bharatsadeja
Motorcycle Traveller
Riders' Introduction
Aman Chaudhary
Hailing from the city of Yamunanagar, Haryana, Aman is an avid biker. He rides a Honda CBR 250 and done multiple rides to Ladakh and Spiti. Apart from dream rides to Ladakh and Spiti, he has also done a ride to Bhutan in 2015. I met him for the first time on the ride and noticed one major difference in the way we travel. While I travel with a lot of luggage, Aman on the other side, likes to travel light. Apart from Aman, all three of us were using fully packed ViaTerra claw whereas Aman had small saddle bags and still he had every small thing which one may need on a bike ride. May be that's what we call experience.
Bharat Sadeja
That's me! I was born and brought up in Delhi. I ride Hero Honda Karizma and Bajaj Pulsar 200NS. I was riding Pulsar 200NS on this ride. Although, I was always passionate about bikes and riding but started taking motorcycle travelling seriously only after October, 2014. I have not done any ride ever which may be called difficult but I have done few short and long rides. I wish to be an avid motorcycle traveller one day. As I have ridden mostly on open highways and have very little experience of riding in hills, this trip was not much of a different to me in terms of the kind of roads I would be riding on but this was going to become my longest ride in terms of both, days and distance.
Saurabh Seth/Seth Sahab
Seth sahab is the reason why I happened to join this ride as I only knew him among all the co-riders and he only asked me to join this ride. We became friends when both of us loved bikes but had not travelled much on bikes by then. His home town is Quadian, Punjab but he currently lives in Chandigarh. Seth sahab rides CBR 250 and Harley Davidson 750 Street. He was riding Harley on this ride. Seth also started riding much later in life and by now often keeps going on short bike trips in groups. This was the longest ride for him.
Sidharth Mittal
He lives in Kandaghat, Himachal Pradesh and rides Bajaj Pulsar 200AS. Being born and brought up in hills, Siddharth mainly has experience of riding in the hills and he is very good at it. Siddharth has done many rides in the hills and has also done Spiti but still was not very confident for first 1-2 days on the open highways as he has not ridden much on open highways. Although, he has earlier done rides which have extended for as many days as this ride, but in terms of distance this was his longest ride so far.
Prologue
During the time when I was pursuing post graduation from Thapar University in Patiala, I came across only a single person who was really passionate about biking and his name is Saurabh Seth but we always used to call him Seth Sahab. By that time neither I had travelled much on motorcycles nor did he but we often used to talk about bikes during our college days. After completing my post graduation, I moved to different cities for job. First I moved to Trivandrum for three months in end of 2012. Year of 2013 was spent in Mumbai and in 2014, I moved to Bangalore. I moved to Patiala for post graduation in 2009 and till 2014, I did not have any bike when I was outside my home town so I always missed my bike during those times. After moving to Bangalore on 22nd January, 2014 I finally bought my new bike on 12th March, 2014. I moved back to my home town Delhi in April, 2015. One thing I really liked during my stay in Bangalore was, no matter how short or long I wanted to go for a ride, I always had a few places to select from. After coming to Delhi, I realized that Delhi do not have much options to go for a one day ride. I started searching for one day ride options from Delhi on Internet and found out that whatever few short ride options are there from Delhi, I had done all of them by 2009 itself. Now, I had started exploring more ride options from Delhi which could be done in 2-3 days and realized, for the kind of person/rider I am, it would take at least three days for me to ride to any nice place, spend some good time there and ride back. After post graduation, I have been in contact with Seth Sahab after college as well. He now lives in Chandigarh as he got campus placement in a company in Chandigarh. After moving to Chandigarh, he also started riding very often. When I moved to Delhi, Sath sahab often asked to plan to come down to Chandigarh and have a ride together but it didn't happen for some reason. He even asked me to go to Spiti once but I was not confident enough to go ahead there.
Finally, he planned for a ride to Kutch and I agreed to join. After communicating with all the tentative riders who could join, dates were finalized to be 1st November, 2015 to 8th November, 2015. As the start day of riding was approaching, one by one all the other riders dropped the plan and Seth sahab asked me if we two should go or not. I agreed to go on such long ride with just one other rider and hence Seth sahab applied for leaves well in advance. Sometimes no matter what we plan, destiny has something else on the plate for us. On 2nd October, 2015, I met in an accident with a car and suffered through a hair line fracture. All the plans got cancelled as a plaster was applied on my right leg and its chances of recovering completely within a month was 0%. I informed Seth sahab about the same, he understood the situation and he cancelled his leaves as well.
