[camitesh]

Such an amazing travelogue Suhas coupled with equally brilliant pics! I have ridden to Spiti, Zanskar, Leh circuits in last few years but I could never imagine myself planning the stops/hotels so well in advance considering the challenges especially unpredictability of the terrain, bike breakdowns etc. I never thought this is possible unless you have support from a good travel /ride organizer.

Personally though I enjoy the fact that we never know what our end destination for the day is in the mountains except for the general idea where we may end up by evening. While this flexibility is fun and exciting, we have had bad experiences where we would need to ride tricky terrain till late in night, get shabby accommodations out of no choice or end up sleeping in tented accommodations in the least favorable places such as 'Pang'.

What I take away from your ride is the discipline which all four of you (kudos to ladies especially) showed throughout the journey to start on time, not to stray away from plan too much and stick to the routine. Simply amazing!

[Added_flavor]

Originally Posted by atul.ktm

Brilliant write up Suhas, read it all in one go. Missed our meetup in Leh, hopefully next time!

Thanks Atul! Indeed, next time it is!

Originally Posted by vinay5795

Hi Suhas lovely pics. I actually met you guys at Food Pyramid on the way to Bangalore. I was in the Ninja group. Small world I guess

Vinay, thank you. It was great meeting you and your group!

Originally Posted by camitesh

Such an amazing travelogue Suhas coupled with equally brilliant pics! I have ridden to Spiti, Zanskar, Leh circuits in last few years but I could never imagine myself planning the stops/hotels so well in advance considering the challenges especially unpredictability of the terrain, bike breakdowns etc. I never thought this is possible unless you have support from a good travel /ride organizer.

Personally though I enjoy the fact that we never know what our end destination for the day is in the mountains except for the general idea where we may end up by evening. While this flexibility is fun and exciting, we have had bad experiences where we would need to ride tricky terrain till late in night, get shabby accommodations out of no choice or end up sleeping in tented accommodations in the least favorable places such as 'Pang'.

What I take away from your ride is the discipline which all four of you (kudos to ladies especially) showed throughout the journey to start on time, not to stray away from plan too much and stick to the routine. Simply amazing!

Thank you camitesh! Reminds me of a line from one of Adam Riemann's fantastic YouTube videos that starts with "There are adventure riders and there are itinerary riders..".

I completely agree with you that traveling without a fixed itinerary is sometimes more fun and gives more flexibility. I tend to try and make fixed plans as much as possible, especially when ladies are traveling along, and safety and hygiene are paramount. My risk threshold with their presence is much lower.

[Deepak Saligram]

Hello All!

I am the other partner in crime for this ride with Suhas (Added_flavor)!

This thread could not have been better put together with the herculean effort to write a precise daily log and chose and include all the pics and be as informative and elaborate as Suhas has done!

Trust me, for people like me, its easier to do 1000kms days than write like this, so kudos to the effort!

With this as a forethought the 4 of us were planning a ride to the Holy Grail of Bikers for a couple of years at least now. Seemingly things fell into place and we set out on one of biggest rides in quite of lot of cross country rides we've done. First time for the other three and second time for me to Leh. Things in Leh change in hours/days so my 14 year old info wouldn't hold much of a candle. The entire plan was done by Suhas meticulously and he did a bloody good job of the same, my inputs were far and few in between and we had a bunch of guardian angels throughout the ride and a few of the are from Team-BHP.

No amount of pics and videos will do true justice to the beauty of that land.
- 18 days
- 7600 odd KMS
- 14 States/UTs to ride through
- 2 phenomenally capable Motorcycles
- 2 Bikers
- 2 Bikernis
- Endless amounts of passes
- Weather ranging from 40 degrees to 5 degrees (-1 degree at KTop)
- Terrains from 4 lane highway to narrow to No/Off roads
- Heart full of desire to ride/conquer the Holy Grail
- Finally a successful completion to the mega ride

All apart what mattered more was the grit and determination of the riders lugging 250+ KGs Motorcycles with luggage and pillion in that Altitude, Weather and Terrain, also the endurance and mindset of the ladies to be a part of this madness we are bitten by long long ago, Kudos to the 4 of us 👏

Let's try to soak in what we endeavored during the ride through this thread on "The Magical Ride to the Land of the Lama"

Bangalore to Leh-Ladakh to Bangalore!

[theexperthand]

Wow, what an epic ride and an equally epic write-up - hats off to you Suhaas

The travelogue was so detailed and well thought out that I felt I was traveling with you guys. Kudos to all six of you

--Anoop

[Added_flavor]

Originally Posted by theexperthand

Kudos to all six of you

Thank you, Anoop Chetta! Took me a few seconds to understand that