A decade ago, when Nikita Lalwani cycled to her swanky MNC office in Vadodara in Gujarat, India, she often received curious looks from onlookers. For her, however, cycling brought numerous gains and joyful experiences. Since then, it has been Lalwani’s mission to popularise cycling in India, and she now holds the title of the country’s first bicycle mayor.
When asked what made her choose to cycle to work, Lalwani, an instrumentation engineer, explains, “A flyover prompted my decision to cycle. My office was just 4 km away, but using a friend’s two-wheeler, autos, or a car took 20 minutes due to traffic jams.
“Initially, I borrowed a cycle from my friend, and it only took me 11 minutes. Besides saving time, it kept me fit and active. I then bought my own cycle and started exploring different cycling clubs in Vadodara. I enjoyed meeting people and exploring new terrains through my cycle trips.”
While cycling to work, Lalwani realised that in India, a bicycle is either seen as a poor man’s vehicle or fitness equipment, with nothing in between. To challenge these stereotypes, she founded Cycling Cities in 2014. She initiated a project called TRING (TRy CyclING), a pilot project at Linde Engineering, a German MNC, in 2016 to involve professionals in cycling for both fitness and commuting to work.
She also introduced a unique ‘Gift A Cycle’ project where people donated their unused cycles, which were refurbished and given to girls in need. Nearly 100 cycles were donated during Christmas and New Year in 2016.
Due to her consistent efforts to popularise cycling in Vadodara, Lalwani became the first bicycle mayor of India in 2017 (seventh in the world), a title given by the Amsterdam-based organisation BYCS.
Lalwani says she loved her experience as the Bicycle Mayor, as it opened new vistas. “It’s a voluntary non-political role for two years where a person is appointed. I had to work on three main areas: creating awareness about cycling, getting more corporates to support such initiatives, and collaborating with government agencies to ease the bottlenecks involving cycling.”
Reflecting on her journey, Lalwani recalls, “A trip to Germany showed me how cycles are used as a popular mode of transport. I wanted more people in India to use bicycles. In 2015, I planned to use technology for this purpose. I decided to create a platform to help people know which cycle to buy, why to cycle, and about cycling events. I invested everything into the project, but the tech ecosystem in Vadodara was not mature at that time. In 2018, I launched the Cycling Cities app.”
On the app, users could earn carbon credit coins for every kilometre they cycled, which could be redeemed for rewards like free haircuts, energy juice, and energy bars. The app gained popularity.
As people from other cities also wanted to use the app, Lalwani took a big leap and started her journey as a full-time entrepreneur. In 2019, she launched the Crooze app to popularise cycling for both fitness and transport.
How has the journey been? Lalwani says, “It has been tough because I started as a sustainability venture with fitness as an element. But as we progressed, we realised that the percentage of people using cycles for sustainability is quite low. More people on our platform use cycles for fitness.
“So, we had to focus on fitness initially to make it viable. People want to see changes in their lives first before trying to change their environment. Revenue-making has been difficult, but we are hopeful. We are also making efforts to move towards becoming a B2B platform.”
With a smile, she shares her happy moments, which keep her going. “We received acknowledgment for our work from the IT ministry, IIM Ahmedabad, and Mahindra, where I received the inaugural sustainability champion award. We also got a huge grant, which definitely helped us. We were part of the Google Appscale Academy and received fabulous recognition from them. All this increased our engagement, which was gratifying.”
She acknowledges that in cities like Ahmedabad, it’s tough to cycle as the roads are too chaotic and safety is a major concern. She believes policy changes can play a big role in making roads cycle-friendly and inclusive. In India, only eight percent of people drive cars, yet city roads cater mainly to their needs. She is hopeful that technology will be an enabler in popularising cycling.
Explaining further, Lalwani says, “On our platform, we did cycling IPL. There were individual challenges where people participated and scored ranks on the leaderboard to win. We also created a team challenge, which received an unbelievable response.”
She is optimistic that with technology, community support, rewards, and behavioural economics, cycling will see brighter days, promoting fitness and active lifestyles. She believes technology will be a game changer as “people are more glued to their phones, and if there’s something on your phone that helps you be more active and engage in fitness activities, it would be great.”
(Deepika Sahu has been a journalist for 29 years and has worked with some of India’s leading media houses. She is currently independently engaged in content creation and curation. Reach out to her on Twitter: @menondeepika, Instagram: @moodydeepika, Facebook: Deepika Sahu)
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