Looking back nearly 40 years reading through my diary scribbled on the lightest thinnest airmail paper. Paper So thin, almost translucent, I’m reminded of many things resting deep in the recesses of my brain. Memories of a trip along the Himalayas on an early mountain bike. A bike simple, uncluttered and free of modern gizmos. Disc brakes or suspension yet to be invented. A bike designed and built in the dawn of mountain biking. A bike that took me over high passes often carried on my back along with my rucksack. A bike that travelled through Nepal to Everest base camp to pay homage to Sagamartha goddess of the sky. A bike who’s skeleton I still have to this day hanging in a cupboard, ready to be rebuilt and ridden once more.
I can’t be sure exactly why aged 22 I decided to give up an econometrics degree in favour of an adventure on a bike. I’ve always loved cycling. From an early age, happy on my bike exploring the world around around me. First along the lanes and villages of Northamptonshire on a heavy second hand bicycle my mother bought me for my birthday. My first proper touring trip to the Picos Europa in Northern Spain with a friend of a friend from university.
In the end in late January 1986 I quit university much to my father’s horror and returned to London to dispatch ride on my bike to earn enough money to pay for the trip. In London, dispatch riding was hard and brutal. Within two hours of starting knocked off my bike, by a car that jumped a red light. There was little sympathy from the police and I ended up with a trip to St Bartholomew’s hospital, sent home with just bruising and a brutal lesson. In those days we were the pariahs of the streets, operating on the edge of society.
By late August 1986, enough cash and a ticket to Delhi purchased, we were just about ready to go. We, being me and my friend Richard who I’d worked with in Oddbins the summer before. To save money we bought the cheapest flights possible. Air Afghan via Kabul. A city and country under occupation by the Russian army at the time. The next cheapest flights via Baghdad. Also a place in conflict and under regular shelling by the Iranian army. At £10 less we opted for the Afghan route.
British pounds swapped for US dollars and travellers cheques, vaccines and elaborate visas in our passports, we were ready to go.
Over the preceding months we’d done some off roading. Wales in the snow, the South Downs way and lastly Ben Nevis. We quickly learnt that mountain bikes weren’t really mountain bikes. More bikes with fatter tyres and a few more gears, that had to be carried in anything but the most benign countryside. Ignoring this, full of youthful exuberance we pushed on to the highest mountain range in the world. Woefully under prepared. Ignorant and optimistic of what lay ahead.
Richard and I thought it a good idea to spend the last night in London with different friends. Richard chose the Marquess Tavern, a Young’s pub beside the New river in Islington, North London. The only reason I remember this detail nearly 40 years later is because Richard cycled to the pub and left his bike chained outside. The same bike we would take to India the next day. When he came out of the pub later in the evening his bike was nowhere to be found. All that was left was the lock and severed chain. So on the morning of Sunday the 8th September 1986 we ended up driving down to Brixton in south London to find my friend Michael and demand that we swap £300 for his bicycle. A mountain bike similar to mine. A mountain bike that two days earlier had been pounding the streets of London. Ridden by Michael, a fellow dispatch rider not renowned for the care of his bike.
We made it to Nepal. Starting in the south east, we trekked for two weeks up the Arun river, over the Salpa pass, finally descending to the Dudh Kosi. A river we would follow passed Namche Bazar, Tengbochi and all the way to the end of Khumbu glacier. From there up to Everest base camp. Memorable times. We were told that a Japanese cyclist had been there the year before on a mountain bike. So possibly the second people with bicycles up at Kala Pattar at 5,545M. Even if not the second certainly early in the list of people that have visited on bicycles.
With the highest point in the journey under our belt we descended to Kathmandu and on towards Pokhara where Richard and I would part. Him on a bus south to Delhi with friends we’d met there.. Me alone on my bike through the terai and western Nepal before crossing into India. Over the mighty Ganges on a boat powered with a bamboo punt barely long enough to reach the bottom in places. From there back up into the mountains once more mostly on roads, rucksack strapped to my pannier rack. Often alone, but never far from a crowd interested in a traveller from further west on a strange bicycle. Not the usual sight. Many people showed me so much kindness I’m still humbled to this day.
Back in the mountains, through Dehradun, to Shimla and from there to Mcleod Ganj, home of the Dalai Lama. A place of many happy memories and friendships. Here I met Scott, a Californian cyclist, who I would cycle with for the rest of my trip.
Ultimately my goal was Ladakh. To get there high road passes needed to be crossed. However in late November Scott and I, blocked by snow, decided on a trip up the Kulu valley to see how far we could get. All the way to Manali in the snow but further up the road the Rohtang pass at just over 13,000ft already closed we were blocked from the higher passes the other side. So close to Leh, but frustratingly far. One day I vow to return to and finish the journey that I’d set out to do.
Back in Delhi, sleeping on the roof of an hotel in early December we went our separate ways. Scott on to Burma and Australia where I would meet him in Syndey 18 months later after I had cycled up the east cost from Sydney to the North of Cape Tribulation. Me, back to London. On one level happy and proud that I’d completed so much of what I’d set out to do, much of it alone on the simplest of bicycles, without modern tech and aids. A journey made up from start to finish. On another level sad. Sad that I didn’t continue further to Goa and directly to Australia.
What I didn’t realise is that the experience would equip me for the rest of my life. Equip me to overcome obstacles, look forward, be adventurous and feed the curiosity that still burns hot to this day inside my belly.
