Leh is every bikers dream. But u cannot do it just like that. One has to practice , practice by taking smaller and easier trips to the hills. One has to get accustomed to bad roads , to never ending turns , to never ending pot holes , to never ending gear shifting , braking and stuff.

Having done four trips to the hills so far , i wanted to do the ultimate one , LEH , but this trip was still months away. So decided why not once again hit Himachal in December , in chilly conditions , in black ice and snow

The plan was to cover as many places as possible in 3nights and 4 days , to discover new roads , roads which werent on my maps , to know more about this beautiful state. Plus the trip would be the highest ever meet of XBHPIANS , our club .

So we were eight bikers , on three karizmas , three pulsar 180s and two cbzs. All from Delhi except Amar from Chandigarh
1)bunnypunia - bunny - karizma
2)amar - amar - karizma
3)xxx - vikhyat - karizma
4)draz - paramjeet - pulsar 180
5)tiger - yogesh - pulsar 180
6)raredevil - salil - pulsar 180 dtsi
7)rolling_thunder - aditya - cbz
8)cathode - vibhav - cbz

DAY 1:
26th December 2004 (Delhi - Ambala - Kalka - Solan - Kandaghat - Chail : 355kms)

0115 hrs: Sunny called up and disturbed my sleep. he wished my all the best.

0347 hrs: Vikhyat called up and disturbed my sleep to tell me that he had woken up and was getting ready

0407 hrs: Once again i was woken up by Salil who informed me that he will be meeting up at the By-pass

0420 hrs: I finally got up and started getting ready.This was finally the day i had been waiting for. I was excited , i was happy , my heart-beat was doing 100mtr sprints again and again! The first thing i did was look outside and was happy to see that there was no fog at all. yeah , thx waheguru ji

0457 hrs : Vikhyat again called me up to tell me that he was starting from Noida and would meet us at the By-pass

0515 hrs : TRIP METER : 0.0kms.TRIP METER : 128.6km
Left for Ambala and started ripping. Met Akshay , a Xbhpian . Yogesh's and Paramjeet's bikes werent doing well plus i badly needed a chain set for my Karizma , so wet set out for our respective dealerships in the city of Ambala. i tried out stoppies on aditya's bike and wheelies on akshay's bullet (cudnt do it). Wasted an hour in Ambala , Vikhyat got PUC done but nothing could be done of our bikes so we decided to rip again with Akshay who decided to give us company till Kalka. Met Amar at Zirakpur crossing.

1145 hrs: TRIP METER : 245.8km
Purchased two bottles of rum (one of which broke at night). also filled in fuel and my Karizma took in 7.6 liters for 245.8kms. started ripping again till Kalka. Soon the hills started , this actually gave a turbo boost to us and the automatically the right wrist was being given a good work-out
Some kms after Kalka , we stopped for a picture perfect shoot. Here , Akshay left back for Ambala and we continued our trip. Also saw the Himalayan Queen train.

The roads were perfect , smooth and wide. First comers like Aditya and Vikhat were adjusting well and we were maintaining good speeds , racing with each other. My Continental rear tyre was already bald from the middle so i was finding it difficult to keep up with the faster ones.

1423 hrs : TRIP METER : 326.8kmsTRIP METER : 360.0kms

Because we had skipped lunch , we all were hungry and decided to have food in the room itself. we were so hungry that the chotu who was serving food almost broke down serving us. to be precise , we had 3 dal , 3 mix veg , 1 shahi paneer , 2 raita , 40 rotis+paranthas , tea (plus rum)!!

At dinner , everyone was upset and felt sorry when we saw the horrific news on tv about the earthquake and tidal wave disaster

Roamed around the small town in the evening. made calls , had gulab jamuns and tried out stoppies and wheelies and usual stuff. me and vikhyat sipped rum-n-dew and saw kal ho na ho , while some of the guys chatted down outside the hotel in the narrow lane.
the fun of being together in a group of bikers , talking about similar stuff , discussing the happenings of the day is just great.. on top of that chilling cold and sipping rum.. priceless
__________________________________________________ ______________
DAY 2 : (chail - kufri - fagu - theog - narkanda - baggi - khadrala - rohru : app 123kms)
Got up at 6 , thx to vikhyat's gal calling him up! i thought its the 7am alarm and got up! it was chillingly cold. went downstairs to see the conditions. good , no fog!
by 8 we all were ready and i had ordered breakfast which we happily feasted on! soon we were outside , warming our machines. my zma started with half choke on the 1st attempt itself. gr8!.
almost everyone wore the same clothes , i added one more layer!
by 9:30 , we hit the curvy and narrow roads again. but soon we came across a stretch where we had a wonderful views of the mountains and snow. donno y but the mountains wore a bluish look! took pics and again ripped (sorta). me and vibhav started racing and practicing (for sjoba rally?) . but again soon we stopped for more pics and for making a himalayan goat our friend. i even offered her leaves but she was in a diff mood (to fight stupid)

