Cycling in Northern India – 1995

Gwaldam – Karanprayag

According to our map the next 80 km would be going downhill only to our destination, the town of Karanprayag on the Alaknanda River (one of the tributaries of the Ganges). But instead of enjoying an easy ride downhill we could only ride very slowly because the road being extremely rough and bumpy. Continuously we passed landslides and stretches were the road was damaged beyond repair by the recent heavy rainfall. As our Lonely Planet was writing: this road was in an extreme state of disrepair.

The road didn’t get better but the grades became less steep. At the end of the morning we saw an big example of monsoonal damage. Our road was completely washed away over a length of several hundreds of meters and had only just opened for pedestrians and cyclists.

Only a few miles further bad luck stroke again. On a curve where a small stream crossed the road our wheels slipped and we both fell. Nothing broken or damaged we looked over the edge of the road (no barrier or what so ever) and looked into a very deep and rocky precipice.

Karanprayag – Pipalkoti

Of course bad luck never comes alone. In the afternoon one of the deraillers broke; a stone hit it somehow and damaged it beyond repair. The only emergency repair we could do was to shorten the chain and continue on a one-speed-bike.

Pipalkoti is not very far…

The good side of this little accident was that it happened at almost the highest part of our trip. From here we would continue back to the plains around Delhi where a 18 gears are not a necessity.