Sameera Dahiya ,33; Praveen Ramakrishnan, 40
-Two Motorcycles : KTM duke 390 2013 & KTM Duke 390 2017
– 24 days 9 hrs and 16325 kms, covering 28 states and capital and 6 Ut’s.
-Dates: Started on 28th Nov 2020 – End on 22nd Dec 2020.
Covering the Himalayan Mountains from kargil to the southern tip of the India mainland, Kanyakumari. In the east from Arunachal to Gujrat in the west.It was not just a record ride , infact it was a new way of experiencing people, place and nature.This journey was definitely fast but the all moments we lived was 100 percent extremely SLOW……in our minds.We all ride for ourselves, and that is the core or essence of a biker. To enjoy the open roads nature and landscape, explore the world. Soak and cherish the moments we spend on the bike . But we felt its time that we preserve that very essence for the future generation and bikers. Not just the nature but the love respect harmony that the world deserves. Every living fauna and fauna, deserves and requires love peace and harmony and the opportunity to flourish and thrive.We were covering 3 to 4 states, at times in a single day of riding 12 to 14 hours . That very aspect felt like a ride through a kaleidoscope of the Indian culture. The experience is unparallel to any other, it Holds a very valuable experience which we will spread and share with the world and take it to our graves.
OUR MESSAGE THROUGH THIS RIDE
It was clearly time to give back and preserve that not only life but also, the culture language food beliefs that exist around and all this knit together makes the world we live in our home. Our slogan for the ride hence named ‘Healtheworld” .Heal it from all the sufferings and issues that exist and to move forward in harmony and love.
We enjoyed this journey completely as it has all those moments which make a motorcycle Road trip. We stopped in all dabbas had our favourite lassi and smallest eating place tasted all local snacks from each part of our country. we met different people who helped us in difficult times with irrespective of language barriers and worked on our motorcycles for free and showed the best gratitude. Gave us permission to enter in there states from authority after knowing about our ride and invited us to there states with good time in hand in future. We didnt get any bad experience from anyone on road and lived up to our expectations every day. A great support from people from motorcycle community who were aware of this ride. This ride was defiantly with a motive but WE LIVED IT LIKE A UNFORGETABLE STORY .
We met some great people on our incredible journey , Abid who cancelled his passport appointment to find us a battery in Kashmir. Biker friends in Jammu and Silchar who helped us fix our bikes working into the wee hours of the day. It was a sight to watch, when the entire village in Orissa was trying to help the mechanic and the welder , when the Chassis of praveen KTM was cut in 6 places. The stood there for 7 hours trying to provide their expertise on what needs to done. The love of the people of this country at time shas no bounds
Sameera, becomes the first ever women rider who attempted and successfully completed Fastest All India circuit in whole nation and across. Making something like this in real time needs full dedication, focus and determination with self belief to achieve the goal with no fail . I learned so much throughout this ride and gained experience of Time based riding in time based which is different from my pervious rides like riding on unknown state and national highway routes which I not ridden before, different climates conditions in a day and night, mountains off-roads trails and terrains , showed will power perusing ride even after accident, getting motorcycle fixed on the right time to avoid time loss ,keeping my conscious inline to stay safe with maintaining required speed of my motorcycles .I used all my learning so far to make this feat possible as I might not get chance again and again. It gives me so much confidence and maturity as a Rider today and I know I can make any difficult road and any more miles easy for me now onwards. I always say , Dream big & don’t forget to work hard to make REAL..Praveeen, is the first male rider who completed the fastest all India circuit after the geographical constitutional change in our states and union territories, 0ct 2019 onwards. He says, I liked the whole and sole purpose of this ride which was pure adventure. He believes, No country is as versatile as India is , from people Landscape , culture , language, food & religion perspective . The diversity that India has to offer, is unmatched and un parallel to the rest of the world. And to be able to live , ride and soak all of this in 24 days on a motorcycle is once in a life time achievement. He used all his experience wisely , on time and his problem solving attitude recused him from many situations. Challenges like riding in nights with constantly high beams , bad road conditions, constant weather changes and time based riding was a very different experience for him but he really liked it. He lived up one of his dream with full dedication and looking forward to plan something more bigger and adventurous for future .
