Naga cyclist pedalled 13,000 km on bamboo cycle

Kohima, March 16: Naga cyclist, Sievituo Solo of Kohima, recently returned to Nagaland from his 4th bicycle expedition where he traversed across 23 European countries and the USA on a self-made bamboo structured bicycle, covering a distance of 13,000 kilometres within a span of 210 days.

In April 2016, the innovative young cyclist, along with his team of six members, built the frame for his cycle with bamboo treated from the Nagaland Bamboo Resource Centre in Dimapur. The structure of the bike was engineered by Kohima-based architect, Richard Belho.

While bicycle frames made of bamboo are not new concept that few Naga youths built, one local bamboo species which successfully ran 13,000 kms across the world is noteworthy and deserves encouragement as well as attention.

Sharing his experiences from the expedition, Solo said that except for a few metal components that needed changing along the way, the bamboo bike withstood the entire journey. He recalled when he started out his tour in Europe, people were unbelieving that the bike was made of bamboo.

“Some even checked up close and knocked on the frame to see if it was really made of bamboo,” he narrated. Later on, he said, many people in Belgium, Netherlands, the USA etc expressed their keenness to buy bamboo bikes if “we could supply”.

On whether his team would be exploring to manufacture similar bikes on a larger scale as per marketing potentiality, Solo said it would be difficult especially to acquire different components but at the same time, he was hopeful that they would do it.

When asked about the objective behind his cycling expeditions, Solo said he wanted to learn and experience life in different places and give back to the community here what he gained from his experiences.

Solo, who is also an avid environmentalist, felt that the conception of the local bamboo bike is an ideal message of being eco-friendly. His latest expedition was undertaken under the slogan ‘Innovative, Eco-Friendly & Healthy Lifestyle’.

His earlier cycling expeditions, carried out with his friend Ruokuo Kire, included ‘Discover Nagaland on a Bicycle’ in 2011 where the duo had pedalled their way across the 11 districts of the State covering a distance of about 1400 kms in 31 days on their bicycles. They gradually put together their love for adventure, cycling and a shared concern for the depleting environment and rode beyond the mountains of Nagaland in 2013 to campaign for a healthy environment and the second expedition on the theme ‘Re-cycling for greener environment.’

They had then cycled a distance of 4000 kms in 39 days from Kohima to New Delhi via Bhutan, into the Indo-Bangladesh territory and Nepal. In their third expedition on the theme ‘Cycling for sustainable world: Wheels of change’ in 2014, the two cyclists covered 7000 km across seven South-East Asian countries.

Their experiences from their cycling expeditions had led to the formation of ReCycling Initiative, a non-profit organisation with the slogan ‘Green is Change,’ aimed at promoting the importance of recycling and to raise awareness on natural environment and global warming while creating user-friendly navigation for healthy living and linkages.

Since then, the ReCycling Initiative has produced ‘Project 72 Hrs’ in 2015, an initiative inspiring young people of Kohima to commit at least 72 hours in a year to community service.

Led by Sievituo, team Project 72 Hrs became the talk of the town as well as on the popular social networking site Facebook as they progressed from picking up trash and litter randomly strewn on the roadsides of the town to clearing clotted drainages and delivering motivational talks on clean environment at schools and colleges.

The team’s activities include the Kohima mural art project where it envisions making the best use of empty spaces and plain looming walls of the town to share positive and inspirational. Solo disclosed that they are also currently involved in carpentry (furniture-making) and interior designing adding the income from these sources are being invested in the Project 72 Hrs community service. He said the team is planning to start a travel agency to sustain their projects.

“For any change, it takes time…. We are not trying to change Nagaland, we are trying to change the mindset of the people, to respect public properties and to respect the environment around us,” says Solo.

He feels that many Naga youth talk a lot in social networking platforms but there are hardly any doers in reality. “Many issues can be solved if people could come together to willingly give to the community,” he maintained.

On his latest expedition, he said it was “very rewarding” and that he was amazed at the hospitality level of the “people there” which he described to be very different from the hospitality that Nagas pride themselves of. “We can be proud of our identity, our culture and traditions but definitely not our hospitality,” he asserted.

He also said the Europeans were very individualistic with focus on entrepreneurship but at the same time they try to support the government. “They take care of public properties, they value their time, they want to innovate new things, they don’t flaunt their wealth….,” he stated. While observing that things are somehow the opposite here, he opined if the present mindset of the people can change, however slow, positive changes would definitely come.