Year 2011 was still a time of SMSes, before WhatsApp came to rule messaging services. Athirup, a man who never stopped loving bicycles since he was a child, had found a way to connect people to cycling through text messages.
Athi first began the service in Technopark, in Thiruvananthapuram, his hometown, calling it Athi’s Bicycle Club. People could take a bicycle from one of the cycle racks spread across Technopark by getting an SMS code on their phone and then ride it for free till another rack, closest to where they want to go. The system worked for six years under sponsorship and then the sponsors stopped. Athi then took it to Kochi’s Infopark and the city as a whole.
“There are more takers there because the terrain in Ernakulam is different, and also because it was spread outside Infopark,” says Athi, who has made it a business venture now.
“It is not as profitable compared to what I was doing before – a computer-aided design consultancy after finishing my engineering from CUSAT. The whole bicycle-sharing idea came when as part of the job we often had to travel to other places. I would push my team members into cycling. They were reluctant at first but then became cycle enthusiasts. That’s when I thought of starting a bicycle-sharing venture,” Athi says.
In Technopark, Allianz used to sponsor them. All they had to do was branding – put the company logo on the cycles. The then Chief Minister Oommen Chandy had inaugurated the service, riding a cycle with a helmet on his head.
Oommen Chandy inaugurates Athi's bicycle club in Technopark, in 2011
In the first phase there were 55 cycles and in the second phase, 25. “It ran well for five to six years. In 2016, however, the company stopped sponsorship. We took the cycles and put them in racks across the city. We have a tie-up with the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation for this and pay a monthly rent. It’s still there. But the cycles are not used much because of the up-and-down terrain of Thiruvananthapuram. We are planning to solve it somehow. It is now being revived in Shanghumugham, Veli and other places.”
In Infopark, he had quite a few companies to sponsor the venture, and a tie-up with Kochi Metro. “Cycles would be kept at metro stations, from where people could ride to different parts of the city and leave them in another rack.”
Athi followed the SMS system through the years, even when apps came into the market. “We did not want an app-driven system because there’d be one-time users and an app could be highly discouraging.”
Athirup
He practises what he preaches – not just out of principle, but due to a strong passion that never left him through the years. Athi uses a bicycle to get around everywhere – to work, for other short rides, and even for long rides sometimes. Recently he rode to Chennai in a cycle, while transporting three other bicycles on a train for a new tie-up. “After the Kochi Metro tie-up got such a good response, we also tied up with Chennai Metro,” he says.
It is mostly young people who use the service, Athi’s team noted from their analysis. Athi cannot think of a better way to promote bicycling among youngsters, and in his own way, contribute to the environment.