Day Two Wed 25th Oct Dharamsala – Bir 80km

We really weren't expecting yesterday's roads to be so bad – many of the chaps were saying “This is a bit tougher than it said on the website!”. We'd all read an account of a previous trip and it did mention roads where sections had been washed away by the monsoon, but we thought it was a few metres here and there. We were soooooo wrong...

What we actually found yesterday was several miles where the road surface had gone, leaving only sand, gravel, potholes and rocks – gurt big uns too! So we were virtually off-roading for great swathes of the journey. We just powered up, slipped the clutch and rode through it all – and actually enjoyed it!

We all quickly got used to the gearbox being on the wrong side and upside down, but the gearbox itself was a complete pig. We could change down OK (1st to 2nd, 2nd to 3rd, etc) but trying to change back up was a nightmare of false neutrals. Bev left her bike in 1st on the uphill sections because hitting neutral going round a hairpin bend which goes up at a 45 degree angle is likely to get you hit by the traffic behind. Everyone had problems and it wasn't until later in the week that we developed techniques for getting a gear when we wanted it – much swearing and stamping on the lever was involved!

Today was a leisurely start with breakfast at 9am. We retraced our steps back down the mountain hairpins with sheer drops to one side. Luckily, they were two lane so avoiding the buses and trucks was reasonably easy. When we stopped for petrol after half an hour, the view back to the snow capped Himalayas was amazing. The faces of the people had changed as we rode up from the plains, from Indian Asian to more Mongol-Tibetan faces and Buddhist monks wandering around in red and saffron robes.

Our morning tea stop was in a roadside hut – you couldn't really call it a cafe – where the owner had a gas ring and two pans in which to boil up the tea. Tea here usually comes with the tea, milk and sugar boiled up together, often with cardamom in there too. It's very nice as long as you don't think of it as 'tea'!

The roads down to Bir were lovely open ones with long sweeping bends – perfect biking roads – with lovely views. We had lunch at the house of an English friend of Matt. She has a paragliding school and guest house and made us feel really welcome – lunch was delicious. Then we were back on the bikes to go a couple of Ks up the road to our camp site. The road down to the site was so bad that Matt said if anyone didn't want to ride down the mechanics would happily take their bikes down for them! But we all made it down – and back up later.

.All the blokes went to watch the paragliding world championships just up the hill at Billing. Iain had a small impact with a car on the way but no harm done. Bev stayed behind and wrote the trip journal and listened to the thunder and rain from a snug camp-bed. That evening we sat around a roaring camp fire drinking beer and eating some lovely food