Preparations: Splitting into teams

We ended up with 10 final members (1 dropped out at the last moment as he didn't get leave from work) and split them up into separate teams to make things easier and also involve everyone in the group

The Teams
1) Gear & Bike team - Puneet & Amit
2) Route & Stay team - Suvinay, Nikhil & Gaurav
3) Food team - Sumit, Komal & Navin
4) Ticket booking team - Praveen & Nitin

Each team had to look after their department and do everything possible to make the trip a success. Each team researched and made a list of work to be done and a deadline for same. Needless to say, booking flight tickets was the priority and completed fast. We booked our tickets from Pune to Delhi for 18th June 2016 with 2 members going on 17th June 2016 to check rental bikes.

The route and stay team were in charge of preparing the routes, places to visit, hotel & guest house booking and permits in case they were required.

The food team had to arrange for Ready to Eat packets (we are all Jains) as we had decided to carry our own food, tea, coffee sachets, etc

The gear & bike team were in charge of arranging common gear/kit and also sourcing the rental bikes and negotiating a good deal for the group.

Advice: If you are a big group, then divide the work among yourselves. It makes it easier and everyone ends up contributing to the trip.

Preparations: Biking gear, clothes, kit & food

Now since we would be riding in mountains and bad roads, we felt that we should use only good quality riding safety gear and also choose clothes which will make it easier to sit on bikes for long period.

From the experience earned through riding day trips around Pune, we felt that we needed comfortable riding pants, safety gear & good quality gloves (It gets very cold while crossing passes in and around Leh and you need warm gloves to prevent your hands from freezing!).

Gaurav with full riding gear

We decided to have a common gear kit for our team, which comprised of the following items:

1. Safety gear including knee/elbow guards and a good pair of riding gloves. We chose padded warm gloves as it gets cold in Ladakh especially in the passes.
2. Two pairs of pants which would be comfortable to be worn for 6-8 hours of riding. Any thick seam lines make it very comfortable to sit on bike for extended period as they cut into the skin.
3. A comfortable cotton Tshirt.
4. Two pairs of thermal tshirts (one half sleeve and one full sleeve) + 1 thermal full pant. We chose Jockey brand as they have really good insulation
5. A good riding raincoat including waterproof pants to be worn over clothes. We expected to receive rain in Ladakh. Surprisingly we ended up wearing the raincoats to save our clothes from dirt too!
6.  A good riding jacket with removable sleeves! This gave us the 'biker look'. The removable sleeves enabled us to wear the jackets even when riding in warm weather.
7. A full face helmet. This was provided to us free of cost by Ikerz! They also gave us a pair of standard riding gloves! 

Main camping bag with all the stuff organised

Apart from these we carried our personal gear individually including underwears, tshirts, 2 pairs of cotton pants, 1 pair of jeans, nightwear and socks. Some of us also took a sleeping bag with us as we didn't want to rely on hotel blankets.

We are all Jains and some of us don't even have onion & garlic. We decided to carry 'ready to eat' packets of food and carry our own gas cylinder throughout the trip. It was really fun cooking our own meals on the trip. We even took tea powder, milk & sugar sachets! For the first few days this went really well but then our stomachs started getting upset and we ditched the RTE foods packs and had hotel food instead. You can easily get vegetarian & even Jain food easily throughout the region.

Cooking Maggi & tea by the roadside! How cool is that!

Advice: Carry LESS than what you think you will require. Leh/Ladakh is dry so the inner tshirts, underwears, socks etc don't get soiled easily and can be reused. It is dusty so your outer jacket will get dirty and can be wiped with a wet cloth. We ended up wearing the same tshirt inside 3-4 times easily. You can also take your own tents and pitch camp in Leh. We were not able to do it but its highly recommended for the experience itself.

Don't carry your food with you. Its fun for the first few days then gets tiresome. Veg / Non veg food is available easily and not very expensive too.