Cycling on Noetic Nought

Cycling from Manali to Leh - An FAQ

Thu, 26 Oct 2017 12:55:00 +0530

Table of Contents

So, you cycled from Manali to Leh?

Well, Not really. We cycled from Kalath to Whiskey Nala – a distance of 280km – which is about 60% of the Manali-Leh route.

Who is “we”?

Vivek and I were on the bikes. Shabu was our guide helping us fix our bikes and fixing up our meals, but more than anything else, ensuring that we don’t freeze to death. Susheel was driving along and cheering us.

How did you decide to do this?

Vivek and I were going to Coorg with Prats and Addy, and Prats told us a whole lot of stories of her adventures in the mountains. Not sure how bicycles came into the picture, but as soon as they did, both of us got really excited about it. This was on some sort of a bucket list for me, ever since I read Vatsap’s cycling story many years ago. Soon, after we were back in town, the ball was set rolling…

What is the maximum elevation you cycled to?

We started off at around 1.8km and went up to about 5km in a span of 5 days. We also spent a day in Manali, getting our cycles fixed and acclimatizing. You can see the elevation profile here.

How long did the whole ride take?

Our plan was to finish the whole distance in 7 days. We couldn’t get to our designated camp on the 5th day, and had to use the support car to get to camp before it got dark. We decided to end the ride once we took our bikes off the road.

Was it really hard? Why couldn’t you finish the ride?

We expected the primary challenges to be:

the altitude and lack of oxygen
the fatigue from riding day after day after day…

But, cold played a much bigger role than we thought it would. As we got higher and higher, it got so cold that we spent a significant amount of energy and brain cycles on trying to fight the cold, rather than enjoying the views or pushing ourselves to keep going despite the non-cold-related discomfort.

So, you do really need a support vehicle?

Not really, if you were riding in better weather or were better prepared. The Manali to Leh route usually has a lot of temporary shops setup during the season, where you could crash, if it was too cold to just crash in your tent. Since, we were going after the season had almost ended, many of these shops were no longer open, and having the support car turned out to be quite useful on the last day.

How much did the support vehicle cost you?

It turned out to be quite an expense for something we originally didn’t have in mind. We spent about 20k on the vehicle, fuel and the driver’s fee. We also paid our guide + cook + bicycle expert, separately.

Did you carry your own bikes?

Yes.

Flew from Bengaluru to Delhi
Took a bus from Delhi to Manali
Carried the bikes on the support car from Whiskey Nala to Leh
Flew back from Leh to Delhi

Did the flights charge you for the bikes?

The carrier (IndiGo) from BLR to DEL charged us a handling fees of Rs. 1000. The carrier (Vistara) on the return journey didn’t.

You could find bikes on rent, both in Manali and Leh, for about 500 to 700 per day. It would cost about 5-7k, based on how you plan your ride, to rent a bike. You’ll have to make arrangements to get the bike returned back to the place you rent it from – this can get a little tricky.

If you already own a bike, and can it packed in a proper box, I would highly recommend that. The derailleurs, the shifters, and other such moving parts need to be well packed and guarded. Use a box or a cycling bag to put it in. Get professional help from a cycle retailer nearby, if required. This is one thing you cannot take any chances on, or your whole trip may be jeopardized!

We hadn’t paid enough attention to packing our bikes, and one of our bikes took quite some beating on the way to Delhi. On the way back, we managed to get the bike packed in a box and it was a breeze.

What cycle spares/tools did you carry?

We were sort of ill prepared in this department. We only had the following:

Hand pump
Puncture kit
Spare tubes (2 nos.)
Allen key set

Based on advice from Shabu, I think you should also take these things:

Brake cables
Gear cables
Spare tyre (1 Nos.)
Brake shoes/pads
Few spokes
Chain oil

What sort of preparation did you do for this ride?

We did a handful of 50-100km rides on weekends before this one. The only real elevation training/trial that we did was the Kalhatti climb, one weekend before this ride. This turned out to be pretty useful, and we found all the other climbs during this ride much less steeper than some of the Kalhatti ones.

