Back in Manali

10/08/13 to 02/09/13

  Ok yes I have been very slack on the log and have not written anything for a long time. So a quick overview of the rides.

  Went out to Lamayuru and spent the night. Not sure who named the moonscape area, it is not how I picture the moon. Mine vision of it is more like the Arazona desert lol... Nice easy roads with only a low pass, 4,103m on the way to Mulbeck. Had a discussion with the hotel man for checking out at 12.30 as I had told him I would the night before when looking at the room and that morning.

  Stopped at Magnetic hill on one of the times I went past it. It is a nice optical illusion. Where your car appears to roll up hill to a line. It is really just the piece of road before and after makes you think it is a small down hill piece of road instead of just a very slight uphill piece with 2 steeper uphill pieces at each end.
  After meeting some people who where riding to Pangong I decided to join them. Chang La is a high pass and as with all of the big ones in the area has a reasonable landslide area which suffers every year, so it is ruff. The rest of the road is very good out to the lake until the lake itself. We left a bit too late and so the snow melt had made a lot of water flows over the road one crossing was half a meter deep on the way in. and a trickle on the way out. My first view of the end of the lake was “wow do you really need words with a view like that?”, this is why I did the last blog post as just photos.

  

  Then came Nubra valley with some other people and my first passenger. Faith amazingly made it up Khardung La, 5,602m (some say this is wrong and not the highest motor able road....) Same as Chang La unsurprisingly the top has lots of land slide so the road is a bit ruff for some kilometers.

  We stayed in Disket the first night but got there on dark so did not see much of town. Headed out to Turtuk next day. Not a big ride but great Valley and warmer the Leh at night (at the moment we where there lol) Spent 2 nights in Turtuk so had time to walk around and go to the Pakistan border.
  Then headed back along the valley and up the branch Valley to Panamix. The ride back was a bit of a worry for me as I had lost over a liter of my petrol supply. Left the hotel earlier than the others intending to ride slowly and conserve petrol. Blow the main fuse about 3km from the hotel lol. Then after blowing the spare I found the battery was empty again...So found some wire to make a fuse with and Pamela went back to the hotel to get boiled water. She found the others where not there, but got some water. So with power again headed out to the turn off out to Disket.
  Decided the others must have gone to the border and so carried on up the mountain nice and slowly. Made it to under 20km from the top before flicking to reserve so was sure I would make it to the top. Could see bad clouds coming in over the mountains so headed for the top, had the chance to get some petrol off a group going the other way but was sure I would make it so did not take any....
  About 200m from the top the bike died suddenly.... So I assumed the petrol was ok I started checking the fuse and battery. As there was petrol in the filter and I could not find anything wrong with the fuse/battery I decided we might as well push. Now you must remember this is at around 5,600m above sea level where there is less than 40% air (according the marathon flyers around town, yes some people do a marathon up here even an ultra one that goes over Khardung La.) I started pushing the bike, with the help of my 35kg passenger, up the last part. First push we made it about 6 steps, to which Pamela said is that it and I said “puff puff yes puff puff at the puff puff moment.” Then the snows started lol. We managed to push the bike about 100m. When I noticed the others coming so waited for some help. We tried pushing for a bit with me and Geoff but still decided it would be easier to just drain some petrol from one of the other bikes. Syphoning petrol is a prick at that level.
   Well then the roll down the other side was fun. Made it into the petrol station just as it was getting dark, and of course with the power issues the headlight had blown. So rode the last part into town with no light and the bike not running so well...

  Not a major problem getting some things fixed. The power problem was just detach one of the 2 power feed wires... grrr(that coursed my battery to dump it's acid on the chain 3 times). Speedo could not be fixed, chain and sprockets and new tyres was going to have to wait till Manali as I would get the bigger front sprocket put on ready for the flatter India, and also road tyres.

02/09/13

  Headed out on my own for Manali, having been on the road before I did not stop more than necessary to cool the bike. The speedo died completely about 80km in and the chain was making bad noises so I kept it well oiled. Lol isn't it funny how when it is about to break you look after it better than when it is new...
  Had a hell of a head wind so was a bit worried about petrol, I had also lost another liter or two from my container (yes it was a new container they are just useless). I made it as far as Zing Zing bar which is about 4,300m for the night.

 

 

Before Tanglang La

 

 

Somewhere before Zing Zing Bar 

03/09/13
  Woke to Ice on the seat and as I only had INR700 left I rolled down the hill before having petrol problems at the bottom. I played with a couple of things but not much luck. Then a Enfield rider came past and said a mechanic would be along with a group in a couple of hours. I kept playing even checked the push rods. Decided to push it up a bit and see if there was more down hill coming. A guy from a nearby bridge construction help for the last bit and said there was only about 2km more of uphill before a mechanic. So rolled down and decided to try starting her again and she worked... But there was a tappet noise.... Made it down to the check point and the bike group with the mechanic was there. I asked him to have a look and he revved the shit out of her and said she will make it but it's stuffed buy a new one. Another Enfield mechanic who knows nothing. She stopped about 4km later and I found the tappet problem, mmm I had not tightened the lock nut properly. So the push rod had come off completely, probably would have bent and broken if it had not been revved the shit out of just before.... Luckily I just had to take the petrol tank off and open the top cover to get it back on.
  So going alright again I headed through Keylong to spend the last of my money on petrol. Although as there was a lot of rolling down to here I still managed to keep 300 for some late breakfast (15:00). After going the wrong way on North side of Rohtang I got blocked by road construction. Realising this was a new piece of road and the old piece was still open I went back and up the right part. The poor truck that went in front of me had to wait till they finished though as the bulldozer had rolled rocks down onto the road out and he could not get through.
  I put the wet weathers on because of the clouds coming over I assumed it was raining on the other side. But just low cloud lol well, well over 4000m cloud. A lovely run down the other side soon got warm enough to get the wet weathers off and I even got to enjoy it a bit as I had enough petrol to make it into Manali.

Ice on the seat

Sun on the Mountains

Where the problems began

04/09/13 to 07/09/13

  Went down to Kullu to get some money and then took the bike to the shop....INR11,000 later and I now have new front and back tyres, new chain and sprockets, new front fork springs, new seals, new clutch chain? And major service.

Today internet day and off soon to Daramsala...

 

Enjoy your life