Re: #YahiToUmarHaiBe - Ride to the Land of High Passes

Approved!

Mind blowing captures.

Re: #YahiToUmarHaiBe - Ride to the Land of High Passes

You've set the tone with the fourth picture!
Glued to this log!

Re: #YahiToUmarHaiBe - Ride to the Land of High Passes

the bactrian camels and the last photograph are wallpaper material Awesome!

My expectations are high in the photography section

Re: #YahiToUmarHaiBe - Ride to the Land of High Passes

Wonderful pics man! Subscribed!

Re: #YahiToUmarHaiBe - Ride to the Land of High Passes

awesome!

Re: #YahiToUmarHaiBe - Ride to the Land of High Passes

Nice pics..

Re: #YahiToUmarHaiBe - Ride to the Land of High Passes

Wow. This thread is going to get a lot of attention. Activating "FEVICOL MODE".

Re: #YahiToUmarHaiBe - Ride to the Land of High Passes



Nice Start

Preparations-Part 1

Thanks for the quick approval

Thanks, Always wanted to try star trails, what better place than LLadakh to try that

Thanks, I tried to capture landscape carefully but missed on a lot of other aspects of life in Ladakh, need to revisit to capture those too.

Thanks Sanjay

Thanks !

Thanks

Haha, hope to keep it interesting and complete it on time

Thank you sir



Lets continue...


Okay, a little history, in 2014 and 2015 my riding jacket and tank bag had visited Ladakh; courtesy my friends, and I was spending my summer in South Korea wondering :
Mera number kab aayega ??

The moment this plan got finalized I took some time out to create this (That's me sporting the beard) :



Preparations

Ladakh ride is different in a lot of ways. It requires meticulous planning. The way we approached it is as follows :

1. Team
2. Dates
3. Flight bookings
4. Route plan
5. Bike transport choice( Gati / train / Agarwal, etc)
6. Bike service and preparation
7. Spares to be carried
8. Luggage
9. Preparations for the riders

1.Team

Team with which you ride plays a vital role in how your trip goes in such a long ride. I was in South Korea for 3 months working on a project and was scheduled to return by june end. July was when I seriously started planning for the trip. The first most important question was still unanswered. Who should I ride with ?

*Naked Wolves, few people who I knew would be a great company*
*Negative, no positive response. My fav bunch of bikers had prior commitments*

*Mohit, my college junior, a sensible guy and more than that a crazy biker*
*Ahaa, got a positive response. *

It was me and Mohit who started dreaming about Ladakh.One fine day Mohit told me that another friend Akshit from Delhi wants to go. I had never ridden with Akshit, and I had heard horrible stories of people flipping on each other and making the trip unpleasant. Though, I knew about Akshit’s India ride of 8000 kms in 30 days. That cleared a lot of my doubts. As a guy who has done such a long trip definitely has that temperament and a cool head. And then there were three

These two guys were the best riding partners one could have for such a trip.

An instance I would like to share when we stopped for a tea break at Samba on our way to Udhampur.

Me : There are two routes from here, either take the same 4 lane highway via Jammu to Udhampur, or…

Akshit : Let’s take the other one.

Me : Let me finish bhai, the other route has patchy roads to no roads at places.

Mohit : But it has a lake on the way right ?

Me : Yes.

Both in unison : Ladakh ja rhe hai yaar, ye chhote se off road se darenge to kaise kaam chalega.
(*we are riding to Ladakh dude, how can we be intimidated by a small off road diversion*)

All smiles.

PS : Akshit did justice to his twitter hashtag #TheRoadLessTaken

None of us were cornering gurus( people who go batshit crazy when they see some smooth corners), though we all knew how to carve corners and how to move quickly around them. Our riding styles were compatible :

*Take short breaks, instead of long ones (*matters a lot)
*When roads are arrow straight cover distance quickly to spend time at scenic places.



