Punjab

Cycling towards better health

Critical Mass, a cycling club, started peddling across the capital around a year ago.

Maha Mussadaq August 16, 2010

ISLAMABAD: The message of healthier activities amongst youngsters is slowly beginning to gain momentum in Islamabad. Critical Mass, a cycling club, started peddling across the capital around a year ago.

With the aim to create awareness about environmental issues and popularise healthy recreational activities among youth, the club first began cycling in Lahore two years ago. Ahmed Rafay Alam, an environment activist and columnist, was behind the initiative.

Soon after, the Karachi chapter also became operational and since then the group has gained massive support in both the cities.

The Islamabad chapter is still in its initial stages, but hundreds of people have already joined and more are expected, from lawyers to painters, students and members of civil society.

Rweeda Himayat, in charge of the Islamabad chapter, reiterated that people were opening up to the new concept.

“You make an important statement when you get off your vehicles and come onto the bikes,” she said.

These cyclists are not just leisure seekers, but social activists as well “There are times when cyclists have gotten off, spoken to people on the roads on various issues,” Himayat added.

There are no membership or registration charges and anyone can come and join the group as long as they own a bicycle.

Last Sunday, the Critical Mass decided to meet near Fatima Jinnah Park and cycle for 18 to 25 kilometres.

The theme for the outing in the rain was to decrease fossil fuel consumption and encourage adoption of environment friendly sources of energy.

The heavy downpour did not wash away the enthusiasm of these cyclists as they went from F-10 to Faisal Avenue onto the Margalla Road before coming back to the park.

Rana Arif, a 26-year-old architect, said, “Islamabad hosts ideal settings for such an activity. But Critical Mass is still more popular in Lahore and Karachi.”

Many have learned about this group through the group’s page on Facebook. Shoaib Khan, who works at the Pakistan Youth Climate Network, said, “We campaign research based projects for climate. And we joined this group to increase our interaction with the nature.”

Published in The Express Tribune, August 16^th, 2010.

COMMENTS (1)

Rana Atif Rehman | 13 years ago | Reply Thanks for publishing the article Maha. You can further work with us in future to highlight are ongoing efforts. But there are few technical problems with the article and mistakes in it along with criticism that need to be undertaken. The imagery that has been used does not indicate where exactly in Islamabad is this cycling being done (is a group effort or just a casual cycling). The remote location in the photograph portrays an un-attending and un-inviting image of the 'cycling activity'. After reading this articles, many of our cyclist have disliked it since this photograph carries no meaning or idea in it. There were many group photos on our facebook page and cycling within city which could have been used instead. My name there are printed is wrong. It is Rana Atif Rehman. As an activist in the town I would prefer something more creative in terms of writing that would help both us and the citizen to benefit from such an event. The article could have been made a little more interesting by elaborating the concept of Critical Mass Event (CME) around the world and the need of cycling in our auto-mobile dominated society. Good luck for future! Regards Rana Atif Rehman Architect/Urban Designer/Activist

Replying to X