LUDHIANA: What started as an endeavour to shed those extra kilos for city doctor
Pawan Dhingra, has gradually became a passion and later a cause. Dhingra has covered over 21,000 km on his bicycle till date just to spread awareness about relevance of cycling to curb environmental pollution. He has embarked on journeys to the border areas of
Punjab, the national capital and Haryana. His 'Go Green' initiative has become an inspiration for others and more than 250 people have joined him.
Dhingra, 49 is unstoppable now. He achieved a milestone when he covered a 1400-km stretch within 108 hours becoming the first person in the city achieve that feat in the past eight months. He has enrolled with a French group's 'super category' tag and is now preparing for a 45,000 km cycling trip in USA.
The preparation is physically demanding. The cycling trips are also time bound. "I wake up at 4.30am every day and cover 60 to 70 km to prepare for the 15-day event. But before that, I will have to pass the selection trials that will take place in Chandigarh in February next year," he told TOI.
Dhingra has been on various other rigorous cycling trips. He covered a 100-km stretch from New Delhi to Wagah in less than 75 hours to promote cycling as a way of reducing environmental pollution. "I had to ride for 300 km every day. It was not an easy ride at all. My partner Megha and I rested only at small intervals because we had to cover a certain distance," he said.
In his initial cycling days, Dhingra was part of a peddling group. Having taken up cycling as a novice, he slowly gained the confidence of embarking on longer journeys. "I first went on a 200-km ride from
Ferozepur road to Hoshiarpur. Later I went for a longer ride from Patiala to Bathinda and from Delhi to Khanna and back (600km).
Cycling for such long stretches requires a lot of rigour but for Dhingra, it is similar to meditation. "I started cycling for body strengthening and now I am doing this for an entirely different reason. Pollution is a very serious environmental issue and we all can contribute to combating it by taking up cycling", he said.
