Kalpetta: The 11th edition of Tour of Nilgiris (TfN), the annual flagship event of RideACycle Foundation (RACF), will witness cyclists pedal 950+ km aro-und the pristine Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve across the Western Ghats, winding through the three states of Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, a press release said here on Saturday.
‘TfN 2018’ has attracted 110 cyclists to pedal the epic tour, including 29 international riders from 13 countries (23 men and six women) and 17 women riders.
Started from Mysuru, the cyclists are pedalling through Hassan, Kusha-lnagar, Sultan Bathery, Udhagamandalam (Ooty), Kalpetta and will return to Mysuru to complete the tour on Sunday.
While pedalling from Sultan Bathery to Ooty, the cyclists will climb the sturdy Kalhatti Ghat which is among the toughest cycling climbs in the world, the release said.
The eight-day cycling tour (December 9 to 16) will take cyclists through breathtaking terrain, offering a myriad of natural sightings across different topography including plains, coffee and tea plantations, three wildli-fe sanctuaries and mountains. The cyclists will get to taste the unique regional cuisines each region has to offer and capture on their lens the beauty of Nilgiris biosphere as they pedal across the rolling terrain.
Tour of Nilgiris epitomises ‘Experiencing Nature through Cycle’, and TfN 2018 will be no different, commented Deepak Majipatil, co-founder, RAC-F.
Every edition etched a memory in riders’ mind, and they crave to come back to experience natu-re. Besides Indian cyclists, more and more of overseas cyclists are keen to visit India to pedal on this grand tour.
There are seven cyclists from Denmark, four from the US, three each from Australia, Germany and the UK, two each from Belgium and Canada and one each from Austria, Greece, Malaysia, Philip-pines and Poland.
This year the tour attracted not only a record number of international riders but also 17 women cyclists both from India and abroad, he added.