While I was recovering from the injury, Seth sahab once again planned another long ride and pinged me to ask if I could join. This was a ride to the state of Royals in the month of January. I was confident that I would recover completely by that time so I agreed to join the ride. Among the riders who were supposed to join, I only knew Seth sahab and all other riders were Seth sahab's friends from his riding group Archriders. Dates were finalized to be 5th January, 2016 to 12th January, 2016.
As I am a very laid back person by nature, I always postponed thing to do in bucket. Just two days before the ride on 3rd January, 2016, I realized that there are few must to do things before the ride. I needed some safety gears and had to get my bike serviced. For the safety gears, I had to go to Karol Bagh market and the market was closed on the next day as it was a Monday. So, I decided to get safety gears on Sunday and get my bike services on Monday. I bought everything that was needed from Karol Bagh market and then went on to join our family picnic at Lodhi Garden.
Next day it was 4th January, 2016 and I had to get my bike serviced as the ride was starting the next day. I woke up in the morning and rushed to the Bajaj service centre. I went to the same service centre from where I got my bike serviced after shifting to Delhi from Bangalore. After reaching there, I came to know that the service centre is closed on Monday. I rushed to another service centre and thankfully they operate on Mondays. My bike was second in the queue for the service. It was 10 in the morning and I was confident that I would be back at home by 2 PM. My bike's spark plugs were required to be replaced with new ones. When the mechanic at the service centre took out the adapter of the main spark plug, the adapter was broken. Now, the biggest troll of the day started. Service centre didn't have that adapter in stock so they told me that it may take a few days to acquire that adapter. I told them that I need to go on a ride, the very next day, so they tried to fix the broken adapter but it didn't happen. I asked them to acquire the adapter from some other service centre and they told me that even to acquire a spare part from other service station it takes 3-4 days. No matter what, I had to join this ride. I asked him if he could tell me which service centre is having the adapter in stock. Finally, they helped me with that. Now, I had to go 10 KMs from that service centre to acquire the adapter and come back. I rushed to my home, took car from there, drove to the service centre which had adapter in stock, bought the adapter, came back home and asked my sister to drop me to the service centre which had my bike. Finally, my bike was serviced and I got the delivery by 6 PM. I reached home in a few minutes but I was a little tired by then. After reaching home, I was lazing around in my bed and watching television. At 10 PM in the night, I started packing my bag and slept around 12 in the night.
Aman Chaudhary
Hailing from the city of Yamunanagar, Haryana, Aman is an avid biker. He rides a Honda CBR 250 and done multiple rides to Ladakh and Spiti. Apart from dream rides to Ladakh and Spiti, he has also done a ride to Bhutan in 2015. I met him for the first time on the ride and noticed one major difference in the way we travel. While I travel with a lot of luggage, Aman on the other side, likes to travel light. Apart from Aman, all three of us were using fully packed ViaTerra claw whereas Aman had small saddle bags and still he had every small thing which one may need on a bike ride. May be that's what we call experience.
Bharat Sadeja
That's me! I was born and brought up in Delhi. I ride Hero Honda Karizma and Bajaj Pulsar 200NS. I was riding Pulsar 200NS on this ride. Although, I was always passionate about bikes and riding but started taking motorcycle travelling seriously only after October, 2014. I have not done any ride ever which may be called difficult but I have done few short and long rides. I wish to be an avid motorcycle traveller one day. As I have ridden mostly on open highways and have very little experience of riding in hills, this trip was not much of a different to me in terms of the kind of roads I would be riding on but this was going to become my longest ride in terms of both, days and distance.
Saurabh Seth/Seth Sahab
Seth sahab is the reason why I happened to join this ride as I only knew him among all the co-riders and he only asked me to join this ride. We became friends when both of us loved bikes but had not travelled much on bikes by then. His home town is Quadian, Punjab but he currently lives in Chandigarh. Seth sahab rides CBR 250 and Harley Davidson 750 Street. He was riding Harley on this ride. Seth also started riding much later in life and by now often keeps going on short bike trips in groups. This was the longest ride for him.
Sidharth Mittal
He lives in Kandaghat, Himachal Pradesh and rides Bajaj Pulsar 200AS. Being born and brought up in hills, Siddharth mainly has experience of riding in the hills and he is very good at it. Siddharth has done many rides in the hills and has also done Spiti but still was not very confident for first 1-2 days on the open highways as he has not ridden much on open highways. Although, he has earlier done rides which have extended for as many days as this ride, but in terms of distance this was his longest ride so far.
