HIMALAYAN ODYSSEY 2009

There is cold, and there is cold on a motorcycle. Cold on a motorcycle is like being beaten with icy hammers while being kicked with cold jackboots, a bone bruising cold. The wind's big hands squeeze the heat out of my body and whisk it away; caught in a cold June rain, the drops don't even feel like water. They feel like ice picks relentlessly tattooing my face. As I ascend Baralachla on my ’92 Royal Enfield 500, the most notorious pass on the Manali-Leh road at 16,000-plus feet, the rain changes to swirling snow, which ices into the folds and crannies of my clothes. Visibility is down to a few feet and I can hear the harsh rasp of my breath in my helmet as marooned trucks loom out of the brume listing like derelict ships.

Despite all this, I am having the time of my life on the Royal Enfield Himalayan Odyssey, my annual fix. Lapses of sanity like this are common among motorcyclists, for when you let a motorcycle into your life, you're changed forever. The letters "MCWG" are stamped on your driver's license right next to your photograph as if "motorcycle" was just another of your physical characteristics, or maybe a mental condition.

When a rider completes a Himalayan Odyssey, only the handful that shared the adventure would truly understand what it meant to endure an escapade like that - feeling the elements fighting against you and manipulating the motorcycle to overcome the obstacles set before you. This is what riding is about, actually being there and doing what you thought can't be done, then reminiscing about the journey, sharing it with your friends and family, while all the time knowing in the back of your mind that because they weren't there, they truly won't comprehend the scope of your tale.

For those who like to ride off the beaten track, a common occurrence is the battle between enjoying the ride and the scenery at the same time.Every successive year that I go back to ride the badlands of Ladakh, I find myself teetering on the brink. Usually the desire to ride this one-of-a-kind road to the best of my ability wins, when I correct my sliding rear tyre with a blip of the throttle on the Gata Loops or when I feed my Royal Enfield a little more revs to skim the silky pockets of sand on the Moré Plains, plane-high at 14,000 feet.

Here, transportation is only a secondary function. A motorcycle is a joy machine; it's a warm and fuzzy conduit of grace. On a motorcycle I know I'm alive. I can feel the cool wells of air pooling in the folds of the mountains and the fleeting warmth of the warm spokes of sunlight that fall through trees. The wind’s roar raises acoustic ghosts and I can hear whole songs: rock ’n’ roll, swelling orchestras, women's voices, all hidden in the air and released by speed.

I still think of myself as a motorcycle amateur, but by now I've had a handful of bikes and epic rides over a half dozen years. I wouldn't trade one second of either the good times or the misery. Learning to ride was one of the best things I've done.

Text by Harsh Man Rai