What we actually rode

Day	Start	End	Distance	Elevation gain	Comments
0	Kalath	-	-		Fix cycles and acclimatize
1	Kalath	Marhi	45km	1675m	Prepare to cross Rohtang!
2	Marhi	Keylong	80km	-210m	Crossed Rohtang (3970m)
3	Keylong	Patseo	48km	+644m	Easy ride; Deepak Tal!
4	Patseo	Sarchu	64km	+522m	Crossed Baralachala(4902m)!
5	Sarchu	Whiskey Nala	48km	+465m	Gata loops & Nakeela(4924m)

Original plan

Day	Start	End	Distance	Elevation gain	Comments
5	Sarchu	Pang	73km	+225m	Gata-loops, Nakeela(4924m) & Lachung La(5065m)
6	Pang	Lato	103km	-530m	Moore Plains, Tanglang La (5328m)
7	Lato	Leh	70km	-600m	Lots of downhill!

What was a typical day during the trip, like?

Wake up between 7 and 8, depending on when you can see/feel the warm sun. Laze in bed if you woke up too early, and the sun hasn’t yet warmed the place up.
Eat porridge, and a few slices of bread with peanut butter.
Pack ourselves up in as many layers of clothing as we can, while still being able to pedal.
Check the bikes for any loose/fallen-off/broken parts, blow, etc.
Start pedaling away - usually between 9 and 10. It’s too cold to start earlier. Keep adjusting the clothing, based on how cold/warm it is, and the wind chill.
Keep munching, or sipping on some water (plain or mixed with some energizer).
Continue pedaling, and start looking at the milestones a little more carefully. Lunch is on our mind, already.
Lunch at around 1:30pm - usually, a couple of boiled eggs, and a potato. May be a chocolate, and some Frooti.
More pedaling. The kilometers start getting harder, the chill is getting harsher.
Huff and puff, and reach our camp for the day. Hi-fives! We’d try and reach the camp while there is still some sunlight there to keep us warm.
Stretch it out, and switch into dry, warm clothes.
Grab a quick snack - whole packets of biscuits would just disappear, alongside some tea.
Talk, walk around, ponder about life, think about the day that’s been, think about the day that is to come, and all that jazz.
Eat dinner - dal and rice, mostly.
Sleep like logs. Unless, there’s a rat in the room that’s attacking our dry fruits.

What was the most enjoyable part of the ride?

I really enjoyed sitting at Deepak Tal, and just looking at the clear water
The climb to Baralacha La was the most challenging part of the ride. We could see that the weather was really bad in all the peaks around us, and it was getting really cold. Briefly, it was even snowing very lightly and we could see tiny snow flakes floating in front of us.
The feeling of reaching the top of passes was quite thrilling, for both Rohtang and Baralacha La. Nakee La, not so much, since we still had about 30km ahead of us to finish the day.
It was humbling to see all the BRO folks working to keep the roads open and functional! A big salute to them!
Each time we had a truck or some bikers pass by, we would wave at them or show thumbs up, and it would give us some additional energy to keep pushing ahead.
The tree covered road in Sissu was just mind blowingly beautiful, with all the trees golden and yellow, preparing for the fall.
It was also nice to turn 30, in the hills. Vivek tried to make it as special, for me, as he could.

What was the most challenging part of the ride?

The cold. (See, the answer on why we didn’t finish the ride).

You keep saying it was cold, how cold was it really?

On the night we camped at Sarchu, the water in our bottles and unwashed cups had frozen. We had gone to sub zero temperatures on many nights, it looks like. The winds during the day were quite chilly, and got worse as we gained altitude.

Did you meet any interesting people en-route?

