Thanks Sandy and wish you all the best for your Ladakh ride. Well, initially even I was worried that the bags will be damaged due to exhaust heat as even my saddle bags were slightly touching the hot exhaust. But then I solved the issue by using bungee cords. R15 exhaust has fiber cover on it which doesn't get as hot as 200's metal exhaust. Hence there wasn't any damage to the saddle bags.

@ All,
Enjoy the beautiful view of Betaab Valley, Pahalgam, Kashmir.

Ketan n Mandar Dada you teasing us to the max here posting a single pic and a video after 2 -3 pages..... please have mercy on us poor souls in Delhi its freaking hot out here....... start the log

1 Qn to both of u ,
I have both the zma and the R15 ..
which 1 is better to take To LEh?
Im leaving on the 7th

Ketan-WHat set of tires did u have?

Santa

Haha..the link posted in pune offline thread brought me here

Can't help it buddy No free time and also the internet problem is still not solved. Will start the log soon.

first of all, good luck for your ride Santoosh. Well R15 and ZMA R both had their plus and minus points in that terrain. Some say R15 has aggressive seating position which is not good in that kind rough terrain where as ZMA has a bit relaxed and tourer friendly seating position. On the other hand ZMA owners complain about poor plastic parts quality and plastic joints which result in broken parts or rattling. I did not face any such plastic part issue on R15. But one has to be careful with ground clearance when on R15 in that terrain, especially in very rough roads and water crossings. So the choice is up to you. I took my R15 and returned home without a single problem.

Tyres on my bike: Front - Stock. Rear - IRC 110 section. Don't remember the model name, will check and let you know.

Hehe. Yeah, I thought so Thanks anyways

Great going Ketan! Please post the updates.

You posted a video of the Betaab valley. Did you try venturing into the Gurez valley, near to the LOC?

Thx for reply buddy...

Thanks Vaibhav. We were supposed to leave for Srinagar after Pahalgam sightseeing and hence did not have much time in hand. The hotel owner showed us a long list of places of interest in Pahalgam but decided to visit only a few of them. We went to Betaab valley and Aru. We were on our way to Chandanwari but could not reach there as the road was closed to land slide. We have a pic of the landslide which I'll post in the log with few more details

Welcome Sandy!

I was all set to start the log tonight but had to go to a friend's party . Just reached home and feeling sleepy. So for the time being here's another interesting video recorded using my custom made camera mount. Crossing an uphill water stream in Rohtang pass. There wasn't much water at that time but the road was treacherous and very bumpy due to those huge stones and rocks. Enjoy!

YouTube - ‪Riding my R15 in Rohtang Pass, Manali - Leh highway‬‏

my saddle bags (ex) second journey to the land of monks

chala mitra pudha sarkaa ata

I still am not sure if you did spiti or not though your thread name doesn't specify so

Guys, have a look at this video. We were stuck in traffic in Rohtang pass due to two major landslides. Finally after getting out of that frustrating traffic got some nice twisty smooth roads to enjoy the R15. Recorded using the custom made fuel tank camera mount.

YouTube - ‪Nice twisty roads just after Rohtang Pass Manali.‬‏

Hopefully, in the near future, they'll be making a third trip ....(fingers crossed )

Trip ati-uttam ! Pics ekdum chaan..videos lavkarach baghen... Ayushyachi maja keli re baba tu ! Congratulations to you and Mandar See you soon

The Dream Ride...

Before joining xBhp it was only on television and occasionally in magazines and newspapers where I saw/read about people riding their motorcycles to Leh-Ladakh. But since at that time, I was as passionate about motorcycle touring as I am after joining xBhp, it didn't blow me away as such. May be at that time I wasn't aware of the fact that how different this ride is than usual ones. It was at xBhp that I truly understood the real fun in motorcycle touring and started enjoying it.

I had heard from a lot people that riding to Ladakh is the most ultimate thing for every hardcore tourer but it wasn't until Rachit and group went to Ladakh, that I really started dreaming about this ride. It was when I went to Hotel Fountain to see them off for their ride, I thought.. Yes, may be someday even I'll head out on such a long ride. After going through Rachit's Ladakh travelogue and the pictures I was totally blown away.

