A group of women bikers rolled out from the Balidan Stambh in Jammu this weekend, not for a joyride but for a tribute. Ride with Pride 3.0 — "Veergatha: Katha Amar Balidaniyon Ki" — is the third major expedition organised by the Shakti Udghosh Foundation, timed to Kargil Vijay Diwas and built around a route that runs from Jammu through Billawar, Bani and Bhaderwah before looping back to the city.
The expedition was flagged off on July 18, 2026, by Minister Satish Sharma — a formality that got the send-off some coverage, but the actual story belongs to the women doing the riding and the organisation behind them.
A foundation with a track record
Led by convenor Preeti Choudhary, the Shakti Udghosh Foundation has been running patriotic, women-led expeditions out of Jammu since 2016, and this is far from its first big ride. Last July, its Shakti Yatra 2.0 sent 26 women bikers — joined by riders from Delhi's Let's Ryde and Indore's Bikerni collective — over 2,000 kilometres from Jammu to Rezang La in tribute to Operation Sindoor. Months before that, 18 women bikers rode the foundation's "Nasha Mukt Seemayein" expedition along some of the most sensitive stretches of the border — the Ditch-cum-Bandh, the International Border and the Line of Control between Kathua and Poonch — to push an anti-drug message, a ride that earned the group a briefing with Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha.
"This is the roar of the Indian woman," Choudhary said of the Rezang La ride last year — a line that could just as easily describe this weekend's send-off.
What this ride is actually about
Ride with Pride 3.0 is framed less as adventure sport and more as remembrance: through Billawar, Bani and Bhaderwah, riders are stopping to meet families of martyrs and visit sites tied to the region's military history, carrying what organisers describe as a message of courage, sacrifice, women's empowerment and national integration. It is a deliberately disciplined ride rather than a recreational one — the kind of structure that has become the foundation's signature across its three editions so far.
For young women in Jammu, what the Shakti Udghosh Foundation has built over three rides is less about any single expedition and more about a pattern: a homegrown, women-run outfit that keeps putting women on bikes on some of the toughest roads in the region, on its own terms, three times over.
Sources: Gadyal Kashmir, Daily Excelsior — Shakti Yatra 2.0, Bold News — Nasha Mukt Seemayein.
