Rongtong Pedellars Group

Rongtong Pedallers Group began as a handful of friends in Siliguri who shared one habit: waking before sunrise to ride into the hills before the city stirred. What started as a weekend routine has grown into a standing community of riders, drawn together by the same stretch of road that first brought us here — the winding climb toward Rongtong, along the forested edge where the plains give way to the first folds of the Himalaya.

We are not a racing club and we are not a training squad. We are a group of people who happen to believe that the best conversations happen at fifteen kilometres an hour, somewhere between a tea garden and a switchback. Over the years, the group has welcomed students, shopkeepers, office-goers, and retirees alike, each finding their own reason to keep coming back to the same road.

Our signature ride follows the old hydel road toward Rongtong, tracing the river as it drops out of the hills above Kalimpong. The route rewards patience more than power: a long, steady gradient through sal forest, a handful of tight bends where the valley opens up without warning, and a final stretch where the air turns noticeably cooler than the plains below.

Riders describe it less as a climb and more as a gradual change of altitude and mood. We ride it often enough that the road has become a kind of shared reference point — a place new members are introduced to, and old members return to, season after season.

Our motto, "We Ride, We Grow", says plainly what we’ve come to believe after years on these roads: that riding is rarely just about the bicycle. Every ride adds something — a stronger set of legs, yes, but also a better understanding of pacing, patience, and looking out for the rider behind you.

New members often join for fitness and stay for the community that forms somewhere around the second or third climb, when a stranger becomes someone who waits for you at the top. We grow individually with every kilometre, and we grow together with every ride we complete as a group.