I did a bit of homework and understood the most important thing about Ladakh ride that it has to be done in a particular period of the year. So if you fail to manage all your stuff in time then there's no option but to wait for an entire year. Other important things include leaves, finances and meticulous planning.

I was really looking forward to ride to Leh in June 2010. I was carefully following all the action going on in various threads on xBhp and doing my homework as well. The only thing I was unsure was money. And like I said, if you can't manage things in that particular time frame then..well no choice but to wait for the next year. Same thing happened with me. I could not manage the finances and had no choice but to postpone the dream ride by an entire year. But then I had decided no matter what happens am gonna do it in June 2011.

Year 2011 started with some plans... goals, two of them were IBA Bun Burner and getting Leh'ed. First couple of months of 2011 were spent concentrating on the IBA ride and the first goal of 2011 was achieved in Feb 2011 in the form of Bun Burner 2500K. The next big thing on my mind was nothing but getting Leh'ed in May/June 2011. I immediately started saving money and preparing for the ride. Just like me, even Mandar could not get Leh'ed in the year 2010. Since I had already been on couple of rides with Mandar and since we knew each other well since quite sometime we decided to tag along and ride to Leh together. I actually avoided going on big rides post Feb 2011 to save as much money as possible for the Ladakh ride.

Pre-ride discussions and Preparations -

The actual preparation started from the month April 2011. Most of the free time was spent reading as many articles/logs as possible on various sites like xBhp, BCMT etc. Mandar and I prepared a rough route plan and shared it with Vishwas Mokashi for suggestions and corrections. Vishwas Mokashi helped us a lot in preparing for this ride right from the route, tips, suggestions, clothing etc. I used to be in touch with him through emails/messenger and phone calls. He emailed me a lot of different itineraries, maps, check lists, medical list etc. which helped us a lot and saved a lot of time which otherwise would have been spent in searching for these things.

Once the home work was done and the route was finalized it was time for the shopping. Even here, Vishwas Mokashi was very very helpful. Mandar and I went to Pune for shopping. Vishwas sir took out an entire day out of his busy schedule for us and took us to Juna Bazaar in Pune. That's where he had done his shopping for the Ladakh ride. It was only because of him we could buy Army pants, woolen socks, woolen shirts, thermals etc at dirt cheap rates. After the shopping we all went to his office where we sat and discussed about the ride face to face. And that was extremely helpful. I really thank Vishwas sir from the bottom of my heart for all the help and support that he provided to us.

Unfortunately, we could not find good quality boots in Pune and hence a few other things were still to be bought. After a lot of searching I found these ankle high boots in Dadar. But the shop had only one pair. Hence could not buy the same ones for Mandar.



Days were passing by and a lot of other things were to be managed like Gloves(because my probiker gloves were of little help in cold Ladakh region as they have air vents), saddle bags, rain coat, foot pump etc. Once again, Vishwas sir came to the rescue. One fine evening I received an sms from Vishwas sir stating Surojit has a pair of very old DSG gloves without any air vents. So co-ordinate with him and collect the gloves from him. Luckily Surojit was supposed to visit Mumbai for a Visa interview and that's when I collected the gloves from him at Dadar.



Few days later, Mandar and I went to south Mumbai for the rest of the shopping. We went to the duckback outlet in south Mumbai to buy rain wear but surprisingly he was selling the rain coats at very high price than what was expected. So instead of rain coats we just bought rubber gloves of industry standards and moved on. So instead of duckback, we managed to find good quality rain coats of 'Reliable' company at much cheaper price near Masjid bunder. We also bought foot pump near Crawford market. DK had agreed to give me his saddle bags for the ride where as Tushar Jadhav agreed to lend his saddle bags to Mandar vichare. This way, majority of stuff was in place well in advance with just a few things remaining.

Now it was time to focus on our bikes and to prepare them for the mega ride. Mandar had replaced most of the parts of his bike with new ones like chain sprocket kit, clutch/accelerator cable etc. We went to Kurla one day to buy a new front mud guard for his bike.





