Bangalore-Spiti - Day 0: The Preparation

    After years of dreaming, months of planning, and days after I'd left my job, I was on the road, riding toward Mumbai.

The luggage

    But let’s go back to the plan, and the execution till the first day of the ride. Originally, it was a plan for 35 days, including 2 reserve days. But if there’s one thing that my 12 years in the IT industry have taught me, it’s the fact that the initial plans never hold true. I didn’t have a hard stop at 35 though, I was okay with a few days of extension.

    As soon as I knew my last day at work, I started working on the plan. I listed down the things that I needed, and which of those needed to be purchased. There was going to be more shopping in the next couple of months than I had done for the entire duration of the lockdown.

    I had a tank bag already, a backpack for carrying my laptop, the biggest tail bag that I could find, 2 trail packs at the front, and the guitar bag – all of these will somehow need to be loaded onto the bike. Oh, and of course, rain covers for all these bags. 

    In terms of clothing, I just had one jacket that could handle snow. I had to get thermals, and some rain cover for me too.

Greentech fuel saver

    Next came the riding and bike maintenance kit – a tire inflator, a new helmet with lesser wind noise and an anti-fogging visor, and a fuel-saver device that had to be dropped into the fuel tank. Also, bungee cables and straps for tying the luggage onto the bike.

    

I got my bike serviced 2 weeks before the ride so that I could ride it around to check for anything that needed fixing. I also got new tires as the off-road terrains would be difficult to navigate on the old ones.

Besan ladoo

    And finally, the most important thing to do is convince Mom. Although she had accepted the fact that I would be doing this, it was nice to have a happy sign-off from her for this. It wasn’t that difficult though. All it took was a promise to call twice every day. Spoiler alert – I called just once a day. Since I waited till her birthday, and we had a cake, she saw me off happily. I got ladoos for the journey too!

    With everything taken care of, I was ready to start my journey.

Episode 1: Bangalore to Mumbai