The first day of riding on this Himalayan motorcycle tour, and boy is it a good one! We leave the chaos of Shimla behind and quickly find ourselves on beautifully paved winding roads that are simply a joy to ride! We descend down to a river valley and turn onto a road that is much less smooth, but no less beautiful.
In the afternoon we will steadily climb on winding roads that cut through pine forests up to our first high pass of the trip – ‘Jalori’ pass, sat at 3,100m above sea level. We will stop at the top outside ‘Mahakali Temple’ for biscuits and a cup of chai before riding the newly paved road down to our hotel, perched on the hillside offering spectacular views over the trees.
It wouldn't be a motorcycle adventure if there wasn't some rain, so what better way to start this one than with some early Monsoon Season downpours. Our first task was to get out of Shimla... Actually our first task was to source gear for those in group who had yet to be reunited with their missing luggage - the reports of eyes on bags and couriers enroute the previous night had been at best optimistic.
On this ride the corner man technique would be used to keep us all on the same route. The general idea is that at each significant interchange the rider immediately behind the guide would stop and direct all the following riders through. Works well in concept but for those familiar with the "Kent Turned Right" story, not impervious to utter failure. Hopefully things would be different here.
A few of the other instructions were that if anyone had any issues with themselves or their bike they where to stop on the side of the road and wait for the medic, mechanic or support vehicle all of which were trailing the group. With regards to an issue with the bike you would exchange yours with the mechanic and carry on while he resolved the issue. I got to be the first to put this into practice as my bike stalled not too far out of the hotel gate and would not start. I wasn't all that surprised as the mechanics were furiously fussing over my bikes electrical system after breakfast just before departing. And I must say the mechanics bike was in very good shape with an extremely in tune engine, crisp shifting transmission and a sense that every bolt was torqued exactly to specification. The seat still was just as bad, guess there's no fixing that.
Anyways the day progressed over some unbelievable roads as we headed down from Shimla (2000m) to Sainj (800m) then over Jalori pass (3100m) then Shoja for the night. At times the rain lightened and even broke enough to thoroughly enjoy the ride and the scenery. Other times you were at best guessing where the road was and hoping for the best.
No comments:
Post a Comment