GS Christ!

The 2018 BMW Motorrad International GS Trophy is a stonker of an event says our intrepid correspondent who comes back with a terrific tale, and a dislocated shoulder

- Joshua Crasto

It was November last year that I got a call asking if I’d like to accompany Team India for the International GS Trophy. I had no idea what or even where, all I knew was that I’d be riding a BMW R 1200 GS (top of my list in the Adv category and a BMW to boot!) in an obscure part of the world, off road. It would be silly to turn that down, no? It wasn’t until February that I found out a bit more. And then started to do some physical training to prep myself for this adventure. And it was only in the second week of May that I met up with Team India and swung my leg over an R 1200 GS. My role wasn’t quite clear back then. I was told that I was going to be the journalist embedded into Team India. But would that mean I would be expected to take part in the challenges? Would my skills be put to test?

So when I met up with Suprej Venkat, Sanket Shanbhag and Winston Lee — the winners of the India Qualifier and hence, Team India — in May, I tried to absorb as much as I could from Venkat and Lee who had been to the BMW off-road school in South Africa. Then a few weeks before departure, there was an email explaining my role “…to give the outside world a peek into lives of the participants, and help the team achieve their goals… and step in in case anybody was injured.” Phew! My job had been laid out for me. These three capable blokes are going to do all the hard work and I’d have to ride my R 1200 GS, and tell everyone how good they are at their job. Easy, innit?

Flash forward to 1800 hrs on June 4. I’m unpacking my laptop to file a report after riding for the past 12 hours through the desert. Let me take a moment to describe