Vintage Rides Trans Himalayan tour

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Snaf MKII
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Vintage Rides Trans Himalayan tour

Post by Snaf MKII »

A requested by Gbags, a short ride report from our trip to India

A group of four of us did this tour in 2019 joining two other independent riders. https://www.vintagerides.travel/motorcy ... himalayan/
Flew in to Delhi early for some sight seeing and stayed a few day after for some more, India is a fast modernising country with some of Delhi looking more like Europe with plenty of young trendy Indians paying European prices for eating out.
We then flew up to the Himalayas to meet out guides and bikes, I had reservations about riding Classic RE's despite competing on Jap classic enduro bikes with poor suspension. I couldn't have been more wrong they were the best bike for the riding we were doing, anything more competent would have been frustrating and a waste as they just fitted in with the traffic flow and ensured you travelled at a reasonable pace taking in the risks and views without getting ahead of yourself. My preferred bike would have been something like my F650GS Dakar but I think I would have been riding it faster than needed and missed some of the scenery (or ended up part of it). I think if you've not ridden this type of bike it may be of benefit to try one for a day before you go as one of the riders joining us struggled with adapting from his ABS equipped Triumph Scrambler, if you ride dirt bikes you wont have that issue.
We spent a few days over 3000m and we got there quickly due to flooding and closed roads which meant we were on the only open road heading north which meant we spent a lot of time overtaking trucks the first two days. There was an even spread of off road riding without much other traffic, nothing to taxing unless you don't like sand but most was rocky going which the bikes dealt with easily. We had two mechanics in a truck following us and did a fair amount of work late into the evenings, I lost my exhaust and there was some electrical problems a couple of punctures and a couple of crashes from one rider. There are a few water crossings that didn't trouble us but if you're not confident one of the mechanics or guide will ride them for you, if you bin it in the water the damage is down to you.
Altitude sickness is an issue and I'd recommend spending more time climbing which is what the tour normally does, I found that being on the bike alleviated it with the added air pressure of riding but one nights sleep was anything but at 5000m. Food was excellent if like us you don't normally eat crap, there was a mix of hotels and two nights in tents.
I'd recommend taking some sort of altitude tablets and you need a good face covering to keep the dust and truck exhaust fumes out.
I'm no video editor but here's ten days condensed in to 16 minutes.
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Re: Vintage Rides Trans Himalayan tour

Post by gbags »

Thanks Snaf. I really liked your vid.

Dirt roads over mountains in far-flung countries with very different cultures to ours; that’s all I like best in bike travel.

I saw one long distance individual traveller struggling with a bigger, laden bike there too, and a few other groups of bikes.

How good was it? It looked great to me. Would you do it again?
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Re: Vintage Rides Trans Himalayan tour

Post by Snaf MKII »

Yes, I'd do it again but would probably go with our own itinerary and a group of known people so that we could explore a bit more. The guide that we went with said this was possible and that there were routes they wanted to explore for possible future tours.
I didn't know what to expect before I went as this was the first ever guided motorcycle tour I'd been on which was a major change from our normal just go with a rough idea of where we're going and see what happens.
I'd say that we luckily had a small group of six that made progress fairly swift with few stops in the day, there were other groups on shorter tours with up to 20 bikes which I wouldn't want to be involved with. Six to eight plus guide and backup truck would be ideal.
The heavily loaded bike in the video actually had a pillion as well who had to walk that bit, they then set off at speed overtaking around corners etc. The groups of bikes were possibly day rentals out of Leh or Manali were there many bikes to rent.
I really recommend the trip we did and Vintage Rides, value for money and very well run with knowledgeable local guides.
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Re: Vintage Rides Trans Himalayan tour

Post by gbags »

I’ve also never been on a guided trip but I can see the attraction it it’s doing a classic route in northern India with a small group of mates.
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Re: Vintage Rides Trans Himalayan tour

Post by ErikGustav2 »

I particiåated in my only guided tour in Nepal.

That was great. Much better than I expected.
Much was thanks to a local guide.
He was not only a road captain that guided us during the trip.
He told us about history, culture....
Took us to places and envirnoments that I could never have found myself.
I came much closer to the real Nepal.
Opposite what I expected from a guided tour.
=
But a similar tour we met was guided by a person from India. That guided them from hotel to hotel.
=

https://www.asiabiketours.com/nepal-mag ... tains.html
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