We met a guy from Slovenia who has been taking a couple or so months off for the past 10 years. He was riding around with a 55kg weighing bike for the past 3 weeks, and was going from Leh to Manali, when we met him. He had a lot of stories to tell – including recommending that we go cycling in Iceland, and enjoy watching the Northern lights from hot water baths.
Shabu himself had a lot of stories to tell about all the people he had taken on this ride - from guys with a $6k bike to a 70 year old doing the route his 4th time to the guy who would eat only olive oil mixed in rice to safeguard his tummy, and more!
All the aachos and aamas in the shops/guest houses/etc that we went to were really nice to us. Most of the folks in the shops were planning to leave in a few days after we had met them since it had gotten really cold.
We had our camp-site at Marhi in the compound of a HP state guest house. The care taker walks up to us, while we are setting up the tent, and says, “Idhar kahi par bhi baithna mana hai, 10 hazaar ka fine lag jaayega. Udhar toilet bana hua hai”, pointing to the public toilets in a distance, “paisa nahi lagega”. We had a good laugh, and ended up wondering if it was Swach Bharat showing some effect.

We probably would’ve talked to a lot more people, and met a lot more interesting people, if we were there in better weather and didn’t have a support vehicle taking care of us. Next time!

Would you do this again?

May be. We feel like we got a taste of the challenge of the ride, and the rest of the route wouldn’t be anymore challenging than what we already saw, if we did it in better weather. But, the better weather would also mean more traffic and noise on the road.

If yes, which part of the year would you do it?

Late August to mid-September might be a better time. We’d also need to look out for rains and land-slides, though.

If not, what other routes would you try?

Cycling around Europe sounds like a fun thing to try
Rides in the western ghats and/or Kerala seem promising
A Tour of Meghalaya was something a friend suggested
Pushing that a little more, ride all the way to Singapore/Indonesia, starting at home

You can find some pictures and videos here. The album also includes some pictures from our practice rides.

To Ananthagiri

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0530

I had been to Ananthagiri, near Vikarabad for a 2 day ride. It was a fun ride. Thanks to Atlanta Foundation for renting the cyles. Hi-fi to all the riders who made it to the ride. A detailed report is here.

First 100!

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0530

We, Ritesh and I, finished our first 100+km ride – approximately 110km. Yo!

The Route map

IIT-Bombay to Karnala Bird Sanctuary, and back.

Up

Down

The Story

We started at around 0720 and were hoping to reach Karnala Bird Sanctuary by around 1130. We — actually, soot covered clones of us — reached by about 1215 or so. That’s pretty decent, considering we were directed to Karnala sports complex, when we were looking for bird sanctuary and there was quite a bit of traffic near Panvel.

While we were getting tickets to get into the sanctuary, a man was amused by Ritesh’s polka (dirt) dotted shirt and asks us whether we rode down from JNPT. We got all excited and told him, that we rode down from Powai! He just said, “Gone Mad!” and walked away, as if madness was contagious. Both of us, felt great! We were high! It felt like the best compliment to get after a long, tiring, (blackening) ride. We got in and rushed to a tap and almost had a bath under it. The first touch of cold water was heaven! Just a while later, we got a shock. We couldn’t get any food near/inside the sanctuary. We will have to go back 3 km for that. We spent about an hour and a half, getting some oxygen, looking for a few birds, giving up and settling with spiders and clicking some pictures. We got went back 3km to the hotel and spent about an hour there (not all of it eating ;). We started back at around 1515.

The ride back was eventful. We took a slightly different route, tempted by a free Highway(NH4), waiting to be rode on. The road looked awesome, with a hill on the left, and no vehicles in sight. But, as fate would have it, Ritesh’s rear tyre gave way. After some search we found a guy fixing tyres of vehicles on the highway. But he refused to fix our bicycle. He refused even to fill air in it, so we could reach the nearest cycle repair shop. After more search, we found who agreed to fill air in the tyre. (It needs a special valve pin. The previous guy, probably didn’t have it. But we could’ve hacked up something.)

We rushed to Kalamboli and got the tyre fixed. Then we headed back in the route that we had come on. It’d been raining on and off through out the morning. But first rain on the return only started near Nerul. It was a great relief. My cycle started moving more smoothly… I loved it. We got lost a bit near Ghatkopar. Also, the traffic was quite bad there. (Why do drivers get so bad, once it starts raining? It’s not unique to Mumbai, but quite visible here. We were back in Campus by around 2040.

