I started bicycling last year. I’ve been doing it regularly now for a little over a year, and I’ve improved a lot in the past six months especially. I can now easily ride 40 to 50 kilometres a day. If I practice really hard, by December 2013 I could possibly be riding a hundred kilometres or more a day without wearing myself out. If I achieve that sort of stamina, I could conceivably complete the Tour of Tamil Nadu (a thousand kilometres in a loop through mostly flat terrain in Tamil Nadu) or the Tour of Nilgiris (only eight hundred kilometres, from Bangalore to Chamrajnagar, but almost all of it through hilly terrain).
Both these tours are in the end of December, so I have eight months to train for them. Both tours also let you associate with a charitable cause and ride to raise awareness about what they do, and money to help them do it.
So let’s talk numbers. The registration for either tour will be approximately 18,000 rupees. The costs of transporting my bicycle from Delhi to South India, the costs of additional gear and provisions, et cetera, could come to about seven or eight thousand rupees. Let’s say twenty five thousand rupees total for the venture. I’m pretty confident that I can raise twenty five thousand rupees from my freelance writing from now until December.
However….
If I’m getting this money from my freelancing anyway, I could just donate it to a charity of my choice straight away without going through the rigmarole of riding through South India. The activity only becomes worth it if you guys pledge to support the charity if I complete the ride, and end up donating more than twenty five thousand.
So I’m now asking you straight up: if I rode either the Tour of Tamil Nadu or the Tour of Nilgiris (I have three months to decide which), would you pledge money to a charity? If you would, please leave a comment.
Ideally, mention how much money you’d contribute in the comment, but if you feel shy about doing this in public, you can instead ask me to email you for the amount. If I get pledges for more than twenty five thousand rupees, I’ll do one of the rides instead of just donating my money directly.
Fine print:
- My charity of choice is Pratham, which does a bunch of stuff related to education in India, including monitoring school effectiveness, conducting interventions in education and child nutrition, and creating teaching material. I’d love it if you donated to these guys.
- But if you would rather contribute somewhere else, that’s okay too.
- It only counts if you’re donating over and above what you usually would. If you’re already giving ten thousand a year to a charity of your choice, please don’t do it again, just under my name. I’m asking for something extra.
And now, I’ll leave it to you to do the pledging in the comments.
Posted by Aadisht