minutes b4 we hit kufri , snow again appeared. the 1km stretch of kufri where all tourist come , where all horses r tied , where the parking is , is a very bad stretch with slush and mud and snow. plus it was crowded so we used the most commonly used thing on bikes - horn. people were excited to see us and as usual some of them cheered while others gave way. it was then downhill for a km to NH-22. as we hit the NH-22 we again stopped for pics. we now knew that we would be hitting black ice for sure. and we were right , the first black ice patch was like 100-150 mtrs long and at the starting of the patch an indica was partially under a bus!

i was behind 2-3 bikers when i noticed the black ice , i tried to signal the ones coming behind but i could barely lift by right hand (had to control the bike). then i heard it , the sound of metal hitting the road. saw in my mirror that aditya and vikhyat were down and were literally slidding on the road with their bikes! we all stopped and helped them up and left asap from this stretch coz of the fear that some vehicle may skid and hit us (a truck almost did)
took it slowly thru some more bad patches and soon elevation came down and we were on dry roads to narkanda. a little while before narkanda came across a frozen mini-waterfall where we all stopped. i finally managed to burn a fire after trying for 10mins with the help of others. had a gr8 time here. sipped neat rum (didnt hv water) , vikhyat dosed the fire with.. well u know.. lolzzz

hit narkanda (2700mtrs) and there was little snow there. we were all disappointed. consulted a lot of ppl for which route to take and finally decided on Rohru being the destination for the night. kms after narkanda our enemy came again - snow and ice! Amar was the next to go down , although very swiftly! we kept riding with caution
we came across more black ice and then a 2km stretch where blasting was going on for widening the road! real bad stretch. just after this sunny called up so we all stopped. this is where i did the stoppie on amar's bike.

now we all were feeling hungry but had a lot of distance to cover. somewhere here me , paramjeet and raredevil started ripping for 7-10kms with raredevil leading n me and paramjeet following. when we stopped , we had to wait for mins b4 the slower ones like aditya and vikhyat caught up and we let them go ahead. vibhav and amar were savin fuel by switchin off engines. the road soon came down into the valley with the river as our companion till rohru. and yes , those sweet himachali gals....

this was my 3rd trip to rohru and i had always noticed this hptdc rest house so i took them there straight away. and wat rooms we got! we took 3 BIG rooms for 175 a room. later at night the care-taker gave us a complimentary 4th room too!!
we all were quite tired and hungry. we rested for a while and decided to hit the main bazaar for food. parked our bikes outside a bank which was still open (it was smthing like 6:30pm). came across a bar and restaurant ( i think the only one in rohru). it was nice. some of us hit the bar for beer , others avoided it. met the owner , a young guy into adventure sports who will start this company in summer for trekking and exploring himachal and stuff. nice guy , he showed us his collection of pics too and guided us on where to go next day.
food was delicious and the beer was a gr8 company for some of us. had hot gajar-halwa from the street and head back to the hotel for the night.

couples were made (lolzzz) , jokes were shared , day's happenings were voiced. paramjeet was not happy with the bike , i was constantly playin with aditya's watch which had a thermometer , also finished vibhav's fags while others were busy among themselves.
__________________________________________________ _______________
DAY 3 : (rohru-hatkoti-kharapathar-giri ganga-chhaila-chaupal : app 142kms)

the news was that we should head back asap coz it was gettin cloudy and it could snow soon. also the day had a lot for us , probably the worst day , when wrong decisions were taken.

