Rising to the Occasion

• 21th of August
• Baageshwar - Baijnath - Gwaldam - Karanprayag - Nandprayag - Chamoli - Joshimath
• 199km

Sunrise at Baageshwar.

This day was another day of all work and no play. We rode hard from early in the morning, since we had to reach Joshimath by the evening. Very few photographs were taken this day. Some pretty good timing saw us having lunch in Chamoli.

The river valley below Chamoli.

Somewhere halfway, Sandy’s Madaan Special broke a gear lever spring. So the gear lever could not be used to change gears. The only option was for Sandy to lean down, and change gears with his hand, using the neutral finder. Initially it looked rather awkward, but once Sandy got the hang of it, he handled very well, in the ghats even. Prashi’s clutch plates were slipping too, and he struggled to push the bike in the twisty mountain roads.

The road to Joshimath - Courtesy Prashi

In spite of the pretty view, the condition of these roads was quite bad. Tarmac showed up only occasionally, and even then was riddled with pot-holes. Despite these, we did some pretty spectacular time, and reached Joshimath in the afternoon, and had time leftover to change the spring on Sandy’s bike, clutch plates on Prashi’s bike and loaf around the town.