Well on how this ride came to existence:
Well , we initially wanted to travel the length and breath of the country, exploring the places, people, food, landscape and the cultural and holy places one can experience by spending time in places we visit in one long way. We have spent a few weeks in each states in our previous travel, where in leisure we have spend time to explore places.Well 2020 not being the perfect year to explore , locked in our cities and homes due to Covid19, It boosted our hunger to travel more, we have been travelling in an around Bangalore since June once the lock down opened. Just the two of us going to places to enjoy the out doors in solace, with hardly anyone around.Well the thought of doing All-India is a any Indian bikers dream, now given the fact we are all working folks, there is no way we can get leaves(Paid leaves) for over a few weeks. Wanting to travel for months was not going to be feasible. The only alternate was to do it fast and why not, the fastest.We were very well aware about all the requirements for attempting such fastest ride which are, physical and mental fitness for continuous endurance riding in day and night , adjusting with extreme weather and road conditions every day, being highly disciplined to maintain consistency in clocking maximum & required kilometres , knowledge about the motorcycles (technically) and riding together in all possible situations . We were confident to make this happened because our pervious ride experiences & style of riding which focus on More miles and Less breaks.We started our research work and pen down the planning stage. Planning included preparation of Route, motorcycles, connectivity, Log-sheet and proof maintenance. Along with that we started working on our selves mentally and physically, to give us a good chance to be able to even attempt the feat. Good 4 to 6 months of discipline, we lost 20 to 25 kilos each and worked on our mental strength.3 weeks before ride , we started work out intensively and started working on our food plus sleep patterns too. Mental fitness is sink with physical fitness because it helps recover from any sort of accidents. In month of October 2020, we started working on our desired route which can cover covers all 28 states, capitals and 6 union terorities as per the geographical constitutional change updated “Oct 2019” onwards . We made 5 drafts and finalised the final route which got keep updating as per we got road, weather and covid conditions in real time.It was a start of unforgettable experience which we two never always made under our names and cherish for lifetime.
We both met each other 1st time on a weekend ride and from that day till no it has been riding from last 5 years and have covered quiet some distances across India so far. We have done several rides together across this vast country that’s filled with everything, an adventure is looking for. Incredible landscape, culture, roads, trails, people, cities towns, villages , historical places and more. This country has great things to offer for one and all. Our long distance trip was, when we did our 1st trip together to Bangalore to Rajasthan and back, which was followed by rides across India.Other routes we explored before fastest All India Ride: Bangalore to Odisha , complete Southern India (multiple times), western coastal line, Uttrakhand, Himachal Pradesh, MP, North East etc.
Challenges we faced:
We chose the month of December for this ride and it got many challenges itself like weather conditions and roads closers status.Over coming the issues during the various break downs on the bikes, know what the issue was and fixing them at the earliest. The falls or mishaps we had , due to which we lost time.We had 3 major issues, once in Jammu when Praveen’s bike had a mishap and had the front and back alloys that had cracked and the T stem. Had to ride the bike in that condition until Jammu town , that was about 15 kms .We were lucky that we had our biking brothers who helped us with used parts that were sourced and fixed in 7 hours and continued until Pathankot, while the destination for the day was Chandigarh.Second issue was at Hashimara in West Bengal, when there was an unmarked deviation on the road and Sameera missed it an went over a mud mound , about 3 feet in height, and ended up landing up in a ditch . She suffered impact on her collar bone and right had was entirely swollen , at that time we thought she had broken here collar bone. Took her to the Airforce hospital , where she was attended and discharged post checkup, medicines and rest. She had a major concussion and swollen hand and shoulder, that’s to the gears she was wearing.He bike had a cracked display , rear shock absorber had leaked and was shot and a bent handle bar as well, lucky the ditch was filled with weeds and hence had soften the impact. We lost another 6 hours plus The third incident was near sambalpur in orissa , Orissa Chattisgarh border. While riding I felt my handle bar suddenly drooped down , thought the handle bar bolts became loose and the handle bar and slipped off the treads. As I had a bag on my tank it was not visible properly, when I got of the bike I realised I could not put the bike on its side stand as the bike had swooped down wards, it was like my entire front end had given up and my shock absorbers were completely shot. Once I got of the bike is that I realised my entire chassis in the front was cut at 5 different place and had sheared off in four places and had a gap of 4 to 5 inches.Thought the trip was over, had to push the bike back to the nearest village, we had crossed. Luckily, we were at the edge of the village and it was a few meters behind. Asked for a welding shop , was hoping to weld and fix it . And were did find a shop, and it took 3 hours for the people to arrive and finally managed to dismantle the bike with