we all checked the oil levels , mine was low. the oil was leakin from smwhere.some of us also topped up at the petrol pump. cudnt find 20/40 engine oil so filled some 20/50 engine oil (from yogesh) in my zma
the first wrong decision - to leave without breakfast! hit the road and kept nice speeds but stops were taken for pics too. soon steep roads started to kharapathar. in September wen i did this route, i along with sunny and nikhil had done giri-ganga , a 6km jeep road. i wanted to do it again this time and wen the road sign came , we all decided to do it - the 2nd wrong decision of the day. within the first 50mtrs , the 1st patch of black ice came. soon , every one had slipped or had got stuck atleast once! what a mess it was. i was totally exhausted pushing out others. vids and pics were taken. finally it was too much and we decided to leave our bikes and the snow and trek up - 3rd wrong decision. it was diff walkin in such shoes/boots we were wearing. paramjeet tied ropes to his shoes but it didnt help. somehow we trekked half way.also came across feet marks of some wild animal (!!). i tried several times to make a fire but cudnt

we were at abt 2950-3000mtrs elevation. then i heard something , a vehicle , a diesel vehicle , the sound didnt go away and so we all thought that some 4*4 was comin up. our fear - wat abt our bikes? which were standin in the middle of the road in snow! so some of us walked,ran,skidded,slipped back as fast as we could but were relieved to know that there was no vehicle there..phew..

it took us another 25-30 mins to skid,slip back to the road. in total close to 2 hrs were wasted! we all were hungry and thirsty , luckily we had a good dhaba within kms ahead. again , the same ritual of ordering. so i straight away ordered something like two 2liter pepsi,one 1 liter frooti,8-9 omlettes,1 bread,rotis,dals,sabzis.. the cook and his helper kept servin,we kept eating... the map was taken out and the destination for the day would be chaupal - 4th wrong decision.
before chhaila , there was diesel on the road - the consequence - vikhyat and yogesh fell. it was a bit nasty. bikes and riders took the toll. yogesh's rear brake's spring came out so it wasnt working now. we had to take it slowly. the 52kms from chhaila to chaupal were done in more than 2 hrs , it got dark half way. vikhyat's zma had a blown fuse , we didnt hv a spare one so me and amar kept him b/w us (his headlight wasnt workin) while yogesh followed slowly. it was a tough ride on bad roads to chaupal where again we went to the hptdc rest house and got 2 big rooms (plus bedding) for jus 500!! but when we reached there we came to know yogesh again had a fall when a wild cat came in front of him and he first ripped but then had to brake for a turn and fell down coz the front tyre skidded due to the bad road. it was a close call for him as wen he fell , he had the wild cat for company in the dark!!

chaupal was a small town , it had a haunted kinda feeling. hardly ne place to eat. finally went to this empty restaurant (all were empty!). the owner actually first went n purchased vegetables to make dinner!!
we consulted many people for the route to take next day to delhi. we even thought of drivin thru the night but locals told us not to coz of the bad next town where ppl r known for creating problems. This was the time wen we actually realised in what deep $hit we were. We had to cover close to 420km the next day , be it from shimla side (meaning black ice again) or from paonta sahib side (meaning un-known roads , bad roads). plus yogesh's bike had probs and he was hurt too , salil had to reach noida for his work by evening , nothing seem to be going our way.

dinner was served after 30mins, simple - rice,dal and mix vegetables. tasty and simple. there was no menu , no rate list. wen i asked for the bill , he said "kuch bhi de do bhai-sahab"..finally he said 260.. wholesome dinner for 8!!

headed back to the hotel. chatted for an hr. loads of pics were taken of the clear sky , me and aditya tried to revise our school syllabus by trying to name various constellations! aditya also tried to scare me away by making me realise that the hotel was a haunted one! made a blue movie (lolzzz) , yogesh was given a dressing. shared views,cracked jokes.. finally retired for the night. i wasnt still sure which route we were gonna take!
__________________________________________________ ________________
DAY 4 : (chaupal - nerua - sataun - paonta - pipli - karnal - delhi : app 425kms) TRIP METER : 640 kms

