K2K Ride – a dream ride for many riders in India and across the world. It is a dream ride for many. While quite a few people think K2K stands for Kanyakumari to Kashmir, the actual abbreviation is Kanyakumari to Khardung La.
Khardung La is one of the the highest motorable roads/pass in the world, though some consider it to be the highest.
K2K was always on the back of my mind. It was the one ride which I wanted to complete sooner than later. All the recent rides I had been part of was in preparation for K2K.
The Spark
During our Gandikota Ride in November 2019, Deepak and myself were discussing about this K2K ride. Our discussion piqued the interest of Pradeep who also decided then and there to join for the K2K ride.
We spent the next few weeks deciding on the route to take. I personally wanted to take a different route. The most popular route for K2K is to start from Kanyakumari, head to Bangalore. After this, the usual route is to go to Pune. Alternatively, from Bangalore, some head to Hyderabad and then go to Gwalior – Keep riding north.
The 11k Plan – Dropped!
Out of curiosity, I wanted to get in as much scenery and different roads as possible. So I proposed to start the ride from Chennai, head to Kanyakumari, proceed till Surat on west coast road before joining Jaipur/Delhi. While returning, we will take the most direct route back to Kanyakumari and then head back to Chennai. This would be C2K2K2K2C. The total distance crossed 11,000 km. This was a bit overwhelming and I dropped this plan.
I had shared the K2K plan with my other friends from CBR club. Vineeth and Kamlesh were interested. They also decided to join. However, they would be travelling by a car. We had our own convoy car! ð
Note – Vineeth had accomplished K2K solo ride on his Honda CBR250R back in 2016.
Route map In the words of BRO The solo rider
Route map finalised
Deepak, Pradeep, Vineeth, Kamlesh and myself decided to embark on this dream ride. We initially wanted to do it in March – April 2020. Upon hearing some convincing statements from Vineeth, we pushed the ride date to August-September 2020.
After searching many sites and from other rider’s information, we decided to take the below route.
One change from the above route was that we will be riding from Chennai instead of starting from Bangalore. On the return leg, we ll head down south till Kanyakumari, halt there and then return to Chennai – so our plan, in effect, was actually C2K2K instead of K2K.
Deepak however was contemplating whether to join us from Chennai or from Delhi. As we had few more months, Deepak decided to finalise his plan later.
In comes Corona!
Calendar rolled to March 2020 and along with it came Corona! A big blow to all of us. Lockdown after lockdown were implemented. Curfews were put. One by one, we decided to skip K2K this year. Deepak, however was confident of completing it this year. Goutham showed interest couple of weeks back for this ride.
Days rolled by, March rolled to April, May and June. 2 days back, Deepak also withdrew his ride plan of K2K this year which left Goutham with a broken heart!
Time away from bike
I for one like to take this time away from rides and make myself physically more fit for tackling Kanyakumari to Khardung La ride. Spending 25 days or so on the bike on the road is by no means an easy task. It will for sure take its toll, physically and mentally.
We have to ride through different terrains, different weather conditions, possibly venture into regions where the language is unknown (at least to me as I only know Tamil and English).
Here’s to K2K in 2021. Hopefully, Captain Sabarish will also be joining us on his Triumph Street Triple RS.