Goa’s second “Critical Mass” cycle ride – Sat. Nov. 28

“Bring A Friend” theme for this month’s rally

Join the Nov. 28 Goa Cycle Club Critical Mass

The Critical Mass ride is a monthly celebration of cycling, observed by more than 300 cities around the world.

As the end of the month approaches, Goa Cycle Club invites all community members to bring their cycles and their friends to its second Critical Mass cycle ride. Last month, more than 75 riders from Panjim, Porvorim, Saligao, Vasco, Goa Velha, Siolim and Taleigao participated. Ladies, children and gents, geared and non geared cycles, all were there.

Bring a friend (or two) to pedal Panjim’s streets in the safety of a group. Help make Goa green, bicycle-friendly, reduce motorised traffic and traffic jams and reduce emissions.

Come friends, neighbours, office mates, relatives, kids, adults, everyone welcome, free admission, join the fun!

Date: Saturday November 28, 2009
Time: 5:00pm – 6:30pm
Location: Starting point is Campal Football Ground, near Kala Academy  View Map

For more information about this event or Goa Cycle Club, call Joe Rodrigues on 9822166165 or send a message by email. If you need a cycle, call Elroy Fernandes on 9420252108. Join Goa Cycle Club on Facebook to meet other cyclists and stay up-to-date on cycling activities.

Children’s Day Cycle Rally – Sat. Nov. 14

Help make Goa a safer place to cycle for children

Date: Saturday November 14, 2009
Time: 4:30pm
Location: Campal Football Ground (near Kala Academy)

Free T-shirt to participating children!

Join Goa Cycle Club and TI Cycles (makers of Hercules and BSA cycles) for a community-wide Cyclathon. We are looking to have at least 250 cycles on the road that day for the event. Why Children’s Day? Because they are the future and if we have a message  to give our people there is nothing better than passing it on through the children. Moreover we would like to involve the school children and what better day to do that than on Children’s day?

Open to all schoolchildren, can also be accompanied by parents. Route will start at Campal Football Ground (near Kala Academy), continue to Miramar, turn left after Goa Science Centre, round Taleigao High Mast opp. Education Minister’s house and to Miramar Dona Paula highway to Dona Paula and back to The football ground.

WE NEED SOME VOLUNTEERS TO HELP OUT WITH THE EVENT AS WE WILL HAVE TO GO TO THE SCHOOLS AND TELL THEM. THOSE WILLING TO HELP PLEASE CONTACT GOA CYCLE CLUB, SPECIALLY IF YOU HAVE ANY CONNECTIONS WITH ANY SCHOOLS.

Come friends, neighbours, office mates, relatives, kids, adults, everyone welcome, free admission, join the fun!

For more information about this event or Goa Cycle Club, call Joe Rodrigues on 9822166165 or send a message by email. If you need a cycle, call Elroy Fernandes on 9420252108. Join Goa Cycle Club on Facebook to meet other cyclists and stay up-to-date on cycling activities.

Goa’s first ever “Critical Mass” cycle ride – Sat. Oct. 31

Bring your cycle and make history with Goa Cycle Club!

Goa's first Critical Mass in Panjim, October 31, 2009

The Critical Mass ride is a celebration of cycling, observed monthly by more than 300 cities around the world. This year, more than 40 members of Goa Cycle Club will ride around Panjim for the state’s first Critical Mass cycle rally. Join Goa Cycle Club and pedal Panjim’s streets in the safety of a group. Help make Goa green, bicycle friendly, reduce motorised traffic and traffic jams and reduce emissions.

Meet at 4:30 at Panjim’s Bandodkar Samadhi opp. CCD Miramar, Campal. Route will turn into St: Inez opp Kala Academy turn left at St Inez 4 crossing onto 18th June Road, past the Mary Immaculate Church down to Rua De Qurem, old Patto Bridge round the Kadamba bus Stand and head back into Panjim via new Patto Bridge, behind old Secretariat onto M.G. Road past Don Bosco School to St Inez , Fire Brigade to Tonca behind Law and Dhempe College to Miramar.

