The Heritage Ride: Fort Kohna, the shrines and the old city at photo pace
Multan is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on earth. The Heritage Ride is the club's slow lap through the proof.
A city best seen at cycling speed
Cars can't get into most of it and walking takes all day. A bicycle moves at exactly the right speed for the old city — fast enough to cover the distance between landmarks, slow enough to actually look up at them.
The route threads the area around Qila Kohna Qasim Bagh and the fort mound, the shrines that give Multan its name as the City of Saints — Shah Rukn-e-Alam and Bahauddin Zakariya among them — and the bazaar streets below, before looping back out past Ghanta Ghar. The blue tilework on the shrines at sunrise is the reason the ride starts early.
How we ride it
Slowly, in a tight group, single file wherever the lanes narrow, with a designated leader who knows the turns and a sweep rider at the back. Old-city lanes mean pedestrians, handcarts, motorcycles, uneven surfaces and the occasional open drain — this is not the ride for aero bars and a personal best.
There are long stops. Riders take photographs, someone explains a piece of history, tea happens. The clock is not the point.
Respect, because these are living places
The shrines are active places of worship, not a backdrop. Dress modestly, remove shoes where required, ask before photographing people, don't ride inside courtyards, and keep the noise down. The club's standing instruction is that we leave every site exactly as we found it, and that includes carrying our own rubbish out.
The ride also works as a genuine introduction to the city for anyone who grew up here and never actually looked.