CITY cyclist Dr Amit Samarth, who is the only one in Asia to have completed two longest cycling races globally, namely Race Across America (RAAM) and Red BullTrans-Siberian Extreme (T SE), will be attempting to traverse along the Golden Quadrilateral completing about 6000km in 15 days. “I will be attempting Ride Across India, a 6000km distance in 14 days. Starting on February 15 from – Gateway of India, Mumbai then through Pune – Kolhapur – Hubbali – Bengaluru – Chennai – Visakhapatnam – Kolkata – Varanasi – New Delhi – Jaipur – Udaipur – Ahmedabad – Vadodara and back to Mumbai. The main aims of the ride are to promote a healthy lifestyle and to test the limits of human endurance,” said Dr Amit Samarth during a media interaction on Saturday. Samarth will be raising funds for a sports project at Lok Biradari Prakalp run by Dr Prakash Amte.

 

These funds will be used for guiding and building talented aspirational rural youth for sporting activities. The ride will take him through hills, mountains and valleys. He will be bearing extreme weather conditions like cold in the northern regions of the country and heat in the southern. He is going to pass through more than 85 major towns and cities. This ride is probably the first of its kind in India as it will be tracked live via satellite on the speciallybuilt website rideacrossindia.com. The website will not only have the location of Dr Samarth but will also be having live data on his heart rate, core temperature, pedal power, muscle oxygen saturation among others.

 

All this data will be available to visitors on the site on real time basis. Dr Samarth is undertaking this event with a view to encourage the youth of this country to adopt a healthy lifestyle by taking to cycling. His motto is to spread the use of cycle for everyday tasks of life, like going to work and for recreation. Dr Samarth, who is Director of P r o H E A L T H Foundation, will be crewed by Jeetendra Nayak (Crew Director), Vivitt Walwe, Aanand Fiske, Mukul Samarth, Raj Mahaddik, Arushi Nayak, Ravindra Paranjape, Ashwin Mokashi, Bhavesh Patre, DilipWarkad, Dr Sudhir Baldota, Manish Bhati, Rishi Sehgal, Sachin Shirbavikar, Sheetal Kolhe, Dr Shreehas Bardapurkar, Arham Shiekh, Anirudh Pandya and Milind Pariwakam. The project is supported by a team of IT experts from University of Wisconsin Madison, USA headed by Doug Barton, who are helping with the integration of technology for live tracking and monitoring of vital parameters for Dr Samarth during the ride. Rotary Club of Nagpur Downtown, Green Planet Foundation and global giants Garmin, Scott, Red Bull, Kataline, Empowered Margins are also supporting the ride.