Thirty-five-year-old Nicolitta Pereira simply loves to wear the helmet, hop on a motorbike and ride the road less travelled. Considering she's always led a sheltered life in the predominantly Catholic suburb of Bandra in Mumbai and there's no one among her family or friends who's remotely into biking, she hasn't quite figured out how she got fascinated by the two-wheel wonder. "Coming from a family who took holidays to Goa every year, the biking bug may have bitten me when I saw wellbuilt German women riding bikes there," she says.

So her brother borrowed a friend's old out-of-shape Bullet and taught her to ride in the lane outside her house. Soon she gained the confidence to venture out onto the road alone "and I realised it felt really good not to have that extra weight of a pillion rider behind you". She spent the next decade riding borrowed bikes on Mumbai streets and holding down several jobs, including being a bridal wear designer.

Then she stumbled into 60 Kph, a motorcycle travel club. "On my first weekend trip outside Mumbai with a friend, I met up with the group and was invited to join them. After a short ride with them, we ventured towards Ladakh." The group was attempting to reach Khardung La, 50 kms from Leh, the highest motorable point in the world (at that time in 2002), touch the Indo-China border and come back all the way.
Pereira agreed to a ride that stretched across 7,800 kms, spanned four states, spread over 35 days and involved harsh climates, rough terrain and punishing living conditions. "I always wanted to see Ladakh. In fact, the first trip is always the best since you are absolutely clueless about what to expect." So she quit her job and organised herself for the trip ahead - getting the proper gear, equipment, spares and servicing her bike.

The only practice she put in for this gruelling ride was a three-day trip to Goa, "which was essentially to test myself and see whether I could be on the bike for that long. Not realising that Goa was nothing compared to what I was about to do!"
Reminiscing about the trip, Pereira says, "As we left Delhi and moved closer towards the mountains, I was totally blown away. At several points I was reduced to tears. I couldn't believe I had the opportunity to see and experience such exquisite sights of nature - the mountains, the snow - everything was so beautiful and overwhelming."

But it was not an easy ride. There were several instances when she didn't feel so fortunate. "The worst experience was when the chassis of my second-hand Enfield broke down completely." The first thing Pereira did was to sit down and cry since she thought she would have to ride pillion with somebody. But she hadn't bargained for the amazing technical skill of some of the 60Kph team members. "The guys tied the handlebars to the broken frame and one of them rode my bike while I used his. They got my two-wheeler welded at an army depot some 30 kms away." That was it. For the rest of the trip, the bike stood her in good stead, give or take a few cranky moments - the clutch plates that needed to be changed or a few things that kept falling off. After a while it became a standing joke in the group. "They called me nutcracker!" she laughs.