the jinxed ride - 1

The day today was distinctly divided into parts - one that ended before the ride and the other that started with it. Came back home last night semi-drunk from a Friday evening booze party. Tried watching some TV but couldn't keep my eyes open hence ran dashed straight to my bed and crashed. Woke up again at 3 am and couldn't go back to sleep. Did the best thing I could at that hour - put on a movie. Farside has been repeatedly recommending Seven years in Tibet for quite some time now. A beautiful story about friendship, beliefs and of course, the hills. The locations in the movie are just breathtaking. Highly recommended watch.

Now for the other part of the day. Decided on a long-ish night ride, with a night halt by a lake at the foothill and then ride back in the wee hours. I had a flat right after the first leg of the ride. As we changed the tube and a fellow-rider sat by the road to offer his evening prayers, the sun was already going down the horizon. Now we had almost the entire distance to be covered in the darkness of a new moon night. We switched on our headlamps and started off. We were the object of curiosity of everyone wherever we passed by. People were slowing down their cars, asking if we were in some sort of race or something. It was a while before we took our next break - more to catch our breath and let the riders at the back catch up. I did some basic calculation in my mind and figured it will be about 1:00 am by the time we hit the lake. There was not much hope (or time) of finding any decent dinner place on the way so thought of stocking up biscuits and chocolates at the next town we cross. Well, that was not required. After riding a few more kilometers, another bike got a flat. That was the most complicated bike and it took us quite some time to fix it. But misfortune never strikes alone. Within minutes we realized that the replacement tube was also flat. We had no option but to mend it in complete darkness. Mending one flat after the other, we lost close to 2 hours on the ride...and I became sure of not reaching the lake before sunrise. :) Anyway, we decided to abandon the ride and return back in the morning. Grabbed some quick dinner and started looking for a place to spend the night. We were almost about to spend the night by the roadside, under a tree but decided to look some more for a temple or some abandoned shelter to camp. Luckily we found an under-construction house and the owner was kind enough to let crash on the cemented, uneven roof of the house. This was way more than what we would've expected. Exhausted more by the bike-troubles than the ride itself, everyone was asleep within minutes of hitting the roof.