Come friends, neighbours, office mates, relatives, kids, adults, everyone welcome, free admission, join the fun!

Date: Saturday October 31, 2009
Time: 4:30pm – 6:00pm
Location: Starting point is Cafe Coffee Day,  Miramar (Bandodkar Samadhi opp. CCD)

For more information about this event or Goa Cycle Club, call Joe Rodrigues on 9822166165 or send a message by email. If you need a cycle, call Elroy Fernandes on 9420252108. Join Goa Cycle Club on Facebook to meet other cyclists and stay up-to-date on cycling activities.

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Says Joe Rodrigues on this ride:

“Critical Mass Goa 1 – the first rally of the Critical Mass in Goa was a huge success with 75 riders from Panjim, Porvorim, Saligao, Vasco, Goa Velha, Siolim and Taleigao. ladies, Children and Gents, geared and non geared cycles, all were there.But whatever, do join in for regular cycling and the next event: Childrens Day Cycle Rally on 14th. Nov.

28th Nov. Critical mass Goa 2.

2nd Dec – Peace ride with International Musician Saskia Laroo in memory of the Mumbai Attacks last year. Also a workshop on Cycling by Mr. Brian Sopher from Muscat in December 2nd week.”

 

Morning fitness rides

Regular group cycling, all weekdays. Start pedalling and get fit.

• Where: Cafe Coffee Day, Miramar – opp. bandodkar Samadhi.
• When: month of October 2009
• Time: 6:30 am, weekdays
• Cost: FREE
• Leader: Patricia Pinto

Call Joe on 9822166165 for more information, or Visit us on Facebook for ride news

Cycle ride and rally in Panjim – Friday Oct. 2

Goodbye rains, hello cycle season! Join Goa Cycle Club in a rally around Panjim

Cycle with us from Taleigao link road to Miramar, onto Dona Paula, back to Miramar, Campal and 18th June road and finish off at Azad Maidan. A public event to create the awareness for cycling for health, safety, less vehicular traffic , decongest the roads, reduce pollution, and make Panjim safe for walking and cycling.

Help to declare June 18 car-free day in Panjim – Talk to a Fitness Expert about the correct cycle for you – Learn more about Goa Cycle Club’s social and fitness rides

Come friends, neighbours, office mates, relatives, kids, adults, everyone welcome, free admission, join the fun!

Date: Friday, October 2, 2009
Time: 8:00am – 9:30am
Location: Starting point is Taleigaon, Panjim

For more information about this event or Goa Cycle Club, call Joe Rodrigues on 9822166165 or send a message by email. If you need a cycle, call Elroy Fernandes on 9420252108.

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Says Joe Rodrigues on this ride:

“It certainly was a rainy morning, in fact it was quite a stormy morning but 29 courageous people came in and we cycled the whole route and it was covered by Prudent network and Goa 365, both local news channels.”

View photos and video of this ride on  Goa Cycle Club’s Facebook page.

YHAI expeditions include cycling Goa

Backroad tours target cyclists and activists

YHAI cycle expedition takes an early start out of Assolna, Goa (click to view photo gallery)

by Ulrike Rodrigues

Visitors have toured Goa by car, motorbike, bus, boat and train; but now – thanks to the Goa Branch of Youth Hostels Association of India (YHAI) and Sports Authority of Goa – adventurers and activists can learn about the state’s natural beauty and social issues from the seat of a bicycle.

Says Panjim-based Program Director Manoj Joshi, who added a series of seven-day, 360-kilometre bike expeditions to YHAI’s popular trekking programmes last year, “We wanted to create a tour with the activist in mind. Cycling is a sport for people who have an awareness of environmental and development issues. This expedition shows beaches, nature, and water falls but it also shows how Goa is being deforested; how the greed of the few is displacing families, and the rape of the nature.”

