The Plan

I just have a day left for my second tour! This winter I have planned to start my second tour (all the stories of my 1st tour are in the same blog) on Dec18th to vanquish Bijapur to Delhi, approximately covering 2000 km in 14 days. The initial plan was to start my tour from Goa (where I ended my last tour), but the route from Goa to Bijapur seemed to be pretty dry and it would be just boring 3 days ride covering ~ 300km for nothing. I do not want to kick start my tour in such a way and instead invest the same time exploring Rajasthan. Hence I decided to start the tour in front of Golgumbuz in Bijapur and I am hoping to end it in front of “India gate” in Delhi on 1st of Jan. I have booked the onward journey to Bijapur by a private bus (350 Rs) which will leave Bangalore at 8.30 PM and I should reach Bijapur max by 7 AM. The return ticket is booked as well from Delhi to Bangalore by Samparkranthi Express costing 576 Rs.

• The Route

The tentative route I have decided to take is Bijapur – Aurangabad – Indore – Jaipur – Delhi. I will be crossing 6 states, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. Some of the challenges that I am expecting in this tour are

1. Climate – I am expecting the max temperature to be close to 30 C and the minimum to be 6 C. I might have a trouble to vacillate between warm and cold temperatures.

2. Practice – For this tour, my practice has been close to Nil!! I am just relying on my past experience.

3. Distance – on an average I need to cover 130 km a day for 14 days without a break.

4. Language – The most important factor, I need to manage with my broken Hindi for 2 weeks.

Other than these there can be few exogenous factors as well that can make my condition better or worse, I would categorize them to fall under Murphy’s Law and ignore.

• The Bike

It’s the same bike I used on my previous tour, Decathlon – Rockrider – 5.2, but have made very minute changes. Need is the mother of all inventions, hence I could tap my left brain and get the half baked engineer out and came out with some small innovations.

1. On my last tour, whenever I came across a panoramic view, I did not have patience to stop the bike and take a snap as I use to loose out on the cadence (rhythm). To over come this issue, I took two clamps from a broken door and fixed it to the centre of the handle bar and adjusted them in such in such a way that the camera focuses the road. Now I can mount my camera on this and shoot as many pics I need without stopping my bike.

2. Absence of a rear view mirror can be really dangerous, a lesson learnt from the previous tour and I was not too keen on placing the mirror on the handle bar as its already messed up with the odometer, headlamp, camera and bell. Hence I took a broken headset that was lying at home and fixed one end of the mouthpiece to my helmet and I have fixed a very small mirror which is hardly 2 inchs weighing few grams to the other end. It works absolutely fine and it’s adjustable too.

3. Last time I carried a big backpack and tied it with strings, and it was hell of a task to keep it intact. I will not be facing this problem as I have got pannier bags, though they are small I think I can manage all my stuff in that and planning to carry another small bag if necessary.

4. Lastly Baba of RR cycles serviced my bike and I am satisfied with his work. It looks like a brand new one and hoping to have zero defects (to talk in Six Sigma terms).

• What will I carry?

1. cycling shorts – 3

2. Normal Shorts – 1

3. Jeans (for sight seeing) – 1

4. T-shirts – 3

5. Jacket (it weighs a lot and occupies maximum space in my bag) – 1

6. Sandals – 1

7. Gloves – 1

8. Towel

9. batteries

10. Mobile charger

11. Camera

12. Strings to carry any extra bag

13. Soap, brush and paste

14. Puncture kit, tool kit, hand pump and an extra tube.

15. Socks – 3 pairs

16. Sunglasses

17. Monkey cap

18. Cotton to stuff it in my ear

19. my e-ticket

20. hard copy of the maps

21. Blanket (Not sure if the lodges I plan to stay will have one, and I do not intend to pay for the blanket)

22. Electoral (5 packets)

23. and lastly %$#% rs.

• The fun

Some of the places I have decided to explore as of now are Ujjain, Indore, Kota, Jaipur, Agra ..etc and these places carry historic monuments which date back to few centuries, for example, Ajanta and ellora caves, Golgumbaz, Hawa mahal, Jal mahal and even taj. So culture and heritage is never a limit to explore in this trip. If I am bored of exploring forts and palaces, not a problem, I can start exploring food in Indore, Jaipur and Delhi. If that bores me as well, I can shop in rajasthan and Delhi (I have already got a list to shop from my friends and relatives, probably they are forgetting that I am touring on my bike). So, my plate is full and there is a very bleak chance for me to get bored. I am sure I have much more fun and adventure in store for me, will update you through my blog as and when I come across one.

• The blog

I will not do the same mistake that I did last time by promising to update the blog every day, but I can vouchsafe to update it once in 4 days in the worst case (I will try to update it every day). As this is a heuristic approach, anything that happens will be a discovery, so watch this space for more!! Right now i am finalising on much needed packing. I have changed the comments setting in my blog, so there is no need to become a member to post a comment (but please do reveal your identity on the comments you post) which would make life much simpler.