Lessons from a Bike Ride

Any rider will tell you…. The first twenty kilometres of a long, solo ride, are when you have the highest chances of turning back and taking the car instead!!

?Motorcycling for me, is a lot like life….. it weird, fun, exposed and vulnerable, often unpredictable and you never live the same moment twice .. (and if you’re careless beyond a point with either, you crash hard!!)….. and in my case, I rediscovered both ( life and riding) much too late .. but more on that in some other post.

This one, is about some Life Lessons my recent solo ride through Ladakh taught me.Age is Really Just a Number: My family indulgently calls my motorbike, my “mid-life-crisis”… after all, most sane, successful, smart people look at cruises and golf holidays in their fiftieth…. I rediscovered motorcycling…. Bought myself a motorbike just as we were entering Covid induced lockdowns, and, have taken every opportunity since, to escape on solo rides.?Along these rides, I have made friends with unlikely people ( truck drivers to farmers to investment bankers), struck up invigorating conversations with complete strangers, been humbled by the grit, determination and spirit of people much older than me, cycling to the top of Himalayan passes, and, had the time of my life, sharing meals and stories with other riders along the way. I am trying to learn living in the moment, being peaceful being with myself, being in places with no cell phone signal and, in general, rebooting my priorities. Our view of the world often gets overly influenced by work situations, family responsibilities and the constant barrage of information. I am learning to sift the data… and pick the pearls again. And in doing all this, I find myself far more effective, calm and focussed on my professional work as well.

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Stay Calm but Paddle Hard: As I packed up to leave from an overnight halt at Sarchu, I realised I didn’t have my wallet!!!!Riding solo, through border/ military controlled areas, without a driver’s licence and identification is the stuff of classic nightmares……. (money initially didn’t even occur to me)…..From a crisp 2 degree Celsius mountain morning, Sarchu quickly transformed into a cold-sweats morning! I racked my brain for every snack, fuel and lunch I had purchased during the ride from Leh… and could simply not imagine WHERE I had dropped my wallet…. A thorough rummaging in the panniers/ sleeping bag/ under the camp bed/ under the mattress/ beneath the carpet yielded the equivalent of my equity investments this year… zero!!

My mind ran away with disaster scenarios, and, oxygen seemed a whole lot more rarified ….until… I decided I will individually check the pockets of everything I had worn in the preceding 12 hours……. I sat down, emptied the pannier bags…sifted through sundry riding gear/ pyjamas/ shirts…….. until I found the wallet, safely zipped away in the 11th pocket of my cargoes…. Which (in a moment of epiphany) I realised I had stowed for “safe-keeping”.?

I could, potentially, have ridden a few days, ruined my break by being tense about potential pit-falls, potentially got into trouble, while the wallet happily napped in the cargo pocket! Take a deep breath… take a step back…. there is always a way.

??Problems appear larger when they are close to us… trying to stay calm, and, taking detailed action is the only way out of the curved balls life throws at us. (I left and hour later than planned.. but I am happy to report, the axis and rotation of the earth stayed stable despite my troubles!!)

Get Perspective: When I made a bullet-point list of the number of times my body would go from 10000 feet… to over 16000 and back in a span of 6 hours…. I probably wouldn’t have left home.

The ride is tough… you battle cold, off road patches, water crossings, low oxygen and the very real possibility of Acute Mountain Sickness….. and while the photographs of lonely expanses look stunning…. Being alone when AMS strikes is no fun, to say the least. However, at the back of the same paper, when I wrote down my fitness training regimen, the fact?that the Indian Military has transit camps literally every 50 kilometres, and, in general, bikers will always stop to help a co-biker in need, it didn’t feel all that daunting. The fears of a negative outcome will always play front and centre of our minds…. often times delaying much needed action, and, ultimately, results. But once we move past those initial fears that hold us back, our perspective, milestones and next targets become so much more real and achievable.

Respect is for everyone…. A fine sentiment, largely defined in our work lives by the size of the office, or the position on a calling card.?

Gaata Loops are a set of 21 hairpin bends just ahead of Morey Plains, that navigate a drop (or climb depending which way you are facing) of 1800 feet less than 10 kilometres. At an average height of 15000 feet above MSL, this is NOT a joy ride. And smack in the middle of it, I came across an impasse…. Two overzealous truckers had managed to get stuck on a bend by sliding their trucks against each other… and, the road was well and truly blocked. About 40 vehicles were stuck on either side, rain clouds were approaching and it was already 4 pm. Irrespective of what you are driving, after-sunset is NOT a good time to be mountain-bashing in this region. Arguments and counter argues were being hurled, very quickly escalating to choice swear words between the trucking groups.. in the meantime, several “wise-men” were proffering solutions, and shooting them down with straw-men, in a game of “who-is-smarter”… all this,?with the general consensus, that there was no way to extricate the trucks, without serious damage to one or either of them……. until…. A young jeep driver volunteered to lead the process with an idea…. This kid was obviously not particularly qualified, or well-to-do….. or any thing that we typically associate with a “leadership position”….. Yet, with a smile and calm, his helper ( even younger and wearing slippers) went around placing puncture repair jacks under the truck on the mountain side to tilt it off the other other one…. Patiently, millimetre by agonising millimetre, this pair of young fellows “jacked up” the the fully laden truck just enough to let the other one move on. And just as quietly and unassumingly as they had come in, they left. None of the other people could think of the solution, leave alone obtain from other vehicles the 6 “jacks” they used, and, coordinate 6 men to carry out a delicate (and potentially dangerous) operation, that helped everyone. These kids, thought of a solution, worked it out, found the resources and also led an impromptu team to a spectacular finish.

As I thanked them, I also felt a sense of shame in myself, for sometimes putting down my younger colleagues and…. maybe, feeling too smug about my abilities and experience.?

Comparison and the waste of it: From the model of mobile phone, to the car keys in our pocket and the address we live in, are a source of comparison and “competition” that largely consume the intent of our working lives. Far too often, I have sat through corporate meetings, where the entire pivot of discussions have been to prove someone wrong, rather than work together as a team… a game of “one-upmanship” which no one really ever wins…

Exposed to the elements, carrying the bare minimum of clothing and a tent strapped to my bike, was the most frugal existence I remember in a long time. Coupled with a very loose itinerary, an unpredictable and high altitude terrain with no creature comforts, I also had to choose to be un-fussy about where I stayed, what I ate and the status of the toilets I used!!!?

And yet….. it was probably the most fulfilling, happy, and relaxing ride of my life. Once I got into the zone of being on my own, the comparisons, status and differences ceased to matter. I was just as dusty, cold and and goofily happy as the dude on the GS1210…. And, in the same zone as the investment banker group over-landing in their Benz ATV’s….. the relative facilities and differences just didn’t matter.I spent time with myself…. Fended for myself (metaphorically speaking) and in general stopped to worry too much about “urgent e mails” and “issues on fire”. It allowed me time to think… realise the magnitude of the mountains and my own insignificance … and place comparisons behind me.. for good, I hope….. If not… there is a trail in Zanskar that I will probably plan to ride soon.

PS:?Though my personal version of Zen, this ride is not in any manner a farewell to the world…. It just allowed me to step back from my own mundane existence and recalibrate it, in terms of the larger world.The ride is tough, and I embarked on it well prepared…. From physical conditioning, to my bike being in peak condition, to all clients and work colleagues given adequate notice of my leave.

I would strongly recommend something like this to everyone… and probably do it all over again……