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Two Harley-Davidson bikes, three days, torrential rain and, to cap it all, complete bliss. A lovely ride in the Shivalik range of mountains at the onset of monsoon.

Story: Ravi Chandnani

Photography: Adhish Alawani

It was in the summer of 2009 that I first visited Uttarakhand, pilgrims' hub and home to a number of holy places. I could make out then that it is a State that needs to be explored. I visited some of the remote corners of Uttarakhand then and learned that the roads leading to these places were good for motorcycle riding and touring. The roads start by being two-lane highways in the plains. However, once you near the Shivalik range, these two-lane roads turn into narrow, uphill ones, full of twisties and blind corners. The adventure quotient here is so high that you would be riding literally on the edge all the time.

Bike India was going to turn six and we wanted to do something special to mark the occasion. Accordingly, we drew up a plan and decided to do a 'travel story with a twist'. As I mentioned earlier, Uttarakhand has some very good ride-friendly roads and undiscovered places that still retain the beauty of nature in its pristine form. These locations are spread all over the State. We zeroed in on a destination in western Uttarakhand. This place was once the summer getaway of the British Raj officers. There is hardly anything around that can be described as a 'tourist spot', but the road leading up to this place is surrounded by enchanting beauty that would sweep you off your feet. The place is called Chakrata and is located about 90 kilometres from the capital town of Dehradun.

We started the ride from New Delhi on two iconic bikes from Harley-Davidson: the legendary Fat Boy and the contemporary Night Rod. Heads kept turning on the streets of New Delhi as everyone wanted a glimpse of these big machines. We were forced to spend an extra night in New Delhi because our flight was delayed by seven hours. Anyway, the best part came as a surprise the next morning when we hit the highway leading to Meerut. I had heard stories about the treacherous highways of Uttar Pradesh. However, I was surprised when we moved out of Delhi and into UP. The big, four-lane, straight highway continued from the capital until Muzaffarnagar in UP. This 125-km stretch, flanked on both sides by sprawling green fields, is bikers' nirvana. Unfortunately, however, it was soon succeeded by a two-lane, highway chock-a-block with slow-moving traffic. To make matters worse, it started raining heavily. A perfect day for riding was ruined by the rain, tardy traffic and a narrow highway!

We were now headed for Dehradun, a nice place aswarm with tourists. It was not on our list of stopovers, though. We just had to cross Dehradun to reach Chakrata. The weather gods and we had formed a special relationship by now as the rain made sure that it stayed with us for as long as possible. Although we were tired because of the rain, our bikes kept running well without any complaint. We had purposely taken the road to Chakrata through UP, because we wanted to see how tough these bikes would prove in adverse conditions and, to our surprise, both the bikes gave us no trouble.