Ritesh was energized after the puncture was fixed. He rode like crazy, after that. The sole of my feet started hurting — something like a cramp. I don’t know what exactly happened. Also, my groin was hurting quite a bit. My only motivation at that point was seeing Ritesh ride like crazy. He was at his best, then! I’m still wondering where he got all that energy from. It was a great ride, for both of us! Motivating each other to keep going. :)

Ritesh, where to next?

Some lessons for future

The Cycle needs to be as close to perfect, as it possibly can be.
Carry your route map along. Enquiring the route a colossal waste of time and sometimes unreliable, too.
A pollution mask is a must for Mumbai (or any other city.)
Carry enough water and food. (We drank about 7L of water between us)
Need to learn how to fix punctures. Need a tool kit.
A helmet, shorts with padding would be good.
An odometer would be useful too.
Learn to use the hand-pump or carry along a normal pump.
I should probably ride along with some Cycling group for the experience of it. I’ll get to learn a lot of things.

Photos

Photos will come soon, hopefully.

Drafting

Sat, 07 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0530

Drafting behind trucks (when cycling) could be a great energy saver. I came across this idea when reading up a blog post by a cyclist.

The idea is similar to birds flying in a V-shape to get a greater lift. While drafting, the goal is to reduce the drag force.

Pacelines in cycling races are formed precisely for this reason. This page has a short summary of what drafting is all about.

Should be trying this out, the next time around.

Another 60 ...

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0530

~~I’d~~ We had been on a 60 km long trip today. My second one, and Ritesh’s first. The map of our route is here. On the whole the ride was wonderful! A thoroughly enjoyable one. It was near perfect, with it raining only as much as we enjoyed an not anymore. :)

The ride on Godbander Road was the most enjoyable part of the ride. Simple Wonderful! That’s what made the trip worth it!
It was more relaxed than my previous ride and it took us about 5 hours on the whole. We must’ve been pedalling for about 4 hours. I don’t have the “actual” figures.
Except for the stretch of Western express highway (service road) from Jogeshwari to a little after the Sanjay Gandhi National park’s entrance, the road was decent. The Eastern Express highway service road was awesome!
Cycling alone is totally different from cycling with someone else. We didn’t really go together, but we were meeting up once in a while. The loneliness, of rides on which you are alone, is absent. But waiting for, or catching up with the other guy is a bit tricky. I wonder how it would be with a bigger group.
I tried to keep going at about 60% effort and I still had quite a bit of juice left in me, at the end of the ride.
My cycle is definitely good! I really only understood this after exchanging my cycle.
Exchanging cycles felt nice. A slightly different set of muscles were in action. The newness kinda helped.
I should probably get myself a bigger round frame spectacles. Or I’m craning my neck a bit too much, to keep looking ahead, while pedaling. How about contacts?
The problem with riding on the left of Highways is that you “compete” with heavy vehicles. It sometimes gets a bit scary.
I should get a helmet soon.
I should get in touch with local cycling groups and tag along with them on a couple of rides. I’ll get to learn a lot of things.
Ritesh took a few pics with his phone. ~~Photos in some later post or with an update~~.
Where to next? A ride inside the National park, probably or the wonderful roads of Navi Mumbai.

Kudos Ritesh!

UPDATE: A few pictures, that Ritesh clicked on his phone. All the photos were on the Godbander Road.

Gateway get away

Sun, 28 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0530

A Rocking.. err.. Pebbling.. err.. Pedaling Trip. IIT Bombay, Powai to the Gateway of India. I simply loved it!

The original plan was to land somewhere near Chowpatty beach, but I had some useless landmarks and I got lost. I was not too particular about going to a particular place, so didn’t try too hard to stay on track and was happy to end up at the Gateway. Thanks to the Mumbai local, I don’t know the road routes. But, again thanks to the Mumbai local, I have a general idea of the direction.

I woke up a bit later than scheduled, but almost made up for the delay until I reach my cycle to find the rear tyre fully flat. I quickly diagnosed the problem to be with the valve. But, I had no spare valve, unless, I “borrow” it from a cycle near-by. I replaced my valve with Vattam’s cycle’s and was good to go!

