Love Cycling? Cycle Your Way around Mysore with MyCycle!

It is a pleasant Friday morning at 6.30am. A small group of cyclists park their cycles at the base of the Chamundi hill and start climbing the 1000 steps to the top. In the meantime, their cycles get transported to the top of the hill. Once on top of the mountain, the group of cyclists cycle down the mountain on the way back as part of the Gravity Friday tour with Royal Mysore Walks. Started off with a walking tours around Mysore in a few themes, Royal Mysore Walks began its cycle tours under a sister concern MyCycle in early 2011. “Beginning of last year, I met Steve from England who has been living in Mysore for the last two year and has been cycling around the city as well. So I thought why not combine his experience and interest of cycling with the idea of touring around Mysore,” shares Vinay, Co- Founder, MyCycle and Founder, Royal Mysore Walks.

Organising 2 kms to 3kms walking trips around Mysore, cycling offered the business more opportunities to expand. The cycle used by Mycycle cyclist and used for cycling tours in early hours of the day starting at 6.30am. Realising the potential of these cycle tours, the idea was extended beyond the initial vintage Mysore cycle tours. They have some interesting tour packages like silk tour (about the history of the silk industry in Karnataka), art tour, night walks and other tours based on special requests as well.

Apart from the walking and cycle tours, Royal Mysore Walks has also introduced jeep tours in open top World War II jeep around places like the Tippu’s trail around Srirangapatna. All the tours may range from being a 2-3hrs tours to half or full day tours as well. “We didn’t want to get the guides and train them because it is about offering a different perspective. We now have people from different backgrounds which makes a difference. These tours are about experiences,” explains Vinay, Founder, Royal Mysore Tours. At the end of the tours, the tourists also get a chance to buy eco-friendly souvenirs like t-shirts and bags from organic cotton made by the local artists.

Though the tours were initially started only for tourists (mostly westerners), this startup extended thse tours to the officers under training at the Administrative Training Institute with around 5000 officers taking this tour since 2009. Their clients include the Post Training Institute, UNESCO delegates who were in Mysore for a conference, corporate crowd from Bangalore, Infosys etc.

When YourStory.in caught up with Royal Mysore Walks two years ago, it was a one man show. Today the team has grown to become a 5 member team. “With Steve coming from UK with his perspective from the west and our local knowledge, it is the kind of people who have joined that really makes it,” says Vinay. Manu Bharatwaj and Vinay Nagaraju (another Vinay) quit their IT jobs and have joined Royal Mysore Walks. Spoorthi, a journalism student also works with them. Now with 3 years experience in Mysore, they are looking to expand to more geographical locations as well.

Though the momentum was initially slow, people slowly started trickling in for these tours with Trip Advisor and Lonely Planet recommending Royal Mysore Walks with high ratings. The startup also helped in putting together Highway on My Plate’s episode on Mysore which in turn also put them on the show giving them good visibility.

The cycles that are used for tours remain unused for the rest of the day after tours. After a little bit of thought, MyCycle for the first time in India has started using the cycles for trail advertising and called it MyCycle Ads. Local businesses are signing up with them to do ads.

Royal Mysore Walks with strong principles focuses on being an eco-friendly and socially responsible tourist company. They support the Deputy Commissioner’s campaign for officers cycling to work every Monday morning. “As you are growing as a startup, you need to be socially conscious especially with being in the tourism industry we get a lot from the community. We would like to do our bit to give some back to the society,” shares Vinay.