INTERDIMENSIONAL TRAVEL

A journey of transtemporal awe on a pair of larger-than-life BMWs

- Sherman Hale Nazareth

If there's one thing that's become increasingly common on any of my two-wheeled adventures, it's the element of coincidence. There's no way either Sam or I could have remotely imagined two months ago that we'd be cruising amongst mountain clouds on a couple of behemoths that are designed to decimate distances in utmost comfort. Of course, these distances took on a more vertical dimension than the horizontal ones these machines are normally accustomed to. While the fates manifested, our Himalayan adventure slowly began to take shape.

As with coincidences and the innate nature of Goa to have sporadic spells of intermittent electricity, I decided to ditch gadgets and pick up a book in my collection that I hadn't read yet. As I got past the first chapter, neurons that had never connected before did. The book, of course, was the 1895 classic, The Time Machine, by H. G. Wells.

While the time traveller may have used a contraption so flamboyant it'd have been right at home as a carnival float, I’d like to think of the majestic BMW R 1300 GS and the enormous F 900 GSA as our versions of that time machine. They all are immensely complicated machines in their own rights. Only instead of going into the future like the time traveller did, we went back in time as we got higher up into the mountains.

Our little adventure began in Delhi where we picked up the BMWs. The plan was to ride to Volume 7 of Tank Up, which was being held in Kaza, Spiti Valley. Long-time friend, Vir Nakai (co-founder of Tank Up), and I had discussed showcasing a film I’d made riding two classic Urals with sidecars up in the Altai Mountains in Southern Siberia, Russia. Needless to say, I decided to take him up on the offer.