Chintu Travels| Bir - Mcleoadganj Cycling | Day 5, Cycling to Mcleodganj

The plan was to start riding at 7 AM today and to reach Mcleodganj before sundown.

I woke up at 8:15, thankfully I had done all my packing last night and only needed to put the bags on the bike. I was ready to ride by 8:30.

I didn't have breakfast before starting the ride, because it was mostly downhill till Baijnath, I wanted to have breakfast at Baijnath.

I reached Baijnath too soon, 12 Kilometres covered in about 25 odd minutes, I delayed the plan for breakfast and kept riding for another half an hour.

Then I stopped at a Highway Dhaba, and have the usual Paranthe and Coffee, and then started riding again at 10. The last 8 kilometres to Palampur were mostly uphill, and then from there it was an easy ride till a few Kilometres before Dharamshala, The last 5 kilometres of Dharamshala was a steep climb, I reached here around 2 PM, had my lunch, and then started riding towards Mcleodganj.

There are two roads for Mcleodganj from Dharamshala, one a 10 Kilometre highway, with mild climbs, another a 6 kilometres steep climb. I chose the 6 kilometres one because my definition of steep was one where you could easily ride a bike in the easiest gear ratio, but it was too difficult. The gradient for most of the route must have been 15%. It took me another 2 hours to cover this.
My total riding distance came to about 72 Kilometres.

I walked for the last six kilometres and reached my hostel which is quite isolated and difficult to reach. It took me
They had messed up my booking by giving my bed to someone else and then had to adjust me in another Dorm. I'll get this sorted tomorrow.

My dorm has a lot of people from Bombay, we did some usually exaggerated cribbing about Delhi and Bombay, and then sat at the bonfire for some time and then, later in the dorm.