2. Dates

When you know who you are riding with, discussing probable dates is easier. Mohit and I are corporate slaves but Akshit is his own boss, so he was okay with any date with only one condition; he could not be away from work for more than 2 weeks continuously. Me and mohit agreed to keep the ride in August end or Sept first week. After working out our project schedules and informing our managers we fixed the date as Sept first week.

Till this point I wasn’t really sure that this is gonna happen.



3. Flight tickets

We both got 16-17 days leave. As we did not want to spend a lot of time in riding from Bangalore - Delhi,which will take a minimum of 5 days to n fro; we had agreed upon flying to Delhi and ride from there. Akshit works out of Delhi and we decided to start the ride together from there.

Being the weird guy I am, I started cooking up another twist. I had done a Home Run (Bangalore - Haridwar - Nainital - Lucknow - Khajuraho - Bangalore) [ http://www.xbhp.com/talkies/tourer/2...tarakhand.html ] in 2013 Dec and a Kanyakumari ride from Bangalore earlier. So I just thought if I start my ride from Lucknow , then I would have ridden across Kanyakumari - Bangalore -Lucknow - Leh. A weird K2K in three parts :P .

One lucky day, Yatra.com decided to give away cashback and discounts on domestic flight bookings. I reached office, called up Mohit and in no time we had booked our tickets. Delhi to Bangalore ticket costed us 3.6k. Thank You yatra.com.

When we booked the tickets I could see the dream slowly materializing. This kinda sealed the deal. We all knew that this is happening, and happening in a month.

*Excitement levels go up*



4. Route Plan

Next step was to chalk out a probable route. Believe me you cannot rely on Google Maps when it comes to Ladakh region. This was the time to get in touch with people who have been there, have taken guided tours there and are willing to help. I got in touch with Surojit Sadhu and Siddarth Bala from Naked Wolves. I trust Surojit with making plans for me. As he knows what I like and how much can I ride in a day. He gave a basic outline, but now was my time to delve into the details and understand the region. After a lot of confusion about places to stay, the names, the altitudes, multiple discussions on call with Surojit; I gained some confidence.

There was only one thing going on in my mind. We had a plan of visiting Khardung la and Nubra Valley first and then return to Leh and continue to Pangong on the next day. The only problem with this plan was that I wanted to avoid taking the same roads to Leh from Nubra. I hate retracing the same route but love loops

There are two other options to return from Nubra; one via Agham - Wari La to Sakthi, (50 kms lead on the Pangong route) and one via Shyok which will directly take us closer to Tangtse/Lukung. Then the expert was contacted. Phanikar sir from xBhp and Bangalore Bikers group to the rescue. He did a great Himalayan ride and explored a lot of inside roads last year. He asked to prefer Wari La route for the scenic beauty. But that route was closed due to landslides post monsoon. We cannot outsmart nature and have to respect the difficulties. But the will to ride on Wari La was stronger than ever. It was left as a last moment decision to be taken while we leave Nubra.

A biker friend, Alok Singh got to know about my Ladakh trip and called up. He gave a few suggestions to add to the plan. We added Marsimik La then.

Who can help us on the go and provide us update on the route ? Any guesses……, one and only “The Human GPS of India”, Mr. HV Kumar sir. With his network of seasoned travelers and reliable sources, he is the best chance of getting correct info when it comes to remote places.

This is the executed schedule, plan was modified a little bit on the go :

Day 0 : Lucknow - Delhi **
Day 1 : Delhi - Amritsar
Day 2 : Amritsar - Patnitop
Day 3 : Patnitop - Srinagar
Day 4 : Srinagar - Sonamarg
Day 5 : Sonamarg - Leh
Day 6 : Acclimatize in Leh and local sightseeing
Day 7 : Leh - Khardung La - Hunder
Day 8 : Hunder - Wari La - Karu
Day 9 : Karu - Chang La - Spagmik (Pangong Tso)
Day 10 : Spagmik - Phobrang - Marsimik La - Chang La - Leh
Day 11 : Leh - Sarchu
Day 12 : Sarchu - Manali
Day 13 : Manali - Delhi

