Re: Leh-Ladakh on Yamaha RX-100

This is amazing.
And yes, please do share your travelogue and photos.
We are eagerly waiting!!

Re: Leh-Ladakh on Yamaha RX-100

Great to hear about your trip. I'm sure it would have been supremely exciting and rewarding to do it on your RX. I did it earlier this year on a rented bullet and like you said most of the bikes out there are bullets.

Kudos to your spirit and the effort you have undertaken to keep your bike in such good shape.
Please do share pics.

Re: Leh-Ladakh on Yamaha RX-100

Wow, bro this is fantastic! As someone who learned riding on RX100, I'm so glad for you. People these days don't know the power and pickup of the good old 2 strokes.

I'm looking forward to seeing more of your travel logs.

Re: Leh-Ladakh on Yamaha RX-100

Thank you for your replies guys

Let me write up details of the tour. Since it was a 10 day tour, let me write it up in parts, may be one part for one day.

I went with a group called Tyremark from Pune, Maharashtra. The meeting point for the group was Delhi, and from there we were transported to Manali by Volvo. The bike tour started from Manali and the itinerary was as below:

Day 01: Manali - rest and local site seeing
Day 02: Manali to Jispa
Day 03: Jispa to Leh
Day 04: Leh - rest and local site seeing
Day 05: Leh to Turtuk
Day 06: Turtuk to Diskit
Day 07: Diskit to Pangong
Day 08: Pangong to Leh
Day 09: Leh to Kargil
Day 10: Kargil to Srinagar

Bike was to be transported to Manali from Pune, and I booked myself Pune-Delhi flight ticket.
2 weeks to go, and I already had a challenge to ship my bike. You may remember that the truckers had went on a nationwide strike in July. The tour date was 2 weeks away and there was a total uncertainty about when the strike will be called off. Also, the transport guy told me that even if the strike gets called off in a day or two, there was such a huge backlog of parcels that he could not guarantee that the bike would reach Manali in time.
This was a big problem! I thought of other possibilities, since trucks were out of question then the only other option was train. But there is no train that goes to Manali from Pune - direct or with stops. The nearest station is Chandigarh and it would had taken a day if I had to ride my bike from Chandigarh to Manali. That was not practical, and also I did not have that additional time since I had already booked my flight tickets to Delhi.
Clock was ticking and I was not able to find any way.... at one point I thought the trip will get cancelled. But just in time, I learnt that Volvo buses can carry bikes in their luggage compartment. I immediately called the volvo guy in Delhi, and he agreed to take my bike from Delhi to Manali, in the same Volvo with us. That was so encouraging.... I then sent my bike to Delhi through train. Fortunately my flight was going to reach Delhi in the morning, and Volvo was scheduled to leave in the evening. I had enough time inbetween to go to Nizamuddin station after landing, collect my bike and take it to the Volvo station. Thankfully this happened as per the plan, and finally I and Yamaha reached Manali at the same time with my group in Volvo.


The first day was for some rest and local site seeing in Manali. Manali is such a beautiful place, with lush green mountains, clouds, full flowing river and clean air! Until then my RX had ran mainly on roads in Pune which are full of traffic. Riding on RX at such a beautiful place gave a great start to the tour



Beautiful Manali




Me and My RX in Manali


We had a great day in Manali. We were going to start the next day early in the morning to Jispa, which was going to be the first day of riding with bike. We were super excited, and totally looking forward to the next day

Re: Leh-Ladakh on Yamaha RX-100

Riding one of the most iconic places in one of the most iconic bikes!
Awesome. Bring up the full story.

Re: Leh-Ladakh on Yamaha RX-100


The second day was when the actual riding started. The distance was not much, the total travelling was for about 145 KMs. The road was incredibly beautiful, especially in the beginning:





After we left, the very first pass during the tour was crossed - Rohtang Pass! Altitude 13000 ft! That was the first time the RX-100 climbed to such a high altitude (with ease )


Rohtang Pass

We have to obtain permit to go through Rohtang Pass. While our group was waiting at the gate for the permits, the guy inside the office walked out after spotting my RX. He seemed to be surprised to see RX going to Rohtang. He was very excited, he started saying that these days it has become very difficult to get a RX100 in good condition. Then he started asking me whether I can sell my RX to him. All I had to offer him was sympathy . He said he was even ready to meet me after my tour ends, so that I can complete my tour and then sell him the bike. I obviously declined politely. That was the first offer I received, in barely two hours after starting the journey. During the rest of the tour a few others also expressed their sincere interest in buying the bike, and I had to disappoint them all.

