Thread approved

Awesome pics buddy... waiting for your log... please include as many details as possible, regarding route, road conditions, fuel availability etc. Me and few friends are planning on 'visiting' Leh in Sep...

Mouthwatering . Waiting for the trip log.

Awesome teasers... waiting for more...

Thanks for the approval Noor

Thanks a lot lijok...Sure will be the posting the details soon.

You can PM me if you need any info regarding routes.

Thank you dude...yes trying my best the post the complete log ASAP

Thanks Rahul

post your route here itself no... will help others like me too...

Prologue

Thanks Note:

Let me start the log by thanking the people who had been a reason behind this successful Journey.

Praful and Ananth T.E for their expertise advise to plan our trip.

For those wonderful and flabbergasting travelogues which added fuel to my burning desire by Ananth T.E, Praful, Trust Vishwas, Praveen Selvam (Xinfii), Sumit and the list goes on....

Ankur Pahwa for the delicious breakfast and guidance in Chandigarh...We owe you a lot...

Snehasish Das (ultimogr8) - For being our spoc and following our whereabouts through out the trip

Last but not the Least, Hero Honda - For Producing a Rock solid Tourer - The Karizma ZMR

The Initiation:

Riding to Ladakh - The heaven on earth- This wasn't in one of my dreams an year ago, before Bike touring could become a part of my life.

Late in September 2010, after few trips on my brand new ZMR, a bug has entered into my mind and taken into a madness of riding to the Mecca of bikers. At this point of time I was neither a member of any Biker forums nor I know any biker who are mad like me in touring. All I knew was that only bulleteirs and the Bullets are strong enough to do these terrains . This lead me to start investigation over the Internet and then headed to going through travelogues and taking expertise advise and suggestions on touring.

September 2010 - March 2011 - Went through a lot of stuff over these 6 months and decided that 2011 is the year for me and I'm getting Leh'd no matter what. Had come up with few posts and finally met Ronak Lakhani, Snehasish Das and Hari who had been on the same page to get Leh'd.

Preparations:

Hundreds of Email conversations, lot of meetings and finally we were fixed to kick-off the Lifetime Journey on June 25 2011.

We planned for a pre-ride but could not happen due to Availability issues (Damn this IT industry). After all the confirmed flights tickets and shopping, We had a small disappointment in between. Snehasish had to drop out from the plan as he got a New Job and we 3 had to go ahead with this bitter truth.

Getting the bikes ready, this has been quite a task for Me and Hari as Ronak just had a 8 month old bike which did not need any changes. Hari has to make a lot of changes to his Unicorn to hit the terrain and I desperately have to change my puny ZMR rear tyre which has already done 11000 kms. Got a CEAT 120/80 vertigo sports.

Spares for ZMR has been a know issue and all I could manage to get is the Clutch cable and my throttle cable was replaced recently. Ronak and Hari were a head of me in this. Everything has been set

and we decided to transport our bikes through GATI to ensure that the bikes are least damaged

Note: This log contains few Pictures from Ronak as well.

18th June 2011 - Our bikes getting packed from Bangalore GATI office:


Courtesy : Ronak Lakhani



18th June - 25th June A week that has taken long time to pass and those sleepless nights, dreaming with wide open eyes. I have no words to explain and one must definitely experience this to get the exact feeling.

6:20am is the flight time and we all decided to meet at the airport by 5.15 am in the morning. Ronak and Hari has taken a common cab and I had to go on my own.

4.00am - I would have hardly slept for half-an-hour thinking of the Mighty Journey ahead and the tring tring on my phone wakes me up, not the alarm but the cab driver's call. Got ready and called Ronak who had already reached airport . Boarded the cab and reached airport exactly at 5.15, punctual for the frist time ever in my life

Ronak at the Bangalore Airport: (I missed the photo session here )



We all were so excited and this 2.30hrs flight journey has been boring like hell. Landed in Delhi 10 mins a head of the schedule.



The very first day I started losing things (more in the list), I had left our Guide to Leh (Xbhp Magazine May-June Edition) in the flight and I was the only one who was carrying it.

Day-1 Journey Starts here : Day-1: Delhi-Chandigarh

Subscribed..!!

Nice teaser pics Bring on the rest!

No need to thank! Glad your trip came out well! And very nice teasers! Bring out the full log

Thanks again