Prologue
During the time when I was pursuing post graduation from Thapar University in Patiala, I came across only a single person who was really passionate about biking and his name is Saurabh Seth but we always used to call him Seth Sahab. By that time neither I had travelled much on motorcycles nor did he but we often used to talk about bikes during our college days. After completing my post graduation, I moved to different cities for job. First I moved to Trivandrum for three months in end of 2012. Year of 2013 was spent in Mumbai and in 2014, I moved to Bangalore. I moved to Patiala for post graduation in 2009 and till 2014, I did not have any bike when I was outside my home town so I always missed my bike during those times. After moving to Bangalore on 22nd January, 2014 I finally bought my new bike on 12th March, 2014. I moved back to my home town Delhi in April, 2015. One thing I really liked during my stay in Bangalore was, no matter how short or long I wanted to go for a ride, I always had a few places to select from. After coming to Delhi, I realized that Delhi do not have much options to go for a one day ride. I started searching for one day ride options from Delhi on Internet and found out that whatever few short ride options are there from Delhi, I had done all of them by 2009 itself. Now, I had started exploring more ride options from Delhi which could be done in 2-3 days and realized, for the kind of person/rider I am, it would take at least three days for me to ride to any nice place, spend some good time there and ride back. After post graduation, I have been in contact with Seth Sahab after college as well. He now lives in Chandigarh as he got campus placement in a company in Chandigarh. After moving to Chandigarh, he also started riding very often. When I moved to Delhi, Sath sahab often asked to plan to come down to Chandigarh and have a ride together but it didn't happen for some reason. He even asked me to go to Spiti once but I was not confident enough to go ahead there.
Finally, he planned for a ride to Kutch and I agreed to join. After communicating with all the tentative riders who could join, dates were finalized to be 1st November, 2015 to 8th November, 2015. As the start day of riding was approaching, one by one all the other riders dropped the plan and Seth sahab asked me if we two should go or not. I agreed to go on such long ride with just one other rider and hence Seth sahab applied for leaves well in advance. Sometimes no matter what we plan, destiny has something else on the plate for us. On 2nd October, 2015, I met in an accident with a car and suffered through a hair line fracture. All the plans got cancelled as a plaster was applied on my right leg and its chances of recovering completely within a month was 0%. I informed Seth sahab about the same, he understood the situation and he cancelled his leaves as well.
While I was recovering from the injury, Seth sahab once again planned another long ride and pinged me to ask if I could join. This was a ride to the state of Royals in the month of January. I was confident that I would recover completely by that time so I agreed to join the ride. Among the riders who were supposed to join, I only knew Seth sahab and all other riders were Seth sahab's friends from his riding group Archriders. Dates were finalized to be 5th January, 2016 to 12th January, 2016.
As I am a very laid back person by nature, I always postponed thing to do in bucket. Just two days before the ride on 3rd January, 2016, I realized that there are few must to do things before the ride. I needed some safety gears and had to get my bike serviced. For the safety gears, I had to go to Karol Bagh market and the market was closed on the next day as it was a Monday. So, I decided to get safety gears on Sunday and get my bike services on Monday. I bought everything that was needed from Karol Bagh market and then went on to join our family picnic at Lodhi Garden.
Next day it was 4th January, 2016 and I had to get my bike serviced as the ride was starting the next day. I woke up in the morning and rushed to the Bajaj service centre. I went to the same service centre from where I got my bike serviced after shifting to Delhi from Bangalore. After reaching there, I came to know that the service centre is closed on Monday. I rushed to another service centre and thankfully they operate on Mondays. My bike was second in the queue for the service. It was 10 in the morning and I was confident that I would be back at home by 2 PM. My bike's spark plugs were required to be replaced with new ones. When the mechanic at the service centre took out the adapter of the main spark plug, the adapter was broken. Now, the biggest troll of the day started. Service centre didn't have that adapter in stock so they told me that it may take a few days to acquire that adapter. I told them that I need to go on a ride, the very next day, so they tried to fix the broken adapter but it didn't happen. I asked them to acquire the adapter from some other service centre and they told me that even to acquire a spare part from other service station it takes 3-4 days. No matter what, I had to join this ride. I asked him if he could tell me which service centre is having the adapter in stock. Finally, they helped me with that. Now, I had to go 10 KMs from that service centre to acquire the adapter and come back. I rushed to my home, took car from there, drove to the service centre which had adapter in stock, bought the adapter, came back home and asked my sister to drop me to the service centre which had my bike. Finally, my bike was serviced and I got the delivery by 6 PM. I reached home in a few minutes but I was a little tired by then. After reaching home, I was lazing around in my bed and watching television. At 10 PM in the night, I started packing my bag and slept around 12 in the night.
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