And we did manage it a lot better than I would have expected. 0 casualties, 1 injury, 1 puncture, 2 damaged clutch plate sets, 1 cut clutch wire. All seven of us doing fine. All bikes in riding condition. Yeah, looks like we were really safe drivers.
 |  |
 |  |
With zero out-of-the-city biking experience, it does take some nerve and a bit of audacity to take on this route. And the reward is a whale of a time. The drive alternates between exhilerating, dangerous and tricky, as fast as the scenery changes between green slopes of grass or pine, cold desertlands and barren mountains in wild dashes of colour.
One avid biker (well, he just became one) in our group, Sriram, has finally started blogging all the nitty-gritties. Hope he manages to finish it too.
So there. Riding a ~200kg cruiser for ~2500kms, about a thousand of that in the Himalayan roads, is fun, back-breaking and perfectly doable. Nothing audacious about it, really. Trust me, I know.
Photos from this trip: by Shanthi and Jomy, and by Roop (my camera conked early on)