Rides that are more than just a weekend getaway!
Sunrise in Rajasthan is quite spectacular due to (relatively) unpolluted air and clear skies. We rode out of Jaisalmer before sunrise, hoping to put in some kilometers of riding in the couple of cool hours we had before the sun got to its full glory. This is one of the views we had, out on the highway from Jaisalmer to Jodhpur.
Continue reading The Big 2009 Ride – Day 5: Jaisalmer to Jodhpur
The night had been extremely windy and we could hear sand thrashing against the tent walls. We woke up to half of our tent buried under the sand in the wee hours of the morning. The landscape looked a bit different from the previous evening, like as if the dunes had moved around a bit (there was a smallish dune behind our tent too, with some of it burying it!) It then dawned on us that what the camel herder was talking about the previous evening was not some banter, but fact: that in the desert, the dunes move because of the wind, and they usually tend to cover anything in the landscape that is static; The trees and shrubs would disappear and so would the roads and paths. Lesson learnt: Trust local knowledge!
Uncle read out to us from the local paper that the temperature on the previous day touched 43C! This was supposedly way high, this being the end of September. Seemed like we had some good hot ride ahead since we were heading deeper into the Thar desert. Sipped some tea, took some snaps and we headed out of Jaswanth Bhavan with good wishes from Uncle and Aunty for the journey from Bikaner to Jaisalmer ahead. This is how day 2 started.
Continue reading The Big 2009 Ride – Day 2: Bikaner to Jaisalmer
We got up quite early and geared up since we couldn’t sleep much anyway. Even at 5 AM, it was pretty warm. We woke Sachi Uncle, who came down to the parking with us to bid us goodbye. We loaded the bike, confirmed with our uncle about the directions we had to take to get onto the Jaipur road, and headed out from Delhi to Bikaner.
And, the ride had begun!
The Himalayan Odessy is back for 2007 after a great ride in the past couple of years. Though it is not exactly hardcore to many ‘adventurers’, citing many reasons like having backup vehicles and mechanics, I’ve met a few riders who really enjoyed being on the Odessy. {mosimage}This is because people who would never have been able to go on such rides by themselves, find this a really good alternative. for the exact same reasons, some others would refrain from going. All the more reason to go if you have just bought one of the those new Machismo AVL 500s. There is no better place to put all the truck tractor loads of torque to better use, than in the challenging terrain of THE mountains. More over, who wouldn’t want to blast up the dirt tracks of the Himalayas when you can be sure of you luggage being safe in the truck behind.
The following is the press release from Royal Enfield regarding the Himalayan Odessey 2007. Continue reading Royal Enfield Himalayan Odyssey 2007