Sikkim
Signed up: Shawn V (Christiansburg, VA) for Sikkim
by Bob_Thompson on Jan.03, 2012, under Sikkim - Oct 17, 2012
Shawn likes challenges.
There is absolutely no doubt about that. Of our tours, he has done the most challenging: “The Beast” in Corsica and Tour d’Indochine in SE Asia (Vietnam and Laos). In between those he is off doing other people’s most challenging stuff: Gran Fondo’s, overseas trips to New Zealand, tours doing nothing but the big climbs of Europe. You get the idea.
Sikkim will be right up his alley. The Last Shangri-La is a climber’s paradise.
If Shawn looks serious about his riding, there is a reason for it. He is! He came in at 5 hrs 53 min in the Mountains of Misery. If you have done that ride you know what that means.
Here's Shawn near the Col de Bavella on our own tour of misery (and hypothermia), Le Beast in Corsica. It was worth it though. Corsica is a wonderful place to ride.
And here is Shawn on Tour d'Indochine. Piece of cake!
Just to bring back some memories. Here we are with Chez Maddy. What a great place. If you get to Corsica definitely check her place out. She's the one in the hat. :-)
It takes a group…..
by Bob_Thompson on Dec.01, 2011, under Sikkim - Oct 24 2011
On the way to Borang, Sikkim we encountered a section of road that obviously had experienced a landslide. It had been repaired but it looked sketchy enough that we ALL decided to bail out of the bus before it went across. If the road gave way, it was about 2000 feet down.
We ALL decided we should get OUT of the bus before it negotiated this section.
This is our bus about to enter the most questionable little section. Notice I am taking a picture from outside the bus! The drop to the left....maybe 2,000 feet. I couldn't see anything to stop a vehicle.
The bus made it through ok. However our little truck was another story. It would lose traction as it tried to get trough what amounted to a deep depression in the road. It would simply lose traction and slide backwards.
However, our truck could not make it. It was too light and there was too much scrabbly rock and pot holes for it to make it up the incline. A couple times I thought our driverwas going to go over as he started to slide backwards.....
Since the truck seemed to be getting caught up on potholes, we undertook to repair them:
Who knew that we would have to do our own road repair!!!
Our pick-up still couldn’t make it through so we then decided to add some human ballast to give the truck’s wheels a little more traction…..
Click on the below a couple times. It’s a video that should run (I hope) of our final success …..
David H’s Pics from the Sikkim Tour
by Bob_Thompson on Dec.01, 2011, under Sikkim - Oct 24 2011
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