To that end, Joshi and his team volunteered months of their time researching equipment, attractions and routes. In 2008, they provided five groups of twenty cyclists with knapsacks and 24-speed mountain bikes for a circular route that reached as far east as the Karnataka border. Starting from Panjim, youngsters and grandfathers alike pedaled south along the Arabian Sea on Colva-area beaches, east through Balli’s terraced paddy fields and Cavrem’s mining villages; up into the ecologically significant Western Ghat mountains; and then west along the freighter-trafficked Mandovi River past Old Goa (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) and back into Goa’s capital city.

Along the way, cyclists stayed in rooms in Assolna’s sports complex, lodges in Netravali’s Tanshikar Spice Farm, tents near Dudsaghar Falls in Bhagwan Mahaveer Sanctuary, and dorms in Bondla Wildlife Santuary. Extra side trips included Budbudyanchi Talli (Bubbling Lake) at Gopinath Temple; a forest trek and swim at Savari Falls; a zoo tour of cobras, guars and leopards in Bondla WLS; and a visit to the Bom Jesus Cathedral in Old Goa.

The YHAI Goa Biking Expedition runs December/January of each year and is open to anyone who buys a membership with Hostelling International or Youth Hostels Association of India (YHAI). Joshi estimates the 2009/2010 fees will be Rs 3000 for Indians and Rs 5000 for foreign visitors. Bicycles, rucksacks, safety equipment, accommodation, and meals are all included in the price of the trip. For more information contact Manoj Joshi, Sports Authority of Goa,
or visit YHAI’s web site at www.yhaindia.org.

• View photos of the 2008 YHAI cycling expedition in Goa, India

Ulrike Rodrigues is a Vancouver, Canada-based freelance writer, photographer and cyclist. She has published stories and photos of her time in Goa at www.girlgonegoa.wordpress.com.  She participated in, wrote stories and took photos of the YHAI’s 2008 Bike Expedition experience .

Cycle trek to Chorao – July 5

Join Goa Cycle Club on a cycle trek from Panjim area to Chorao Island.

Everyone welcome, free admission. Helmets required for all riders. Come rain or shine we will pedal.

Cycle Chorao Island, Goa

Date: Sunday, July 5, 2009
Time: 7:00am – 10:00am
Location: Starting point is Kala Academy, Miramar

To register for this ride, for more information, or to acquire a cycle, call Joe Rodrigues on 9822166165 or send a message by email.

Join this event on Facebook.

Join us on Facebook

Meet other Goa cyclists on Facebook

Joe Rodrigues has created a Goa Cycle Club group on Facebook, an online social networking site.  Click the link to join, meet over 150 other Goa cyclists, participate on rides, and view photos.

Goa Cycle Club in Calcutta Telegraph

[Published Sunday May 10, 2009 in the Calcutta Telegraph]

Pedal Power: Biking clubs are the new way to have fun on two wheels

by Arundhati Basu

Goa Cycle Club

On a hot summer day, there’s a congregation of cyclists in the leafy bylanes of Delhi’s Lodhi Colony. They are part of a biking event called Critical Mass that’s being held, all over the world, on the last Friday of every month. And yes, they do take over the roads — their point being this that biking is a right, not a privilege.

As the wait for the other cyclists of the motley crew begins at a pre-decided spot — appropriately opposite a sports store — another bicyclist zips in on a fancy mountain bike sporting a turquoise blue Mohawk hairdo. In his late 20s, Marcus Santiago, a comic book illustration artist, catches up with his fervour for cycling when he meets complete strangers (usually) to go pedalling in groups.

Read the rest of this story on TelegraphIndia.com >>

Goa Cycle Club in DNA India

[Published in the April 19, 2009 DNA India]

Click to view PDF

Cycle of Change

by Arun Katiyar

There are people paying upwards of Rs 35,000 for a high-end easy-ride bicycle on which they can soak in the countryside or climb up a hill. It’s environment-friendly and it certainly sounds like the new golf…

Read the rest of this story DNA India (PDF) >>