India Bike Tour

We were only one hour into our first day on the loaded bikes—the dawn light just gaining strength—when we encountered our first dead body in the road. The shattered remains of both driver and motorcycle lay crushed on the pavement. A thin shawl covered the the face and most of the torso of what remained: a young man, someone’s son, perhaps also a brother, husband, or father. His arm and bare feet were left exposed. The small crowd began to gather as we rolled slowly by. There was nothing else to be done.

Needless to say, this left us deeply rattled, the unspoken risk of our own endeavor coming sharply into focus.

There was nothing unusual about this intersection, just another crossroads where all manor of vehicles and pedestrians moving a different speeds, going different directions, mash together without obvious rules of separation. These first days in India, that inexplicable melding seemed miraculous. Today it seemed irresponsible.

I won’t hide the fact that today was extremely hard and stressful. It was very, very tough. In the end, we rode 40 miles and learned lot.

◦ The biking was not physically tiring, but mentally exhausting. It requires so much concentration and visual focus in the relentless traffic. The phones and mapping are tremendously difficult and the reality on the ground seemed to rarely correspond. Closed roads, new construction, detours, sudden terminations were common.

◦ There are upsetting encounters that assault, leaving us both feeling mugged: dead animals (and motorists), unmitigated trash disposal, hovels of filth, and unimaginable poverty.

◦ Food will be a problem in the countryside. Departing early in the dark is essential to make mileage before the roads clog. But then no breakfast. We couldn’t find a Chai shack open before 8:30 AM. There are no food stalls, stores, or restaurants except in the larger towns. Nothing in the villages. We finally found samosas at a crossroads but not until 2:00 PM. The stall was roadside loud, dirty, and unpleasant. Still, the food was better than one can find riding in rural America and that counts for a lot.

◦ We discovered that the irrigation canals have levy roads! The riding surface can be rough and patchy, but very little traffic and the water was calming and more scenic.

◦ Matt made major progress through the day with our various mapping strategies. More to learn for sure but there is hope.