About 141 people, mostly school students, rode bicycles across the roads of Thiruvananthapuram at 7.30 in the morning on Sunday. They were observing car-free day, observed worldwide on September 22. Perhaps for the first time in Thiruvananthapuram, reckons Prakash P Gopinath of the Indus Cycling Embassy, a group that promotes cycling among young people.
The Thiruvananthapuram Corporation had joined with Indus Cycling Embassy to collect old bicycles, left unused by people across the city. These bicycles – about 12 of them – would be contributed to the newly constituted ‘cycle brigades’ or cycling clubs in various schools in the city. The bicycles were brought to the Manaveeyam Veedi on Sunday, where a day-long celebration was planned by various cycling and bike clubs to celebrate car-free day.
“Repairmen were available to fix the old cycles on the spot. But there is of course more work to be done,” says Neetha, one of the early morning bicycle riders of the day. She is a member of the ICE that conducts monthly rides for cycling enthusiasts in the city.
Indus has the practice of donating one bicycle every month to a girl from an economically poor background and on Sunday, they presented a cycle to Rituparna of Class 8 of Govt. Girls HS Pattom. Prakash who has been actively involved in promoting cycling in the capital, was recently bestowed with the title of Bicycle Mayor by the Amsterdam-based social enterprise BYCS.
When it was time for the old-bicycle collection drive to be inaugurated, the Mayor and a few of his staff came to the Manaveeyam Veedi, riding on electric scooters. “Suchitwa Mission executive director Mir Mohammed also came,” says Neetha.
There was also a meeting later of the various cycle clubs. “It was to promote the idea of having cycle tracks and cycle stations in the city,” says Prakash.
In the evening, participants of the Kanthari International Institute for Social Change put together a cultural fest.