Ride for Habitat! – Two Wheeled Expeditions gives back.

The one thing most of us take for granted is a decent place to rest at the end of each day. The times we may have found ourselves without a roof could be by choice or sheer foolishness. Like spending a night beside a freezing lake high in the Himalayas without a tent. Or riding through torrential rain and not finding a place to sleep till late into the night. We may call it adventure and once we’re back home with a roof over our heads and a warm bed under our weary bones, we can laugh about it.

But when we pause to consider the people we ride past who often have no choice but to sleep out in the open or in poorly constructed slums we dare not call it their “adventure”.

With this realization we decided to do our part to give back to the country that provides the incredible backdrop for many of our rides. So a few months ago, Two Wheeled Expeditions founder Roro La Velle and I began searching for a suitable charitable organization to partner with in the area of home construction for the needy in India. This led us to Habitat For Humanity India, an NGO that has been doing just that for nearly four decades. And this year, they even won the prestigious ‘Mahatma Award for Social Good’ in India for their noble efforts.

It also made sense to collaborate with the local motorcycling community including the decade old “Delhi Bikers Breakfast Run” (DBBR) and our friends and local motorcycle leather artisans at TripMachine to champion this cause and ensure that more people got involved. DBBR had already volunteered for few building projects in the past with Habitat and it was time to renew that commitment.

Riders for Habitat on 12 Oct in Delhi

Thus ‘Ride For Habitat 2019’ got kick-started on 12th October as a long line of motorcycles rode nearly 70kms out of Delhi. School kids waved out of their buses while those in cars had their phones out to video us. Closer to our destination, the village kids ran out of their huts, laughing and waving at this peculiar sight.

Check out the quick vid from the ride!  Video from our Ride for Habitat fundraiser.

Once we reached the Aravali Orchard, our destination for the morning’s post ride activities, helmets off and chai tea in hand, we sat around the manicured garden to hear about the significance of this ride and its implications into the future.

Roro from TWE

While Two Wheeled Expeditions donates $50 for every booking to Habitat, the company also invites international riders to volunteer for building projects. Such on site experiences often enrich and help shape our ideas about what really matters at the end of the day. And while adventure motorcycling is still a privilege, it can also be an opportunity to give back to those in need.

Pramil Aruldoss from Habitat shared passionately about why they do what they do. He said, “for families that end up receiving their home from Habitat For Humanity…when they have a place of belonging, a place to go back to sleep at the end of each day…they are then able to focus on other things like education, health, livelihood, hygiene and sanitation…the long term impact on such families is incredible”

Josh from TWE

The vision of Habitat For Humanity to ensure “a world where everyone has a decent place to live” profound. And it requires unique partnerships and initiatives such as ‘Ride For Habitat’ to pursue it. The invitation is open to all of us from across borders and from all backgrounds. Maybe for some of us, it may just take a night out on a cold mountain without a tent or getting stranded in the rain to make us realize what a difference a house makes to our wellbeing.

Joshua John

Josh is the founder of Delhi Bikers Breakfast Run and the Shah of Client Experience at Two Wheeled Expeditions. He can be reached at [email protected]