some help from a local mechanic. And it was first time they had seen a 390 and a bike with a radiator. The whole village assembled there and we manage to weld it together. Glad had done such prep work in the past while preparing bikes for rallies in the past. From 1 pm in the noon to 7.30 pm in the evening we were able to fix the bike and start the journey again .Riding in the night , was really dangerous . In india everyone drives with high beam on , and our amazing truckers have 6 to 8 lights blazing all in high beam. And no one cares about bikers , especially when you have single lane highways, it’s a nightmare situation. As on is blinded forced off the road constantly, really felt no value for our lives . If we were not careful, we would have been overrun like dogs on the road. On several occasions had to pull on the extreme side of the road and wait for the vehicle to pass or were blinded by the on coming lights. It was easier and safer to drive in a foggy condition as everyone is driving slow and the on coming lights don’t bother you.We rode on all asian, national and state highways through this ride. States like bihar and odisha, we got very unpredictable roads conditions. Bihar highways has many pot holes and bad driving sense which was very dangous for us. Odisha we got lots of bumbs in every 50 meters which was impacting on our motorcylces chassis . Because of winter season we had to ride in dark for longer hours in mountains region specially in North- East as the sunset was happening at 5 clock in the evening. And we all know the network connectivity and road conditions are not good in those regions which actually led us to wrong directions too but we were still using constant communication and keeping the tank fuel for voiding unwanted situations.We followed all possible times to cover certain states and also maintain the required speeds . Mountains we were in 30 kmph minimum to 80- 130 kmph on highways. The myth of people about records ride is that riders follow reckless riding pattren but in reality its one of the most responisble space. Any irriesponsible action can cause major lose to the timings and personal space too.We did our homework very well and stick with it to avoid any unpredicatble situations.
Lifetime Learnings
“When the going gets tough the tough gets going “
One has to remain focused and strong mentally and physically , and extremely determined. This is purely an endurance ride , where one needs to complete certain set distance , with in a certain timeline and be at it for the 24 days. And you will be challenged and faced with issues from time to time. Your mind , body and machine can give up from time to time. So staying strong and focused is very important.it’s a once in a life time experience and everyone was very enthusiastic and supportive. And we experience the best of the bikers family and community support on this ride. Everyone is connected to Bangalore , as it’s the IT hub of the country . Everyone had someone or the other(connection ) working or studying in bangalore. We consider Bangalore to be the Biking capital of India as well.
Suggestions after our Experience
One has to remain focused and strong mentally and physically, and extremely determined. Any record ride is purely endurance ride, where one needs to complete certain set distance, with in a certain timeline . And you will be challenged and faced with issues from time to time. Your mind, body and machine can give up from time to time. So staying strong, conscious and focused for making decisions of moving forward is very important.Every incident happened on road with us ended causing time lose to us but we utilised it by making next plan in coming days riding. It as challenging everyday but we started enjoying this everyday targets and didn’t feel pressure at all. With believing ourselves and each other anyone could finish in required timelines.Stay Disciplined about your routine activities. Start your day on time, discuss your target distance and route, stay conscious and aware while riding . Prepare the route of next day in the end, stay in proper place so you can keep your sleeping pattern proper. 6 hours sleep should be mandatory for resting body , mind and motorcycle. Don’t keep unachievable targets and unnecessarily push yourselves.Smart riding by Keep luggage very minimal and carried all important things which further used in the journey the most like motorcycle spares, additional battery for backup, additives for fuel, chain and engine oil and additional 2 liter engine oil for top-ups in between. Lighter motorcycle also helps in providing damages while riding on bad roads.Run-in your motorcycle properly if its new or engine re-built before attempting any record ride. Keep doing daily chain lubrication and oil level check-up by yourself. For any change which can consume more time like chain tightening , changing break-pads, tyres and engine oil than better approach local mechanic and get it fix under define time periods.Never wear brand new riding gears on long and endurance ride . Do there proper break in before itself else it can give lot of discomfort and keep distracting you while riding.Always stay flexible with your routes and itinerary . Prepare routes before hitting the road but do also Keep taking updates from locals about any roads closures and than take decision accordingly. Don’t blindly believe the route suggested by locals so always consult to someone in background. In mountain regions specially in North- east region google maps doesn’t support much ,so in that case consulting with locals can help or always download off-line maps for emergency . Keeping distance from social media and also avoiding meeting people on the a way, helps in saving lots of time for Record ride (personal experience). Always have few people aware of your movements and keep updating timely .
