The complete survival guide to riding a motorcycle in India

7 LIFE-SAVING TIPS TO KEEP YOU ALIVE – DESPITE THE ODDS

Looking back, the most irresponsible thing I’ve ever done in my life was riding a beat-up Royale Enfield motorcycle through Northwestern India. Nothing compared to the sheer terror and utter irresponsibility. Not diving the infamous “Blue Hole” in Sinai, climbing the Kilimanjaro, participating in amateur car racing, climbing up half of the Annapurna round trek on a tiny off-roader, flying a helicopter in the IAF, and all the other silly things I’ve attempted to do during my time on this earth. No, nothing was as viscerally stupid, life-threatening experience as doing India on Two wheels.

I did it and lived to tell the tale. Below is how I did it.

Mind you, not everyone did make it alive. This guy wasn’t so lucky, but at least he got famous.

Keep these 7 tips in mind, and you will come back in one piece. Leave the fame to the less careful.

Tip 1: Go local

To start with, forget any fancy adventure bike you may have in mind. No BMW GS, no KTM  Super Adventure, or Honda Africa Twin, or Ducati Multistrada…. This list is long and quite useless. You should skip them all. All these fancy high-tech machines are great until something goes wrong. And then you’re stuck. Really stuck. Good luck fixing that fancy Multistrada in the middle of the road from Pushkar to nowhere. A better choice will be a mundane Royale Enfield Bullitt 350cc, with one cylinder and half-working drum breaks. It’s a relic from the 50s, and it will do a much better job. Yes, it will break down.

But it will be fixed, anywhere, in no time, and at dirt-cheap cost. I broke mine, over-revving it when I tried breaking the 100kph barrier. The only thing I needed to do was to squeeze it a bit more till the next tiny hamlet where a makeshift garage on the main dirt road got my cylinder sleeve replaced– in one hour and a few hundred rupees.
Royale Enfield Bullitt is the Indian equivalent of the Ford Model T. It may not be fancy, fast, or comfortable, but it will keep you going practically everywhere.

Tip 2: Be loud

Everybody’s honking in India, to warn you of something, to say hello, to let you pass, to be noticed. The reasons are many and may not always be as clear to the foreigner as they are to the locals. One thing is sure though, in a country practicing “transportational Darwinism” (more on that later), you would want to be as close to the top of the food chain as possible. One way is to drive a truck. Another is to install a truck horn on your bike. I kid you not. You would not believe the impact of a loud truck horn mounted on a single-cylinder motorcycle. Suddenly you’re getting notices (and respected).

I couldn’t fathom why all other motorcyclists were putting up with puny squeakers for horns. Maybe it’s against the law. My friend and I were never pulled over for violating any horn laws (if there were any). At the end of it, one must admit, having a M***** F****ing horn at your disposal is not just an element of safety; it’s also fun.

Tip 3: Drive (way) below your limits

Let’s face it, you’ll never be Valentino Rossi, and India is not the place to try and find out if you are. Even the “Doctor” himself would be wise to never attempt any riding on the limit. The reason is obvious, India’s rural roads are full of surprises – of the wrong kind. You’ll never know what lies waiting for you just after that blind curve. It could be a pothole, it could be a parked lorry in the middle of your lane, it could be a herd of sheep. Just go with your imagination. Mind you, these road death traps are not meant just for naïve tourists. Our own local guide nearly got killed on the first day riding out of Udaipur.

We were riding a hilly road just north of the fabled city when a blind curve turned out to be much more slippery than the rest of the tarmac we were riding on till then. Our poor guide found himself understeering his Royale Enfield straight into an oncoming bus that just cleared that same curve going uphill. We gasped. As both he and the terrified bus driver managed to escape each other. It was close. Too close. Mind you, This was an experienced and local motorcycle guide that almost got killed in front of us. We never attempted to test the limits of our Bullitt road handling for the rest of the journey.

Want to read more about Indian adventures? Read the below!
You only die twice
This guy is high on Rajasthani Opium, and so is the government.
Stunned and amazed on the banks of River Ganges
Behind the curtains of a Rajasthani wedding

Tip 4: Practice jumping off the road

This stunt will save your life. It saved mine on numerous occasions. While the traffic of Indian cities is chaotic, it is the highways where the real danger lies. India, like many other developing nations, practices something I call “Transportational Darwinism”. In essence, a bicycle wins over a pedestrian, a motorcycle squashes a bike, Car rains over a motorcycle, bus takes car, and trucks reign supreme and can do pretty much whatever they like. One of them is to ignore anyone else – motorcycles in particular.

Not once, not even twice, did I find myself riding 80kph on a two-lane highway only to find an oncoming truck overtaking another vehicle USING MY LANE. Having 10 tons of metal hurtling towards you leaves you with very few choices. Of course, you might have tried veering to the shoulder and hope it will be wide enough for all of you to survive.

But Indian roads – especially the ones in Rajasthan have no paved shoulders at all. Instead, you get a 10cm sharp drop straight onto thick powder sand. So practice your off-road jumping skills and hope you and your Royal Enfield can handle the sandpit riding at anything between 50-80kph. Yes, it is as scary and dangerous as it sounds. Also, be sure to learn how to climb back onto the road when that truck passes. You would want to survive the incident only to crash when attempting to climb back on the tarmac.

Tip 5. Dress Up

It’s hot, and everyone around you is riding in a variety of shorts, flip-flops, turbans, sarees, you name it. Don’t be tempted. Wear full, proper gear or risk finding out how good is the local Indian hospital. You wouldn’t believe how painful a simple crash can be when the only thing protecting you is a thin t-shirt and your skin. This is, of course, true for every ride, in any country. But in the country you came from, dressing up for the ride is the norm. Here, on the other hand, you will likely look like an alien. Better be an alien than spend your recovery in an unknown rural Indian make-shift hospital.

Tip 6. Expect the unexpected.

This one pretty much explains itself. But to be honest, this very thing makes riding a bike in India the buzz it is. It’s crazy, it’s unbelievable, it’s unpredictable, and it will keep you 100% alert because you just never know. You’ll never forget the two cows that block your turn or the rickshaw that ignored a stop sign and nearly rammed you. You’ll remember the chaos of the cities, and after a day of hard riding, you will feel alive (and lucky). This brings me to the last tip.

Tip 7. Drink a nice cold beer at the end of the day and relax

You’ve earned it!