January 2017: We moved to Goa to live and advocate a cycling centric lifestyle, through the medium of curated bicycle tours. Three and half years of blood, sweat and tears later, our initiative has taken an unexpected and undesirable turn. We started off with three bicycles, humble camera equipment and unmatched enthusiasm. We quit our well paying, stable jobs for a risky adventure with uncertain future returns. Our trips were curated keeping in mind the untold stories of the land, stories that needed to be heard, coupled with the environmental efficiency and the child-like thrill of riding a bicycle. Moreover, the bigger objective was being visible on bicycles and spreading awareness by example. Medium is the message after all.
It’s fairly easy to turn this into either a run of the mill start-up story or a more believable story of two delusional people lighting the guiding path for each other. But it’s actually a simple story of two people striving to create meaning and live a life of purpose. By bringing TBT into the world, we wanted to prove to ourselves and everyone that making cycling a part of your life is a decision for the future. With every trip and every person who has gone back to their homes and purchased a bicycle, we have been reassured of our advocacy multiple times over.
Cut to 2020. A year which feels like you biked your best 100kms only to find out that you forgot to turn on the tracking app. As we all are aware, the Travel & Tourism industry has been in a downward spiral for over two months now. But your emails, messages and pictures from bike rides in your home countries have kept our spirits high.
While the future is uncertain, we’ll take this time to take a step back and not talk about our trips or tell you to bookmark or plan for future travel. All we would like as support is for you to make cycling a part of your lives. By becoming an advocate of cycling, you’re supporting our message and the case for cycling. Whichever part of the world you may be in, pick up a bike and start riding. It’s never too late.
Social distancing and lockdowns have given us an opportunity to view the world without noise and air pollution. It’s up to us to ride this tide and make the switch to a bicycle.
It’s up to every individual who cycles to make this journey worthwhile.
