Category — Preparations

If you are planning for a long bike ride, go for Ladakh carrier. I don’t know why it is called so. One reason could be that it is used mostly by riders who ride to Ladakh. It is tailored to be fitted on bullets. People prefer them over saddle bags mainly for two reasons. [Read more →]

In about 10 hours I need to take off. But just now I figured out that my GPS is missing. It might be in office. I and my my family searched the entire house. It is nowhere to be seen. If it is not even in office, then I may have to postpone my trip. GPS receiver is the crux of my trip - I need it to geo tag photographs and publish digital tracks.

I need to get good sleep, but how can I sleep now??? It is funny - I need GPS to find out location info. Now how do I find the location info of my GPS?

Day 0, 0km

10 minutes ago I send my first status update through my cell phone.  Twitter Short code for India is 5566511. I was charged Rs.1.5 per SMS. According to Twitter, currently supported carriers are:

• BSNL North
• BSNL South
• BSNL East
• Idea
• Vodafone Essar (Hutch)

These carriers may or may not work at this point (no confirmation of complete support, but twitter is working on it):

• Reliance
• BSNL West
• Bharti Airtel

Carriers that twitter is  working towards, but not yet supporting:

• Aircel
• BPL Cellular
• Dishnet Wireless
• Escorts Communications
• Fascel
• MTNL
• Spice Communications

You can get my status updates on http://www.indiawaterportal.org/k2k/status/

I can be reached on +91 94804 47094 (BSNL number). If I am not reachable/available, leave a message. I will call you people back. I would be accessing internet intermittently.

You can also leave a message with Manikeswari at my office on +91 - 80 - 41698941. She will convey the message the moment I am on network.

An informal flag-off ceremony has been arranged on 26th. I would be taking off from Madivala Lake at 9:00AM. Click here for the location

After the mock trip, today I and Silje completed the second round of purchases. We purchased helmets, balaclava, bungee chords, spanner set, allen key set, screw driver set, accelerator cable, chain links, engine oil, AA/AAA battery charger with car charger adapter, voice recorder for field recording, 160GB Portable hard disk, 50 DVDs and spike buster. The final round of shopping will happen in the middle of next week.

On 4th of April, I and Silje left for mock ride to Sringeri. The first day we started from Bangalore at around 5:40PM. It took about two hours to reach Kunigal gate. My legs started to pain because I had to balance the weight of the bike, luggage as well as Silje (around 275kgs in all). We took a break in a dhaba and then we started towards CR Patna.

The night ride was tough - as usual - High beams blinding the riders, leading bikes off the road or into a pot hole. We reached CR Patna at around 10:30PM. We stayed with my friend’s uncle.

Next day we visited Sravanabelagola, Halebid and landed in Chickmagalur at around 7:30PM

On 6th we visited Mullayanagiri (the highest peak in Karnataka) and then left for Sringeri.

7th of April was the longest ride of all - 360km approx. We took about 6.5 hrs to cover it. The ride was from Sringeri to Bangalore with stops at Chickmagalur and CR patna.

The GPS tracks of the trip are as below - [Read more →]

Today I called up Mr.Prashanth Hedao of Auroville. Mr.Prashanth confirmed that all the arrangements are in place. Podicherry is my first stop. I need to make more confirmation calls for my Southern leg of the trip. Mr.Shree Padre has given me several leads. I now need to work out a plan.

Today in about an hour I would be leaving for a 1000km mock trip. The idea here is to do a mock ride kind of a thing - just to understand what it takes to complete good number of kilometers with all the luggage on my bike.

Yesterday I got my bike fitted with ‘Ladakh Carrier’ and ‘Cigarette Lighter Adapter’. Today before leaving I loaded as much luggage as possible on to my bike. Here is a small list. [Read more →]

Just now I received a call from Mr.Farhad of Sambhaav Trust. Farhad wanted to make sure that I am aware of the distances I would be traveling in Rajastan - specifically from Bhuj to Barmer.

He was very happy with the route and assured me of full support and co-operation in organizing events at Ahmedabad, Barmer, Jaisalmer and Bikaner.

My day was made.