trip. Some important things which we carried with us were Glucose, Biscuits, Bananas, Food (for Lunch), Water bottles, Air pump, old newspaper, etc. Not everyone had cycles so we managed to get them for all. It was my job to manage these few things which I did promptly.
Finally the day arrived , we decided to gather at office at 7.15am morning and start the journey at 7.30am. But as usual, according to Indian Standard Time, we started our journey at 7.45am. YCCE was our first milestone, we covered that distance very quickly due to lot of energy, excitement. ;-)
You can understand, what will happen if the cycle is not properly maintained. Checking air pressure, oiling, tightening of nut-bolds was done near first milestone i.e. near YCCE college.
Very quickly we achieved our 2nd milestone i.e. Hingna bus stop. This is around 15kms from office, so everyone needed rest. With hot cups of tea, we had biscuits which we carried with us. We were enjoying photo shoots at the same point.
“Ohh noooo .. “, everyone was puzzled that what had happened to Pratik (a friend of ours), then he pointed his figure towards his cycle tyre. It was punctured!! But luckily we found a shop where we could get the puncture repaired. We faced common problems with cycle i.e. slipping of chains for a few times.
And now the real exciting road started. It was a short road with greenery on both sides. Typical villages, people with sheeps, cows and buffalos came across. We truly enjoyed the pollution free atmosphere.
Finally we reached to our destination i.e. Zilpi lake. We were tired but got refreshed very quickly when we saw lake surrounded with mountains. Everyone was exhausted and obviously hungry. We took out cold drinks and chips from our bag and started refueling ourselves. Some guys were relaxing, but few guys were enjoying nature, throwing pebbles in lake, playing in water, collecting shells, etc.
It was 1.30pm, we had a heavy lunch. A special Maharashtrian dish with Junka, Gola rice, Allo dum and chappatis. Actually we should not have heavy lunch as we have to travel 25 kms back on our cycles. But we could not resist ourselves with delicious food.
After relaxing for some time, we proceeded towards our return journey. We thought it would be difficult for us but due to less air resistance and slopes, we were able to reach our first milestone i.e. Hingna Bus stop with less effort. With a sip of tea we shared our good and bad experience of this trip.
Now everyone was tired as we had covered almost 35 kms. Reaching office as early as possible was the only thing on our mind.. We reached office by 5pm.
This way we 17 IIPians completed this trip enthusiastically.
