Cycle India 2010

Hi Everyone

We’re now ready to start signing people up for our next charity bike ride - Cycle India 2010.

This will be bigger and better than Cycle India 2008, as we’re looking for around 50 UK cyclists to take part this time, and will be encouraging more people from the US, India and the Rest of the World to take part. And we’ll be publicising the event in a far bigger way, so we expect a big reception from the people of India this time!

I’ve recently been over to India with Dr Prasad, Carl and Mario to start making initial plans, and we tracked much of the planned route. We have a great team of people looking forward to helping us with this worthy project, and keen to join us during the event. For those that took part in our last event, you’ll be pleased to hear the Nithin has agreed to make most of the arrangements, and he is promising to spoil us this time.

We’ll be cycling through a different part of India this time - the State of Karnataka in Southern India. We will be spending time at the Green Valley Resort in Bangalore, and cycling around Mysore and the scenic district of Coorg.

Coorg

Although the precise route is yet to be finalised, there will be the opportunity to visit many of the tourist attractions this area has to offer, including Mysore Palace, and the fountains at Brindavan Gardens.

Mysore Palace

Mysore has a number of historic palaces, and is commonly described as the City of Palaces. However, the term “Palace of Mysore” specifically refers to one of these palaces, Amba Vilas. The palace was commissioned in 1897, and its construction was completed in 1912. It is now one of the most famous tourist attractions in Mysore and we hope to visit while we’re there.

Brindavan Gardens

We also hope to visit the Brindavan Gardens which are visited by close to 2 million tourists per year. The garden is one of the major attractions near the city of Mysore, and the fountains and light displays are magical on an evening.

Of course, there’s going to be some challenging cycling, as we’re planning a route of around 200 miles over 4 days of cycling. It is likely that there will be more hills to navigate than Cycle India 2008, so a bit of training would be recommended.

The highlight of Cycle India 2008 was cycling to the Heal Children’s Village in Guntur and being greeted by all the Heal children. This time we have an exciting twist! As we’re cycling in a different area of India, the children are going to meet us in Bangalore at the Green Valley Resort and we’ll have many cultural activities and get the chance to play with the children. As many of our children have never had a holiday before, this will be a great opportunity for them.

Although exact dates have not been finalised, we intend to fly out on January 2nd and returning on January 11th.

The likely schedule will be:

January 2nd - fly from Heathrow to Bangalore
January 3rd - arrive at Bangalore airport in the morning, transfer to the Green Valley Resort for a freshen up and breakfast. Then coach journey to the Mysore area.
January 4th - Spend the day sightseeing and recovering from travelling.
January 5th - Day 1 cycling
January 6th - Day 2 cycling
January 7th - Day 3 cycling
January 8th - Day 4 cycling
January 9th - Return to Green Valley Resort and meet the Children
January 10th - Day at the Green Valley Resort
January 11th - Return to the UK

If you fancy a lifechanging experience and think Cycle India is for you then you will need to act quickly as demand is already very high. To take part you will need to fill in our application form and pay a £250 registration fee to secure your place.

You will also need to commit to raising a minimum of £2500 for Heal prior to the event. We can give you lots of advice on how to raise the funds required - it really is easier than you might think! Once you have raised the £2500 you’re place on the flights are secured, and you have no other money to pay out. The £2500 covers all your costs (flights, food, accommodation, bikes etc), which we hope will be less than £1000 per person. From Cycle India 2008 we raised a massive £100,000 which is going towards building a new residential school in Hyderabad. We hope to raise much more from Cycle India 2010 to help us develop further projects and help remove more children from the poverty trap.

For More information on how to apply please visit http://www.cycleindia.org/sign-up-for-cycle-india-2010/