The day started by taking pics of the sun - rise and argument b/w me and vibhav about frozen ice or frozen tree glue which was hanging from the branches of a tree! neways all got ready and b4 yogesh cud realise , some of the guys had stripped opened his bike!! but the prob cudnt be rectified. so we all left the hotel (after some mini stoppies and wheelies) , cudnt find any mechanic on the way. so we kept it going slowly. our nightmare came true , the roads , well there were no roads. all dirt and bad patches of roads. some how we kept the pace going when i came across a small bridge with a very small village. i decided to make it a breakfast stop. the place was really beautiful with nice scenery , a playful dog , nice ppl and that hard trying chai wala , whom i had to help coz he cudnt cope up with our hungry breakfast. i actually had to purchase bread from another shop , his son got sugar from smwhere and only then breakfast cud be prepared. simple and delicious. we had smthing like 10 omelettes (of 2 eggs each) , abt 9 teas , 2 breads , all for just app 120 bucks!! this is the beauty of hills. tasty and cheap food. finally we decided to leave. salil and vibhav decided to leave first and drive fast in order to reach delhi asap. we decided to follow slowly with yogesh. roads were ok now. it was about after 45 mins that me , amar , aditya and paramjeet decided to hit a river by the road. enjoyed here for about 15 mins ( i almost managed to drown my bike here)

roads after this spot became hell with such narrow broken roads and mighty drop on one side. after abt 30mins came across a small village where saw yogesh,vikhyat taking a small break. we made calls from here n suddenly saw vibhav's cbz coming back in a distance with salil sitting behind holding a tyre!! he had a puncture. while they got the puncture fixed , me and amar sipped a beer each (at a princely sum of 70 each from the vendor!)

from here on , we somewhat got distributed. vikhyat left alone , yogesh left to slowly slowly and so did aditya. rest of us stopped at the place where salil's bike was. after that the worst roads came. upto 3-4 inches of sand,limestone sand , dirt and those 4*4 trucks .. yogesh again had a fall.. what was this i asked myself. its amazing none of us fell or had a puncture here. only 4 of us (me , paramjeet,aditya and yogesh) were together , others were somewhere ahead. we hit paonta sahib wen the sun was about to go down. took a small snack break somewhere abt 35kms from pipli. had eggs and tea and decided to rip non stop which we did. first the killer single lane highway with blinding light till pipli and then the wonderful pipli - delhi highway. we all ripped on the nh-1racing with family cars , qualises and stuff.. i didnt push much coz of my chain-set. finally managed to reach the bypass by around 9:30-9:45. thanked waheguru ji that we were all (relatively) safe. headed to home asap i cud. mom was waiting outside in the balcony (she knows the sound of my bike's horn). feasted on food , didnt even take a bath. was dead tired. the warm quilt and bed was where i headed and slept as if this was the last time i was gonna sleep!
__________________________________________________ ____________________
i agree the joy of doing a trip alone is gr8 , but sometimes its better to have buddies along which i realised on this trip. agree , it brings along constraints but then the joy of sharing views , of ripping together , of helping each other cannot be matched. its best to have atmost 4-5 and atleast 2 riders when going for long trips to unknown places. although this was my 5th trip , i am still learning a lot about long trips. one essential thing i m gonna do the next time is to get the seat changed. will make it wider so as to distribute the weight - will be more comfy i guess on long hours in the saddle.___________
LESSONS LEARNT :
-next time , will stop and talk to atleast one himachali gurl. they are jus so sweet and beautiful!!
-next time on , will write abt main happenings of the day each night b4 sleeping
-never trust the village guys , always ask the bus walas or jeep walas for exact info on road conditions
-never fight with mother nature
-never wear a shoulder bag , it will kill ur back/shoulder. instead tie it with bungee cords
-do carry maps
-take avg speeds as 20kmph on mountain roads if u r a photography freak
-gsm phones have better coverage than cdma ones in hills
stop atleast once to take a dip , pics etc in the small rivers flowing by the road side. wash ur bike here.
-stay in hptdc rest / circuit houses. cheap and good service
-carry a walkman/disc man for highway rides (for some boring hill ones also)
-atmost 4-5 and atleast 2 riders should be there
__________________________________________________ __________________


karnal : left to right : vikhyat's , mine ,paramjeet's , aditya's , vibahv's , salil''s , yogesh''s



chail night : left to right : tiger,vibhav,vikhat,me,amar,aditya,salil,paramjeet



kufri : 2nd day. just hit the nh-22 after coming down from kufri



black ice : this is called black ice or shall i say killer ice. an indica had a head-on with a bus at this turn. a day b4 , a person lost his life at this spot too. aditya and vikhyat skid their bikes here



frozen : a frozen mini waterfall.



to narkanda : same place with the fire i managed to burn with the help of others



rohru : destination for 2nd night. 525 for 3 rooms



giri 1 : aditya tryin to race with yogesh (giri-ganga)



giri 2: me pushing paramjeet (giri-ganga)



3rd day (salil)


4th day - breakfast place