Cyclists take ‘Bharat’ route to salute martyrs

A group of cyclists in Punjab made the Martyrs’ Day a memorable one by riding in ‘Bharat’ formation on March 23.
The team of cyclists—Bhaktawar Cycling Group —had collectively hit upon the idea of riding in ‘Bharat’ formation (in Devanagari script) as a tribute to the martyrs on the death anniversary of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru. The idea came to the mind of one of the group members when the team was planning for their week-end ride on March 23.

They marked the route using an activity-tracking app and put it on their networking platforms days before the ride. Twelve of them assembled on Saturday morning and pedalled along the pre-fixed route which covered two cities—Chandigarh and Mohali.

“Our cities are well planned, and this helped us plan the route and execute the ride easily,” said Simratpal Singh, one of the 12 cyclists who were part of ‘Bharat’ in letter and spirit.

Citing the app recordings, Singh said they rode 45.5km in 2 hours 22 minutes with an elevation gain of 459 metres.

The group is planning another ride in V.O.T.E formation as a way to create awareness on the same this poll season. “The successive polling percentage in India has been low. In our next concept ride scheduled for April, we will spread the good word on V.O.T.E,” said Singh.

The 31-year-old bank official, who has been into cycling for over a year now, said conceptualising an otherwise routine ride makes the fitness journey interesting.

For upright officer

Simratpal Singh rode 31.2km forming N.E.H.A on the morning of April 1, three days after Dr Neha Shoree was shot dead at her cabin in the Punjab government’s food and drug administration department. Quoting preliminary investigation, police said Balwinder Singh killed Neha, 35, zonal licencing authority, as she had cancelled the licence of his store in 2009 when she was posted as the drug inspector in Ropar district.

After the 1 hour 24 minutes ride, Simratpal posted on his social media site: “The gory incident reflected the collapse of the law and order machinery in the state, and the government could not absolve itself of the onus. Let us Unite by any medium against such things happening in our society (sic).”