Nader Mesheal (23), a native of Egypt who has been living in Delhi for a while now, was accompanied by a few friends on a bicycle tour to the Aravalli range in April last year. The day-long tour commenced at five in the morning, and the crew completed their journey the same afternoon. Along the way, Mesheal got an opportunity to interact with people from diverse backgrounds as well as explore the city in a way he had not imagined.
Organised by The Bike Tribe, a Lajpat Nagar-based adventure travel company that focuses on cycling tours, this journey was an attempt to curate an immersive experience for cycling enthusiasts. Founded by Sabyasachi Pathak (32) and Akhilesh Thapa (30) in August 2020, The Bike Tribe unlocks an unexpected experience, and helps make the simple activity of cycling both unique and adventurous. Their overarching goal is to contribute to the development of bicycle tourism in India.
Experiential TRAVEL
The Bike Tribe offers a variety of tours—day tours, weekend tours, multi-day tours, and expeditions—with a focus on “curating an experience”. The cycling tour is not a simple journey from one destination to another. It is an expedition to engage travellers with local elements of places while cycling. The team focuses on modifying routes such that people can cycle through villages to understand the lives of the inhabitants. The trip is centred on firsthand experiences. “One cannot change the route for the Golden Quadrilateral tour, but we have made slight modifications wherein for a good 40km, the cyclists go off-road and cycle through a town,” shares Pathak, who has been working as a freelance cycling guide for eight years.
Given it is a green yet slow mode of transport, cycling offers an opportunity to explore the many hidden corners of the country. Apart from this, the health benefits as well as the sense of adventure it provides cannot be ignored. The Bike Tribe ensures that the cyclists are accompanied by guides, who provide them additional information about the history and prevailing state of a place. This is done through narrative storytelling thus making the experience interactive from start to finish. “We do not want it to be a guided tour. We want to include stories that people normally miss out on. You should take something personal back from every tour,” Pathak adds.
Booming business
The pandemic has caused a shift in the way we travel as well as our leisure pursuits. In a post-COVID world, people have restarted a number of activities to stay fit, and cycling has emerged as a popular choice. Many people prefer going on cycling tours. Needless to say, this has caused a boom in the bicycle tourism industry.
This is also evident from a CRISIL report, which states that the bicycle industry in India experienced a decadal-high demand growth of 20 per cent in FY21. “After the pandemic, there is an added enthusiasm for cycling tours around the world. In India, bicycle tourism was never a thing, but a lot of people are now taking it up again. With more publicity, it will definitely reach more people,” concludes Pathak.