Snow Cycling mesmerizes everyone

Abid Khan
Srinagar, Feb 4: The newly introduced adventure sport, snow cycling remained centre of attraction for everyone in the Gulmarg on the occasion of Gulmarg Snow Festival on Wednesday.
From early morning Tuesday, 20 cyclists who had come from Srinagar to take part in the snow cycling competition were centre of attraction and everyone was puzzled how the cycles are running on snow. It was third straight year that snow cycling was being held in the festival but for many people who were witnessed it first time were not believing on their eyes that cyclists are riding on snow with such ease.
Apart from spectators and tourists cyclists were also attracting the media personal who gathered in Gulmarg to cover the festival.
The demoralizing factor for cyclists was that they had to wait for more than two and half hours amid continuing snowfall for flag at start line. The minister was first in snow-rink and then out of fixture went to Knogdoori to see snowboarding. During that time the cyclist were feeling cold and did not know what to do.
Finally when the Minister came and flagged off the race. All the riders rushed out with full speed without caring for the slippery surface. The route was from ski-shop to Gulmarg Club via Royal Park hotel that was amounting to total distance of 6-kilometers.
The first riders who took the lead from rest were Ubaid Shah and Hilal Ahmad but only two kilometers after Ubaid’s chain broke down and Hilal started to feel fatigue. The track of the race had become tougher due to the fresh snow that had accumulated on surface. But despite all odds the cyclists continued race. On first it looked like that Riyaz Ahmad will cruise to victory easily but as the finish line approached riders behind him sprinted hard and finished ahead of him by fraction of second.
Mudasir Ahmad of Fort City Sports Club finished with the timing of 10:11:23 while as Ghulam Rasool Kawa of Discovery Club, timing 10:24:30 and Anzil Mukhtar of AS College, timing 10:30:13 finished second and third respectively.
Riyaz Ahmad of Fort City Sports Club finished fourth.
The first position holder said that it was not easy to take part in the event and get position ahead of the known cyclist of valley.
He said, “I participating first time in the event and in my maiden triumph I cam out as winner. It was easy to ride on snow but I kept my cool and despite few falls I managed to win race.”
Since being introduced in 2006 during snow festival, snow festival has became huge hit around the world. Both tourism department and J&K Cycling Association has got number of queries regarding it from around world.
For participating in the event riders used imported Mountain Biking Cycles (MTB) equipped with advanced gears, which helped riders to do cycling on snow.“Apart from techniques we use special imported MTB cycles which are equipped with special gears that help us to do cycling on snow”. “The cycles are costly and second hand come in the range of 30-50 thousand” said NIS cycling coach Ghulam Rasool Kawa