I didn’t have a big enough water bottle, and carried along only half a litre after drinking one half litre. The first half hour was a breeze; possibly the best part of the whole ride. High on energy and enthu. Then, my groin/ass started to hurt a bit. I pulled out my music player to drown the pain in music. This kinda worked and I pulled on pretty well until King’s circle. That’s when I emptied all the water I had. I hoped to find water along the way, if I badly needed it.

Sometime later, I had to take a right turn, but I never knew where. I didn’t bother to ask anyone, nor did I look at the landmarks I had scribbled down. I was happy to go straight ahead. :)

And by the time I reached CST/Fort, I did need water; badly enough. I stopped at the next open shop (that was not a pan-ki-dukaan) and got myself some Nimbu paani and a litre of water (for future).

The Gateway of India was just 10 minutes away from here. Loitered around there, for about 40 minutes. There were a lot of Policemen all over the place. After about 5 minutes of me reaching there, they cleared the whole area right next to the Gateway of India. I don’t know why. (Also, all along the way, there were a lot of men in Khaaki. I guess there’s some rally or some such thing scheduled)

On the return, I lost my way almost immediately after starting. There was a one way road that I avoided and took the adjacent road but ended up going off-track. I had some doubts about this but they weren’t confirmed until I reached Mahalaxmi station! But there, a Taxi driver gave me rough guidelines to get back on my track. I turned back and soon was “back-on-track”.

I’d planned to have breakfast at Idli house, as soon as I saw it during my onward journey. So, I went directly to Idli house, and treated myself to a Rava idli and some wonderful Kaapi. The waiter got tipped well, too. ;)

From Matunga, back to IIT was straight forward; except for the growing traffic and the PITA (literally). The traffic signals were a bit annoying, too.

On the whole was an awesome trip! I loved it. Hope to go on more such rides. But, I guess I’ll head north-ward, the next time.

By the way, it was approx. 60kms on the whole and took me 5 hours (including the time I spent at the Gateway of India) with about 3 hours 40 mins of pedaling.. err.. rocking. :D

Here is a photoset

“Plan”

IIT to Chowpatty

Route

Actual

Onward

Route

Timing

IIT-Bombay <2010-03-28 Sun 06:20>
Matunga <2010-03-28 Sun 07:10>
Gateway of India <2010-03-28 Sun 08:10>

Return

Route

Timing

Gateway of India <2010-03-28 Sun 08:50>
Reach Idly house <2010-03-28 Sun 09:40>
Start at Idly house <2010-03-28 Sun 10:00>
Reach IIT Bombay <2010-03-28 Sun 11:05>

Stuff I was carrying

water
ID
some cash
paper, pencil
mobile phone
music player, ear phones
digital camera
rough map
Geetanjali - Tagore

Cycling on Noetic Nought

Cycling from Manali to Leh - An FAQ

So, you cycled from Manali to Leh?

Who is “we”?

How did you decide to do this?

What is the maximum elevation you cycled to?

How long did the whole ride take?

Was it really hard? Why couldn’t you finish the ride?

So, you do really need a support vehicle?

How much did the support vehicle cost you?

Did you carry your own bikes?

Did the flights charge you for the bikes?

Would you recommend me to carry my bike?

What cycle spares/tools did you carry?

What sort of preparation did you do for this ride?

Can you share your ride plan?

What we actually rode

Original plan

What was a typical day during the trip, like?

What was the most enjoyable part of the ride?

What was the most challenging part of the ride?

You keep saying it was cold, how cold was it really?

Did you meet any interesting people en-route?

Would you do this again?

If yes, which part of the year would you do it?

If not, what other routes would you try?

Do you have any pictures that you can share?

To Ananthagiri

First 100!

The Route map

Up

Down

The Story

Some lessons for future

Photos

Drafting

Another 60 ...

Gateway get away

“Plan”

IIT to Chowpatty

Route

Actual

Onward

Route

Timing

Return

Route

Timing

Stuff I was carrying