** I rode solo from Lucknow to Delhi to complete my K2K in parts

5. Bike Transport Choice

This part was difficult. We had to trust someone to take care of our bikes and deliver it safe. Internet is full of horrid reviews about GATI, train transport, BlueDart, etc. Upon checking other options we found out that Agarwal packers are probably the safest bet. Requested a quote and it was an exorbitant 8k one way per bike. Since we would not be traveling with the bike, train transport was not seriously considered. After negotiating with GATI the price was down to 5.5k which looked like a good option. We made sure that bike is packed properly before it is loaded on the truck. Luckily nothing major happened to my bike which was delivered in Lucknow, but Mohit had a broken clutch lever, upon receiving his bike in Delhi.

This is how my bike was packed, looked satisfactory. (Looks like a mini ZX14R from the front )


When we had to parcel the bikes from Delhi to Bangalore, we just avoided a trap which goes by the name of Gati. More on that later.


A little teaser which shows how equipped I was while on the road :


Writing the further points now, will update when its done.

A couple of pics to try to make your visit to this blog worth :

Golden hour at the Golden temple.




As soon as you start riding towards Zozila from Sonamarg, this peaceful scene calms you before the treacherous Zozila.




To be continued ...

Re: Preparations-Part 1


WOW...This picture is worth it's weight in Gold!

What an amazing amazing capture.

Re: Preparations-Part 1

Thanks rajpal.

Was a little busy with office for last couple of days, will write the next post tonight.

Re: Preparations-Part 1

Do you need to join the HVK club or something for assistance? Do you buy some packs? Horde does it work

Re: Preparations-Part 1

They have a Ladakh 951 pack(951 rs), with that u get complete route assistance, on the go room bookings, and a team of responsible people tracking your progress.

Preparations-Part 2

...

Continuing the preparations post :


6. Bike service

This was the toughest journey for man and the machine, if one fails enroute, it will be a major disappointment. The bike was serviced at my favorite service centre, Amba Bajaj, HSR Layout. There is a special satisfaction you get when the bike is serviced by people who you know will take care of it and won't treat it as just another job. After getting our bikes serviced we were ready to ship it via GATI.

7. Spares to be carried

1. All levers (clutch, brakes, gear shifter)
2. Clutch plates
3. Spark plugs
4. Fuses (6)
5. Headlight bulb (2)
6. Chain links (3)
7. Cables (Accelerator and clutch)
8. Tire Tubes (to tackle bent rims)
9. Bajaj toolkit
10. Allen key set
11. Plier
12. Puncture repair kit
13. Zip ties.
14. Engine oil
15. Coolant

Good news: We never had to make use of these spares.

Bad news: We never had to make use of THESE spares.


8. Luggage

With all the spares we were planning to carry, we needed big saddle bags. We needed space for spares, laptop, cameras, foot pump, medicines, our clothes, lots of socks, thermals, and a couple of fuel cans. A biker friend of mine, Preetam helped me with the Rynox Nomad saddle bags, with their 67 litre(expanded) capacity I had enough room for stuff. I also picked up a Viaterra Raptor tail bag, to keep my laptop safe, and a fly v2.0 to keep the camera intact.

In all we carried, a Rynox Nomad, 3 viaterra fly, 1 wolf, 1 claw, 1 raptor and a marine hydration pack.

Stuff to be packed :



Our luggage or the transformer :P




9. Preparations for the riders

Thin air, lack of oxygen, extreme temperatures, 8 hours or more of riding on patchy roads and doing this for 14 continuous days was sure going to be difficult for the rider. I exercised a bit, tried to increase my stamina, and we all decided to never over eat during the ride. (*We broke this pact the day we reached Amritsar, just could not resist the delicious food there) It was not just a weekend affair, it was a long long journey and we wanted to avoid tummy upsets.
We were mentally and physically prepared to go on this beautiful journey.

That's it for the boring preparation stuff, next part will start with the day I leave Bangalore and start the road trip


Pic taken from the flight to Lucknow, the nice airport toll road in Bangalore.