Mumbai to Manila on electric wheels!
- Category: Events
- Published on Friday, 10 February 2012 10:51
- Written by Tejas Joseph
- Hits: 60
An e-Cyclothon for new, green and clean mobility idioms
Janice Valdez drove up to our doorstep a
week after Auroville (where Evfuture is located) and the Pondicherry
region had taken a hurricane beating on the night of 29th
December 2011. The fallen trees, power lines and relief work on the
roads didn't dampen her spirits. She spent a few days here and spoke to
people about her journey,which had taken about three months, spanned two
continents, crossed three Indian states and clocked in around 1000
kilometers of e-cycle distance.
Janice is an artist with a background in
theater. Her family is of Filipino descent who came to British Columbia
more than 30 years ago. She moved to Vancouver in 2001 and started
'Humanergy Coop' (HUM) in 2011 to promote the mass acceptance of clean
mobility powered by human (humane!) and electrical energy. She is deeply
concerned about the deteriorating quality of the environment
(particularly in the developing world) due to pollution and feels that a
quick transition to sustainable technologies and applications is
urgent. The electric cycle for her is the perfect symbol of this
synthesis between human need and environmental responsibility.
Janice set out from Vancouver in November
2011 on a historic journey on her STROMER electric cycle on a trip
dramatically and tellingly named “Mumbai to Manila”. It was both a
journey to promote and accomplish sustainable travel using an electric
cycle as much as it was one of discovering her ancestral roots in the
Phillippines. She flew into Mumbai and to her first taste of all things
Indian – from crazy traffic and curious onlookers to high urban noise
(and pollution) levels and spicy food. She made a lot of friends and
found supporters of her cause in the most unlikely places. She then flew
to Bangalore in the south from where her 'cyclothon' would formally
start. Her STROMER eCycle got packed and accompanied her like a faithful
pet during these transits (between pedaling) by plane and train.
From Bangalore (where she met a lot of
bicycle enthusiasts) she cycled to Mysore in Karnataka before going off
to Ooty in the Nilagiri hills via the scenic wildlife parks of Mudumalai
and Masinagudi. The climb up to Ooty was quite a tough one, she
confesses, and placed considerable stress on her STROMER ( a leading
Swiss e -cycle brand), with the sharp inclines and devilish hair pins of
the Nilagiri hills extracting harsh dues for the experience of climbing
them. But this was amply compensated for by the beauty of the
mountainscapes she pedaled through and the warm people she got to meet.
From Ooty it was on to Aleppey in Kerala
via the bustling towns of Trichur and Kochi. She got to ride in a canoe
in this 'Venice of south India" and met (again!) kind souls (who helped
find a box for her cycle) and an air conditioning expert who was an
avid cyclist.He gave up his car temporarily to show his solidarity for
the cause of sustainable transportation by joining her on his bicycle
for a few miles.
She packed her STROMER into The
Allepey-Chennai express train and landed in Chennai for the last but one
leg of her historic e-cycle trip in India in the Christmas week of
2011. Her trip to Pondicherry was delayed by a few days due to Hurricane
(cyclone to us) 'Thane',amongst the strongest to have visited these
parts in more than fifty years.
For us it was both wonderful and a relief
to be able to talk about things (other than the cyclone and its
ravages) with Janice,particularly about electric mobility and the next
transportation era. We salute the spirit of individuals like her who are
spearheading campaigns of awareness solely driven by personal
motivation and concern. EVFuture was happy to host her for the few days
she was here and has agreed to being part of the 'humanergy' network to
find ways to bring clean mobility into the public domain through events
and other platforms. We look forward to seeing her again soon on her
next eCycle saga.
To know more about Janice Valedez,the Mumbai to Manila eCycle trip and the coming dawn of electric mobility, visit her website www.janicevaldez.com .Also visit www.humanergycoop.com
to know about the policy and planning initiatives pro-green cities like
Vancouver (which is aspiring to become the world's 'greenest city')
take to become people and cycle friendly.
Janice invites you to join her facebook group called "humanergy- cycle our light". Become part of a new cycle in the making!
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