For Shyni Rajkumar and 21 other riders from various parts of Kerala, this Onam was one to revel in their rare achievement of a national record.
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The team under MotorCycle Tourers Association was the first of its kind to ride to Karondi, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, the Geographical Centre of India.
The ride led by Jackson Fernandez, president of the association, started from Kanyakumari on September 4 and reached Jabalpur on September 7, the eve of Thiruvonam, covering over 2,200 km. They had also touched Nagpur, which was the Geographical Centre of India before Independence. Shyni was the only woman in the team.
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Being the founder of Dauntless Royal Explorers, Kerala’s first woman riders’ club, Shyni is known for several adventurous rides in the past and has also coordinated some of them. “I was apprehensive of riding with other team members as I did not know most of them. But the team was very supportive,” she said.
Shyni had just returned from another record-setting ride when she joined the 21-member team as their only female rider for the trip. She, along with Kalyani Rajendran and Jayasree, two other members of Dauntless Royal Explorers, had ridden to Umling La Pass in Ladakh (19,224 feet above sea level), the highest motorable road in India, and was the first team that started its journey from sea level to have reached this destination.
Umling La Pass obtained the status of the highest-motorable road recently as Khardung La pass held the distinction for a long time. The trio had covered 21 States and 5 Union Territories in 58 days, carrying the message to stop violence against women and children. Both the feats have been considered for the India Book of Records.