She cycles around the world to spread message of peace

KOLKATA: She dreams to travel across the world on her bicycle with the message of global peace. Lipika Biswas, 50, boosted her faith in the resilience of common man for peace d during her latest cycle tour to Sri Lanka “When the serial explosion ripped through Colombo on April 21, we were offered shelter in a village, despite the curfew being imposed there and no one asked us any question. As we had huge baggage, we could have been turned down the shelter. But they did the opposite. Not only did they offer us to stay in their home but also they pampered us with excellent food. Besides, they did not take any money from us,” said Lipika.

“As I cycled through Sri Lanka, I understood that the people who had been affected by a protracted civil war in the subcontinent value peace more than anyone else,” she added. Biswas is a clerk in Eastern Railway and borrows money from banks and relatives for her adventurous trips. “My life banks on loan. I repay and borrow money again for the next trip,” she said.
Biswas’ idea of global peace had been strengthened during her solo cycling expedition across six nations of Europe in 50 days in 2018 as the first Indian woman. She had disassembled one of her toughest bicycles and carried it to Frankfurt in a box before it was assembled for her expedition.
“Unlike India, you need a prior appointment of cycle mechanic to get the cycle fitted. It took me three days to understand that I would have to do it myself. I did it so without any prior experience. But I had to pay 20 Euro to get the fitting checked . Since then, I had never faced any problem to fit my cycle. I travelled to some cities in these six countries. I managed to put up a tent on the river bank or sometimes found some generous citizens offering shelter and dinner to me,” she beamed.
On September 12, Biswas’ trip ended at Reykjavik in Iceland after covering 2,535 km. During her expedition, Netherland’s Indian Embassy tweeted that she had been the first Indian solo cyclist in Europe. But her first love went for mountaineering. After completing the basic and advanced mountaineering course from Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, he attempted to climb up Everest twice. But her two attempts were vanquished by avalanche and earthquake respectively. Instead of allowing her spirit to be let down, Biswas switched over to cycling. “I had an incurable wanderlust. I have always been an adventurist even when I was a student. So, I took a fancy to cycling and started it from my Kasba home to the airport at late night,” she said.
Lipika who undertook many expeditions boasts of a Limka book of world record for mountain bike expedition undertaken by an all women team on highest Motorable road in the world from Kullu [4913 ft] to Khardung La [18380 ft] in 2011 as well as the coastal cycling trek from Kolkata to Kanyakumari, which was organised by " wani " in 2010.