29 May 2017
· cycling
At age 40, in the middle of raising venture funding for my second tech start-up, I had a massive heart attack. It’s a long story, but in essence, while I was lying on the cold OT table and wondering why they were trying to freeze me to death, my loved ones were waiting outside desperately hoping and praying that I make it through. Surprise: I did make it through.
In just a few days I will make it all the way through to 50. Bloody impressive, eh! And cycling across America is closest thing to a celebration I could plan. This is kind of a ’teerth yatra’ (pilgrimage) for an old man. And hopefully along the way I will discover America. Or at least a part of it. Okay, seriously, at the minimum, I will discover if I have the legs and the mindset for long distance cycling.
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01 Oct 2016
· cycling
At 4,420 meters Sach pass is not among the highest ‘motorable’ passes in the country, but it is certainly one of the steepest and one of toughest to bicycle across. A couple of years ago, Punit and I failed to cycle across it (read about the last attempt to cycle across the Sach pass here. What are the chances that I’ll do better on a solo attempt?
It is a little after 4:00 pm and it has already been a tough day of cycling. I still have the energy to push along for a couple of more hours, but am not sure if that would be good enough to get me to Bagota (no, not the capital of Colombia, but the little tarp cluster short of Sach Pass in Himachal Pradesh). Not finding shelter for the night at this altitude and in these inhospitable conditions is not an option. Time to stop cycling, catch my breath and assess my situation.
Continue reading →17 Feb 2016
· cycling
There is a post on my blog about choosing a bicycle
that has become very popular and I get to reply to lots of comment related to it. Recently I created a list of cycle shops in the NCR (Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida) for a comment on that post. Oddly this information is hard to get online. Therefore I thought I might as well share it as a post.
The list is sorted alphabetically (Name) but you can sort it in other ways by clicking on the column header.
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07 Aug 2015
· cycling
Planning on riding/driving from Manali to Leh? You can explore the route in an interactive map right here and also download a .gpx file of the route for your GPS.
On this 470 km trip you will climb 14,000 meters and cross five major high-altitude passes (called La). If you are cycling, the climb to the pass will seem endless. I have marked all of the passes in the file just so that you know how much more you need to suffer!
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31 Jul 2015
· adventures
Earlier this year we went scuba diving to the Andaman Islands. We spent a over a week at DiveIndia on the Havelock islands.
There is no easy way to describe the vibrancy of the underwater ecosystem of a coral reef. No description can do justice to the experience of being 10-20 meters underwater.
Early morning departure for a dive session I tired using the word ‘psychedelic’ to describe the colours and the shapes of the astounding range of lifeforms. A fellow diver added, yeah, gods must have been on acid when he did this. This was my first trip underwater. I think I did OK with the diving lessons, but not so well with the photography and the videography. Anyhow here are some images form the trip, hopefully I’ll be better prepared next time.
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26 Mar 2015
· adventures
As far as I can remember, I had one persistent, recurring childhood fantasy/dream: To fly. All by myself.
Some 40 odd years later, it has finally happened. I went through a short training to learn to fly a paraglider. So how was it to live out your childhood fantasy, you might ask? Well, nice! Really nice. But, somehow not as fantastic as the original fantasy!
Mostly because jumping off the face of a high cliff defies your basic instinct. And also because, as a beginner, you are easily overwhelmed by the equipment, and overstimulated by the manoeuvres you need to make in order to get airborne, fly your course and land safely. All of this while you are dealing with some degree of fear of seeing the earth floating away from under you.
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21 Sep 2014
· cycling
The hardest part about Spiti is reaching there. It took us a 22-hour bus ride to get to Rekong Peo. For the sake of acclimatization we had planned the night stay at Kalpa, which is not so far from there, but much higher. And also much nicer. Having had our fill with the HPTDC’s ‘ordinary’ buses, especially given the quantum of our luggage, we choose to just hire a jeep the next day to take us up to Nako (technically still in Kinnaur) – another five odd hour drive.
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16 Sep 2014
· cycling
People often ask me what is the best cycle for touring the Himalayas. It is a hard question to answer, mainly because different people define ’touring’ differently.
For instance, cycle touring may mean cycling hundreds of kilometers self-supported where the rider carries a tent, sleeping bag, cooking gear on the bike, and has the option to stop and camp wherever she fancies. However, many of the well established Himalayan routes can also be toured ultralight, by eating and sleeping in teahouses (dhabas). And then there is the option of riding without any baggage because the support team/vehicle follows the rider(s) closely.
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09 Jan 2014
· cycling
Where in the world
do you have a car driver slow down to a halt, to let you finish taking a picture from across the street.
Where in the world
do you have women managing the night desk alone in a small hotel, in a smallish town.
Where in the world
do you have women taxi drivers doing solo cross-country drives.
Where in the world
do you have young women single handedly manage resto-bars on the side of a highway, in the middle of nowhere.
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23 Sep 2013
· cycling
So you’re thinking of buying a new cycle? And you are being bombarded by friends, fellow cyclists and salespeople by all kinds of conflicting information?
I have, in the past, tried to clear some smoke for friends. This is an attempt to make my suggestions available on the web. Do let me know if this post did the job for you. Let me start by saying that you will not get a straight answer. I will not tell you exactly what to do. Actually, I can’t because I don’t know anything about you. For instance, I have no clue where you live. What kind of terrain you plan to ride on, what motivates you, what your cycling goals are, how fit you are, and so on… All I can do is lay out ‘facts’ as objectively as I can, for you to chew on, and make up your own mind. When I say ‘facts’ please realize that these are not uncontested scientific facts of the kind we memorized in school. They are more like generally accepted norms.
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