Wearing a neon-coloured helmet and gloves, Elango Gunasekar sets out for work at 5 a.m. A resident of Royapuram, he reaches his office at DLF IT park in Manapakkam at 6.30 a.m. Wondering why it takes him so much time to cover this distance — which is indeed long — at that time of the day when the traffic is thin?
He bicycles to work, at a leisurely pace. As Mount Road has a number of signals, he cycles down Kamaraj Salai (Beach Road), goes through Adyar and Guindy and hits the Kathipara Junction. Besides a water bottle, he carries a change of clothes.
He cycles to work since June 2015. The trigger was “I Cycle to Work,” an online campaign (started by Tamil Nadu Cycling Club (TNCC) in 2014) in which he participated.
“He cycles to work for three reasons — it helps him keep fit, avoid traffic signals by allowing him to take interior lanes, no matter how narrow, and contributing to the environment by ensuring he leaves no carbon footprints,” says Elango, who is a lead engineer in Plintron Technologies.
Nearly 50 others working at DLF IT Park have taken to cycling in the last two years.
“It has been three months since IBM on the DLF campus has created a parking slot under CCTV surveillance at the request of its employees who come to work by bicycles. We have also made a request for a shower facility,” says Dhinesh Pandey, a technical lead who pedals every working day from Kattupakkam and back.
Ever since the second month of his first job, G. Sudhakar has been cycling to office.
“A bright-coloured helmet, a pair of gloves and an identity card are a must for those cycling to work,” says Sudhakar, a testing engineer.
“It is 10 weeks since I started cycling to work. I took it up primarily to lose weight,” says Rama Vani, quality auditor at Computer Science Corporation at DLF IT Park.
She travels from Valasaravakkam.