On the same day we went to Grant road motorcycle market where Mandar bought Michellin Sirac tire for his bike.





As far as my R15 is concerned, I didn't have to worry about the mechanical stuff since most parts were replaced with new ones after the Bun Burner 2500K ride. In between Feb 2011 and June 2011 I attended an Ideation workshop by Castrol along with two other Mumbai xBhpians Rachit and Calvin at Andheri. At that time, I shared my Ladakh ride plan with Miss Ruchi Kaushal, marketing head of Castrol India and she immediately agreed to send me an oil can of then soon to be launched Castrol fully synthetic engine oil. As promised she sent home the oil can and am really thankful to her for that. Here's a pic of the oil can and the chain lube. Both the things performed really well through out the ride.



Though Mandar had recently bought a good Samsung travel zoom camera, I thought it's safer to carry another camera with us for the ride and guess what that was good decision. You'll know it why as the log progresses. So I started searching and asking people for a camera and Calvin agreed to give his Canon SX20 IS camera to me for the ride. Most pics of the ride are clicked using the same camera. I collected the camera from the same day when I collected saddle bags from DK. While doing all these preparations, I was also spending some time designing and testing the fuel tank camera mount. After lot of modifications and testing I finally settled on the final design and got it manufactured from a local metal workshop. In this Ladakh tour, while Calvin's cam was mostly used for photography, Mandar's camera was used for on-board videos.

Here are a few check lists of the things that I carried for the ride.

Luggage(I used custom made saddle bags where as Mandar used Cramster saddle bags):

1) 2 Army pants
2) 3 T-shirts
3) 1 short shirt
4) 1 Army woolen shirt, 2 pairs of woolen socks and 1 pair of woolen gloves
5) 1 Army thermal pant
6) 4 Under wears
7) Handkerchiefs, Towel
8) Extra cloth to clean the bike
9) Indian Flag
10) Ample plastic bags of two different sizes. Small ones to be worn under the boots to keep our feet protected from the cold water crossings and big ones to be used inside saddle bag/tail bag to keep things protected from rain.
11) Nylon rope
12) First aid kit
13) Scissors
14) Rain coat and rubber gloves
15) Bike user manual
16) Camera, charger, camera mount
17) Laptop, charger
18) Mobile charger
19) Deo, sunscreen, lip moisturizer, body soap, shampoo, razor, shaving gel, Tooth brush, tooth paste
20) Extra Helmet Visor
21) Fevi stick, cello tape
22) Pen and notepad
23) Printed itinerary
24) Water bottle
25) Glucon-D powder
26) Tubeless tire puncture repair kit
27) Bike spare parts
28) Spectacles and sun glasses
29) All the bike documents and additional document xeroxes for permits.
30) Riding gears, extra slippers

Medicines:
1) Crocin tablets
2) Combiflam tablets
3) Diamox
4) Multi-vitamin tablets
5) Enterogermina vial
6) Tablets for loose motion and vomiting as prescribed by family physician
7) Balm
8) Band aids
9) Ointment
10) Medical Dusting powder
11) Cotton
12) Pain relief spray


Bikes:
Yamaha R15 -
1) Front Tire - Stock.
2) Rear Tire - IRC 110/17"
3) Engine oil - Castrol 10W 50 Fully Synthetic

Hero Honda Karizma R -
1) Front/Rear Tire - Michellin sirac
2) Engine oil - Mobile 1 fully synthetic.

*For the time being these are the things that I remember I carried with us for the ride. If I remember I missed something, I'll add it in the list later on. But these are the major things that I carried with us for the ride.

Will start with the Day 1 travelogue very soon. Thanks!

Thats a very detailed and informative log.Bootmarkin it right away .

How did the ZMA performed with Mobil1, AFAIK its a car engine oil and shouldn't be used in Bikes.

Planned for the ride this year but it seems it will be possible next year only.Finances, Leaves everything going against the plan .How early we can do it on 2012 ?

Very nice pics and videos. Keep it coming Ketan!!!

After watching the Rohtang video it reminds me of all that slush and mud we also faced while crossing Rohtang