Remember those days when all you have wondered is a group of men tagging together for a road ride? This was one of those moments. I happen to contact one of my old college friend as he seem genuinely interested in a bike trip to the mountains. Having no second thoughts, we started to plan our itinerary. Of course, we had to postpone it in the beginning because of certain time clashes. Finally, the day struck well and it was in 2021 that we hit it right. By contacting some of his own friends, he made sure that we are having an amazing group to tag along with. The problem was, I did not own a bike that moment. Since we were delaying the plans, i did not think through to contact wheelsonstreet, or gobikes.com online to book a bike for myself. Trouble? Two days before the trip, there are only select places you can visit to rent a bike for yourself. It was one of those places near Ram Krishna Ashram Marg, New Delhi where you can avail one. So I went to rent a bike and finally got my hands on Royal Enfield Classic 350 Gunmetal Grey. Sounds about right. Well, initially, the bike was splendid. But that was it. The following night after renting, started from my place at 2:30 AM to reach to a common point where all of us could gather. Everyone was thrilled as we all looked super charged for the road ride. So there we were, all packed up for the ride to the Uttarakhand.
At the beginning of the ride, all seemed okay. Then my bike started to show some concerns around fuel tank. Having already filled the tank the previous night, i was sceptic if there is a leakage somewhere, which it was not. Thankfully. We all started our ride at around 4:30 AM, reached Muzaffarnagar around 8:30 AM, with halts in between. Our motto was to expand our reach in Uttarakhand as much as possible.
From there on, we finally hit the road again. Uttarakhand has its own essence when it comes to connecting mountains and rivers in sync. While you are treading upwards, you may also want to dive downward! That is the pure intertwining you will witness here. It is however not so much in Uttarakhand's big brother state Himachal. We reached near Tehri and had a good halt. Tehri is again a marvel in itself. Having considered as the largest dam in Asia, it is an epitome that one would not want to forget. The surrounding hills around Tehri was something we could not fail to capture.
Who does not think of the beautiful LBSNAA? or, pronounced as 'LaBaasNaa'. This location is very famous amongst Civil Services aspirants. And we aimed to touch this too. So, me and my fellow bikers reached Mussoorie and halted near LBSNAA. It is a beauty in itself that does not need further caption.
You do know there isn't any crazy bike trip without some fillers during your journey? So, we stop at this small maggi point shop, with one of our KTM riders having already racing up and down with another KTM rider, he decides to finally halt with us. That gives both the KTM riders some room to breathe. The guy comes near us in the name of Samriddh. And out of no where he joins us for maggi. He describes us that he has rented the KTM from Dehradun and has been just roaming from a previous day. We just go ahead and buy his story.
And voila, he becomes our local navigator! For the rest of the story, he is called 'Roadside Guy', or 'Homeless Guy'. And we stick to these two names very seriously.
So, we head further on our road upwards. There is a lesson in learning. Do not rent a bike two days prior to your trip as it may land you in some trouble. And yes it did. Once we touched Dehradun, we had to check in, cause it has been a longish ride. The next morning, my bike started giving some trouble, and so we had to stop at a local shop only to find out that its brakes had been malfunctioning. Fast Forward 6 hours, we were still in Dehradun getting the bike repaired.
Once all was done, I had a great heated argument with my bike renter. Once i blew my steam off, we were finally on the road again. The trouble was, we had lost good 6 hours on the journey. And for bikers, it is a crazy cost to pay. Few of us also had to reach back New Delhi the next day to resume jobs. So, three of us decided to hit Dhanaulti. Dhanaulti is something we have heard of, but never figured out. So, we three decided to go further up, while our KTM guy decided to head down towards Delhi. Having made the decision to go to Dhanualti was one of the best ones we made yet. We could see drizzling weather, along with mountain fog. This is the best partner in crime for us bikers. But we had to play it safe. Amidst the journey, the rains became incessant, and it was difficult for us to ride forward. So we decided for a halt. All three of us were shivering with cold as the temperature had fallen almost by 4 degrees, and the added heavy rains further stopped us on the way. We had this amazing cafe situated on the mountains, with majestic view of the Tehri district in front.
After having reached Dhanaulti, it was already very dark. So we decided to eat and push back. Our safety gears were not strong enough to brace the cold weather and rains combined together in Dhanaulti. On our way back, we first bought rain proof polythene to cover ourselves. That helped us for like 30 minutes.
Inside, we were shivering and our hands were fainting to accelerate. Finally, we three reached a town nearby and bought ourselves proper rain coats. One of us had to rush back as he was getting late for this office next day. So, it all came down to the two of us finally, who had initially started to think about this trip. Me and Yuvraj decided to check in at Rishikesh! Boy, we just did that. However, owing to our depleting energy and bike exhaustion, we did not decide to stay for the night. We touched Rishikesh, and we could see its night beauty.
This trip has been one hell of a ride for all of us, and certainly taught a lot of lessons to me personally for getting the bike well in advance. Some of the pictures have been shared for testimonials.
Overall, The trip cost was around INR 7,000 per head. Considering the fuel and other safety measures. If a reader indeed decides to plan a bike ride, He/she must ensure the itinerary is planned well and the bike and the gear are prepared resilient.
