Oppurtunity of a lifetime..

Once in a while life throws at us an opportunity to do something out of the ordinary, get out of the mundane existence we lead.  Very rare is the chance to leave behind the deadlines, the bills, the evaluations, the crawling traffic and the nagging question – ‘what am I doing with my life’.

I was lucky to stumble upon such an opportunity exactly an year back. I had been with my CBR for almost half a year now and was pretty active on the biking scene, extensive touring of the south, covering almost everything up to the southernmost tip of the Indian peninsula – Kanyakumari.

Through my riding circles I got to know many places worth touring in India, I also got introduced to the mother of all rides that India offers – the Himalayan odyssey, a ride to Leh-Ladakh. Now riding, was never my childhood passion, it was an acquired taste, riding to Leh wasn’t my childhood dream, but it is the stuff of what dreams are made of, a grueling ride through the beautiful valleys of Kashmir, long stretches through barren moonscapes and on the most sadistic roads possible, a weary ride and and even weary rider, pushing through the pain and fatigue to pay a pilgrimage to the mecca of riding.

This passion grows on you, even planning the schedule gets you high, you read through blogs and commentaries of people who have been Leh’d. You get inspired to do it even better, not to commit the same mistakes, but you know very well in your heart that nothing can prepare you for lies ahead, the mountains exact there toll, what the toll is, you will know when you pay it.

So, back to the opportunity. Incidentally, this is the prep time for all those who plan to ride to Leh. Still unsure if I should do it or not, I, just for the thrill of it, started making enquiries, how to transport the bike? Where to transport the bike! What route should be taken, which side we should start climbing! What is the correct time to go, when do the mountain passes open up! And just like that, things got rolling, the opportunity was there in my grasp, I took it. Before I knew it, we were three enthusiasts, ready to take on the challenge.

Figuring out the transport was the tricky bit, ours and the bikes. Owning a CBR means you are very finicky about delicately handling your bike, a scratch hurts, a dent kills. There were three options open, load the bikes in a train, load the bikes in a hired truck or get it transported by a courier service. Luckily, Indian Railways struck out the first option (I wasn’t a big fan of that option anyways, can’t bear to imagine the brutal handling she would have gotten) after a major fire incident caused by a motorcycle in a luggage carriage. We chose the third one, having some decent reviews about Gati, plus it gave some leeway about us reaching Delhi as well.

It was a hard day, loading the bikes up for transport, couple of friends from my riding group joined me as well, to check out the quality and process of the transport, they were scouting options for transporting their’ s later that month.

 It was truly heart-wrenching, seeing her packed up inside layers of cardboard and gunny bags, just praying she reaches safely, with a bittersweet feeling, I left the warehouse, this was it, I was committed to the trip now, no turning back…