City kids take the cycling route for annual school trip

Over two months of training and an eventual bike ride covering 440 kilometres — that’s what eight students of BeMe Center for Learning did recently. All aged between 10 and 13 years, the group of five boys and three girls recently did a round-trip from Bengaluru to

Kanakapura

,

Shivanasamudra

,

Srirangapatnam

,

Shravanabelagola

and back to the city. Led by

Prakash Gudnavar

and

Vishal Bhatt

, who are part of the management team of the school, the children began training for their expedition as early as January this year.

“The idea came up after I did a 600 kilometre solo ride last year. I mooted a

cycling

tour for kids in our school, considering that we do outstation trips by bus or train often. Thirteen students enrolled initially, but five dropped out early on. The remaining eight persisted and we began our training sessions by gradually increasing the distance we covered in a day. From doing 10 kilometres a day, we went up to 80 kilometres a day in time for our actual ride,” says Prakash.

The ride, he adds, was not without its share of challenges. “There were issues with the terrain we were cycling on, climate and, most importantly, food. A couple of children were struck down with pretty bad cases of food poisoning by day five of the trip, and we thought that we had to send them back home, but they persisted and after a day’s rest, we resumed our journey,” says Prakash. Krsna, one of the children who partook in the entire trip, is proud of his achievement, but admits that it wasn’t easy. “I was part of the ride because I thought it would be challenging and since my friends were going. I will never forget the fun we had, as well as all the fights and struggles. The experience can be summed up as good, bad and fun,” he says.