Part 1 — Idea to Day 0
This is a part of a series of blog posts about our bike trip to Kashmir from Kerala. The travelogue is split into several blogs. You can find the intro and the link to all blogs here
The Idea is planted
The Idea of the trip was first planted by Sree. He is the gu Idea to Day 0y who would take everything to the next level. So one day he came to me and said, “Bro, let’s go for a bike trip to Ladakh in December-January when it snows!”. Me having already did a bit of research about road-trips to Ladakh educated him about the impossibility of going to Ladakh via road as, the roads would be covered in snow and will be closed during winter. So we postponed it to April — May. Even with that said, I never believed it would happen. There were so many bits and pieces that had to fall in place to go for this month-long expedition. So whenever Sree would discuss the trip, I would be like “Yeah Yeah! go ahead! we’ll plan, even though I don’t think it’s gonna happen”. Yea, I was downright de-motivating.
Planning
Although being sceptical, the trip planning started. I was in charge of creating a check-list of things to take including bike spare parts, medicines, and other accessories, learning basic bike repairs, listing out the precautions to take etc. Sree was in charge of listing out the places to visit and make a complete itinerary. Both of us were on the same page regarding one thing. We didn’t want to just visit Ladakh. We wanted to pack the trip with multiple destinations along the route too. We both dropped in places that we wish to go and Sree was to sort the places out and create a route map and itinerary. The trip started as a 3 to 4 weeks trip but as soon as we started planning, we knew we couldn’t do it in that timeframe. We thought of the possibility of extending it to 5 or 6 weeks, but we were not sure if that is going to be feasible since we both had several other programmes lined up before and after the trip. Sree had an exam coming up, and we didn’t know if it would overlap with the trip. Instead of it stopping us, we took it to our advantage. He kept the centre of the exam to Delhi so that we would only need to get back to Delhi by the date for him to appear for the exam. It gave us a lot more flexibility. Later the date was declared and it was scheduled for 21st of May.
The initial plan was to start in the first week of May and return by may end. This would also align with the exam date in Delhi. After a couple of days, Sree came up to me and said, this was not gonna work! we need at least one more week to be able to cover the places we wish to go. It was already hard for me because I had some family commitments until May 15th. It was already difficult to get away from it for 2 weeks and now I have to make it 3. I asked him to make multiple plans for each case. We did not want to miss Vishu though. The ‘Vishukaineettam’ would really come in handy during the trip.
Even after agreeing to add an extra week, Sree kept compelling me to add even another week. With all the difficulties, I agreed (and I did not regret it)! And now we had the plan for a 6-week trip. Keeping in mind that it was gonna be out longest bike trip, and how much ever we plan, there was going to be some uncertainties and a lot of factors could go wrong, we decided to book train tickets to return from Delhi just in case we decide to take it.
Preparation
The longest bike trip we had done was around 800kms and 3 days, which both of us did together. We knew we had to do some other trip before that to prepare for this long trip. So we both (separately) did trips to Dhanushkodi to get accustomed to long bike rides. Undoubtedly, we both enjoyed them! These trips were a huge confidence booster.
When we were preparing for the trip, parallelly, things started to happen to remove obstacles that were blocking the trip from happening. I had a sense of feeling that everything was falling in place and helping us to make this happen! With that our excitement also started to grow!
I started researching about the things to carry, precautions to take, the modifications that need to be done to the bike and every other nook and corner.
You can check out our final check-list here. For all the things related to the bike go here.
Regarding that, two things I highly recommend are
- Hydration pack — I cannot stop saying how important this is. You might think it does not take much to stop and take a sip of water when you’re thirsty, but that is not the case. When you have to stop to drink water, you keep postponing it. You won’t stop unless to definitely need a sip. When you have a hydration bag, since it is always available, you end up drinking more water. Which is super important. When you are driving such long distances continuously for such long days or in fact any other trips, the most important thing is to stay hydrated. So having a hydration bag in itself makes you drink more water.
- Tank-top magnetic bag — This had been really handy. It is a nice place to store your valuables like a phone, wallet, camera etc. I kept my hydration pack also in there. You don’t want your phone, wallet etc in your pocket to make your riding uncomfortable, also if you keep all this in your main bag, every time you get down somewhere, you have to untie the bungee cord to take out the bag. It can be hard when you have to do it a few time every day. With a magnetic tank-top bag, it can be really easy to just pull it out and carry it with you.
One thing you have to take care of is the size. Mine was a bit too large. Even though I have the advantage of added space to keep my DSLR and hydration pack, I had difficulty making sharp turns like u-turns or when you are turning your bike around from a parking spot. I tipped over a few times and Sree had to come over to pull me back up.
Sree’s job was a bit more difficult. There were a lot of factors affecting the plan. We only had a rough idea of when the Srinagar-Leh highway was to open. It could always move back and forth, depending on the rate of snowfall. We had no way to estimate it when we plan the trip, or in fact even when we start the trip. The date of the exam in Delhi was another constraint.
However, keeping all this in mind Sree did an amazing job preparing the route plan and a rough itinerary covering all the places that we wanted to visit and also sticking to the constraints. He also made plans B and C for when things don’t go according to the plan (which they rarely do).
We also knew planning for such a trip is not something that we can finish off before the trip. We need to constantly plan and replan the route and itinerary throughout the trip until the last day.
We bought Jackets, knee pads, and other protection gears. changed our helmet visors. We fitted our bikes with Ladakh carriers, extra LED lights, mobile phone holder+charger etc and gave it for service. When I went to take my bike back, I stayed an extra hour and my mechanic taught me some basic repairs that we can do for ourselves.
- What the most common reasons are why the bike won’t start and how to fix them.
- How to tighten the brake.
- How to check the fuse and other wirings for problems and fix them if needed.
- How to change the headlight if it blows out.
Repairing the puncture was something hard to do without a bit of experience, so he advised to just take an extra tube and foot pump. We could at least fill in the air and drive slowly to get to the nearest puncture workshop. Like that, I learned some basic repair works.
On a personal note, while all these planning was happening, the initial plannings of my marriage was also happening. The day after we start off on the trip, my father, mother and brother were planning to visit my ‘would be’ wife’s parents.
Day 0 (14/04/2017)
Location: Kochi
Distance: 0km
ODO: 0km
It was the last day of preparations, we gathered all the documents and took enough copies if we have to submit any of those anywhere en route. We shared our locations with each other and our close family members and friends so that they can know where we are any time they want to (We used Google Maps for this). It was also pretty relieving for our parents, that they can keep a watch of where we are.
All the final preparations were done and all these were tightly packed into 4 bags. I did a trial run of putting all the luggage on the bike. Everything worked out perfectly!
