On a recent trip to Germany, what struck me distinctly were the pet dogs moving around everywhere with their masters — in the airport lounges, trains, hotel lobbies, parks and streets. But more than the cute Pomeranians and German Shepherds, I was bowled over by the use of bicycles by the public and the facilities extended to them by the government.

In the Legend’s Backyard

Walking past the railway station in Heidelberg (a scenic city where the tennis legend Steffi Graf grew up), I could spot hundreds of cycles in the station’s parking lot resembling the two-wheeler parking scene outside our metro cities’ suburban railway stations. There are distinct cycle tracks on the roads and even in subways. There are signals for cycle crossing. At many places, I came across steel frames anchored to ground where cycles can be parked and secured with chain locks.

In trains, there are special compartments for passengers who carry bicycles. Train stations have escalators using which cycles can be manoeuvred, though with some difficulty. Many people, of various ages and social strata, cycle from their residence to the nearest station, board the trains with cycles, get down at the destination and hit the roads again with their cycles.

Annual Expedition

As I walked into a cable factory at Mannheim, I was received by a senior official who had marks of frostbite on his face. Picking up my inquisitive looks, he explained, “Well yes. My wife and I just returned from a 10-day cycling tour in the eastern part of Germany. We took our cycles by train to Berlin from where we kicked off. Every day, we cycled 65 km, enjoying the lyrical beauty of the countryside in pretty cool (that explained the frostbite) and salubrious weather. Each year, we cover some places and cycling is my first choice, for it is not just a great exercise but a green mode of transport, too.”

How true! How nice it would be if our own roads and streets and railway stations turn cycle-friendly and are filled with cycles and our MDs and CEOs pride on cycling to their offices, carrying their cycles in intra-city trains having special provisions to accommodate cycles and cyclists! How many tonnes of cholesterol will get eliminated from our bodies and how many barrels of petrol will get conserved? Who knows, if cycle fever picks up, Mukul Roy (read Didi) may even introduce exclusive cycle-special trains.

A Miss and Hit

As I was lost in such wishful thinking waiting for my train at Langen Flugsicherung, the S-Bahn station close to Frankfurt, I bumped into a charming young lady getting down from the train with her cycle. Fearing a verbal assault from her, I was quick to surrender and say, “I am sorry.”

She gorgeously smiled at me, winked her eyes and continued her cycling odyssey. All our film directors would have snapped the sequence here and plumped for a dream song with a hundred artistes on cycles. I preferred to support their cause and went into dream mode. Within two minutes, I woke up from my reverie, disturbed by a call on my mobile. It was my wife from Chennai. “Our son wants to buy a new bicycle at once. Why don’t you talk to him?” “No need. Request approved,” I cleared her file in a flash and slid back into my dream.

(The author is AGM, Powertech Engineering LLC, Muscat.)

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