The beautiful journey continued after Rohtang Pass. The mountains near Manali were lush green, whereas the mountains we saw later in Ladakh were brown.


En-route Jispa

As we started approaching our destination for the day, Jispa, we came across a town named Tandi. Tandi is special as it has a petrol pump there. The next petrol pump after Tandi before Leh is 365KMs away. RX tank has 10 liter capacity, and I was expecting lower average due to the driving conditions. So I had to reply on the backup vehicle for help with some Petrol during the next day.


The last Petrol Pump before Leh

I filled in the tank till there was no room for even another drop. Then we proceeded to Jispa, where we had a campsite to stay. The campsite was total amazing. Very clean, calm with some breathtaking views of some mountains in the background and a river flowing nearby:


Campsite at Jispa

Re: Leh-Ladakh on Yamaha RX-100

Amazing. In the days when people change their motorcycle in every five years, you are an inspiration.
Cheers mate.

Re: Leh-Ladakh on Yamaha RX-100

Wow..some good pics there!

I miss my RX100 ...Those were the days..

Re: Leh-Ladakh on Yamaha RX-100



This was the most challenging day in the tour, with 350 KMs distance to be covered! En route we had Bara-lacha Pass (el. 4,890 m or 16,040 ft), Nakee-la Pass (el. 4,769 m or 15,647 ft), Lachulung La Pass (el. 5,059 m or 16,600 ft) and world's second highest - Tanglang La (el. 5,328 m or 17,480 ft). This road had some difficult water crossings, and the condition of the road was extremely bad during some 50KM long patch. Also, we had not got acclimatized by then and we were about to climb over 16000ft, that too not just once but up and down a few times during each of the passes.

The road condition was awesome in some places, but the oxygen level had started dropping due to the elevation, and I could definitely feel loss of power in my RX.



By lunch time we reached a small village named 'Sarchu' where we had a good lunch. We definitely needed a break at Sarchu, as the road during about 40KMs before Sarchu was totally horrible! In some places there was no road at all, we just had to find our own path among sand, rocks etc.






After lunch we started going up and down various passes. First came the Nakeela:



Then came the Lachung La:



The road was incredibly beautiful at a lot of places. Check the picture below, for example. The road was carved through a giant rock. The tunnel through the rock looked so good there, the picture is not making any justice to the beauty of the actual spot:



We kept enjoying the riding through many of such scenic spots. In the late afternoon we stopped by a dhaba to have a cup of tea. I checked the fuel level, and I came to know that RX would not make it to the next petrol pump. One thing which I had read on the internet came to rescue, that many small hotels/dhaba en route sell petrol. So I decided to check with the guy there, and yes, he had petrol. I bought 1 liter petrol for 150 rupees from him, assuming that the bike would make it to the petrol pump. But I was wrong. Despite of expecting low average, RX ran out of petrol at just 12 kms before the petrol pump. I used all the college day tactics, like lying the bike flat for a while and go. I managed to go a couple of kilometers further with this, and finally RX gave up near a village called Upashi when not a drop of petrol was left. The next petrol pump was barely 12 kms ahead, at Karu which is about 40KMs before Leh. Now I had to wait for the backup vehicle which had spare petrol, but that was going to take a long time since the backup vehicle stays behind the entire group and drives slow, so that they could help any breakdowns en route. But I was lucky, a bullet rider from my group came in a bit who had enough petrol in his tank. So I borrowed half a liter and made it to the pump in Sarchu. Again I topped up RX's tank and reached Leh.

We were very very tired, as we had been riding for 12+ hours which included very rough roads. The following day was for some rest and local site seeing in Leh, so we didn't have to get up early that day. I happily switched off alarm in my mobile and went to sleep in no time

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P.S.
I am not sure why the last few pictures show up as upside down. The original pictures are correctly shown. I even tried rotating the original pictures by 180 degrees and then re-uploading, but they still appeared the same. Any tips/help would be appreciated, thanks.

Re: Leh-Ladakh on Yamaha RX-100

I am getting similar expressions for my 10 years old Discover 135 to NAKO ride this winter. I have already done 700km+ ride in a day several times and I know its characteristics very well just like you know yours Rx's.
Thank You Sir for motivating me