Tag
Self-Supported Cycling
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.
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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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07 Aug 2012
· cycling
Perhaps more appropriate to say ’trying to’ cycle across the Sach Pass. And failing. We did our best, under the circumstances, and failed. No shame in that!
15 odd kilometers short of the Sach pass we had to turn around . The trail (can’t call it a road, even though it was wider than a typical single track) was so steep, and so full of slush that our bikes had no grip. The fact that we had too much weight loaded on the cycle, did not help either. Add to all of this, the fact that I had just recently recovered from a bout of somewhat prolonged illness, and was perhaps not as fit as I thought I was.
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15 Nov 2010
· cycling
We finally raised the PedalYatri flag on the Indorie Qila (Indorie Fort). Of course it was a notional one on wikimapia, but it felt special because two of our previous attempts of finding and reaching it had failed.
A very eventful ride with more than it’s fair share of punctures, dynamite blasts, tumbles, scraped knees, nicked & bruised shins, un-rideable terrain with boulders fields & deep undergrowth, and traffic jams too.
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29 Oct 2010
· cycling
First published in Times of India on October 29, 2010. Nice to be featured in the ‘Just4Her’ section of ‘What’s Hot’ ;-).
If you can afford to ride a motorcycle or a car, then why ride a cycle. Its a question that often gets thrown at me, though not always explicitly. More often than not, when I ride, locals mistake me to be a foreigner. Despite the colour of my skin, kids will shout out ‘angrez’ and adults will try to start a conversation in English.
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17 May 2010
· cycling
I like the idea of self-supported cycle travel. It gives you a feeling of freedom, almost liberation from the constraints of ’tourism’. Or at least that is what I thought. To put it to test, the first order of business was to acquire pannier bags (the bags that hang on the sides of the cycle). And then a pannier rack, on which the bags are attached. Once I had mounted the bags and done a couple of short local test rides, I felt I was ready for a real test ride in the mountains.
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