What’s it like to cycle in India? Part 1

I wanted to write about this quite simply for an ego boost. To inflate my ego like the tires of the tandem. To make it clear what I’m doing requires great skill. Skills not usually acknowledged or appreciated by the outside world. My skills as a whippet behind the wheel, a snake through the snarl-ups, an armadillo in the avalanche.

In short, my skills as a tandem cyclist. I want the appreciation now, because, well, it’s now or never.

After all, once this trip ends it’s not exactly going to be something I can put on my CV:

“Skills and Experience: Able to navigate fully-laden tandem through heavy traffic on the Indian subcontinent.”

I’m not sure my kind expedition sponsors, Newton Europe, will think much of that. They might have further misgivings for offering me a job.

Still, it’s a skill I have devoted two years of my life to mastering, and even if it’s rather pointless in nearly every life situation bar the one I currently find myself in, I want to cash in on the plaudits whilst I can.

Because right now, on the Indian subcontinent, these skills are lifesaving.

So let me tell you about riding a tandem on the subcontinent.

The Bike

Before we begin, a reminder: Chris the tandem is himself a svelte beast, weighing in at a mere 25 kilos, almost 20 kilos heavier than the bike Bradley Wiggins used to win the Tour de France ten years ago. But Chris is a laden stallion, with five bags and trailer filled with far too much stuff (including a saxophone, coffee maker, kettle, several books and a china mug). This brings Chris’ kilos to around 70. Add onto this me, and someone on the back and we’re looking at almost 200 kilos. From equine to elephantine.  

200 kilos to swerve past speeding cars. 200 kilos to thread through a gap the width of candy cane. 200 kilos to slow down before hitting an abruptly-stopped bus.

Not to mention the difficulty of getting 200 kilos to go at 20 km per hour. Or up 9,000 metres of climbing, as TJ and I did between the Khunjerab Pass and Islamabad, fighting for every metre with the desperation required to outrun a herd of elephants.

And 200 kg of wobble. Not in a friendly, cuddly way like a jelly or your grandma, but like a taut tightrope, with sharks snapping a long way below.

TJ and I with 200kg of wobble to thread through the passes of the Karakoram Highway

Part 1: People

But to be honest, most of the challenges are less dramatic. Take people, for instance.

People are curious. This is a good thing – it’s led to my discovery of the delicious raj kachori,  and that Red Bull and Bailey do not go well together (thanks Stu).

However, it has its downsides.

For example, as Mike and I pedalled our way to Lahore, we were accompanied by an ever-changing assortment of motorcyclists. For all of them, it must have been the first time they’d seen a tandem – or a pink one at the very least. And of course they were fascinated, and asked us where we came from, where we were going, and what we thought of Pakistan (this was a question very specific to Pakistan – and they really cared if we’d had a good time). This was lovely, but the trouble came when, as soon as their curiosity was sated and they thundered off, another motorbiker replaced them, with the same unmet questions and curiosity. Now imagine a conveyor belt of interested motorcyclists, one after the next, for hours on end, each intent on answers.

Having faced these questions for a year, I cowardly put my headphones in and head down and offered up initiate Mike for sacrifice to the unsated hordes. That was the point of having a partner right? I counted Mike having the same conversation 15 times in one hour.

Of course, conversations themselves are quite easy to navigate, even on a 200 kilo tandem. What was more challenging was when the motorcyclists wanted to cosy up. They would come within centimetres, to take a selfie or ask a question above the traffic noise. I would flip in multitask mode: holding a straight course through the handlebars, yet moving away if they got too close, whilst hoping I wouldn’t hit the motorbike on our other side, asking (shouting) at them to move away, and gesticulating with my hand in what I hoped seemed an authoritative though not anxious way. But not for too long, in case I needed to brake sharply for crossing goat. Mike’s charm and winning smile usually patched up any offence I caused.

Yet one time, a motorbike pulled out into Chris, and its foot stirrup caught a pannier. I was too slow to react and before a moment had passed the bag had been stripped it off, clean breaking the clasp. It was an accident and nothing else was broken, but it was a wakeup call.

Friendly but sometimes too close for comfort!