By David Wean

Recently Cynthia and I took two two-week (guided) cycling tours in India, riding about 700 miles over the month. The first tour was primarily in Rajasthan (in the north-central part of the country), the second mostly in Karnataka and Kerala (the south-west, including the coast almost to the southern tip). Here are some impressions of the cycling aspect of the tours.  Each tour had about 10 participants, plus two guides and a driver. 

Right is Wrong

The first challenge was riding on the “wrong” side of the road.  In a group or when there’s traffic, it’s not too hard to remember, though on my own I sometimes had to catch myself. I use a Take-a-Look eyeglass mirror, and thought I’d switch it to the right side as a reminder, but I found it hard for my eyes (brain?) to adjust, and went back to my normal position which was more comfortable, though less effective.  

Another aspect of left-side driving is turns: at home, turning left has more potential conflicts than turning right, and thus requires a lot more attention; here, it was the opposite. When turning right, I had to think carefully about where to look, and didn’t always get it quite right. 

Traffic 

There is a wide variety of road users, even on the “highways”. In reverse order of priority: people walking (there usually weren’t decent sidewalks), people on bicycles (mostly older men on one-speed bikes and very few “road” cyclists), motor scooters and cycles, tuk-tuks (three-wheeled small taxis), cars, small trucks and buses, and the occasional large bus or truck.  

Oh, and cows.  

Everyone honks before passing. It’s just a brief warning, but with the variation in speed, there’s a lot of passing, and thus a lot of honking. The honking is not hostile or punitive as we hear at home, but it takes some getting used to. Even then, it’s a constant loud background in many places.

When being passed I moved left, to the extent it was safe, or if riding side by side, we singled up and the drivers passed using whatever room was left (This included the oncoming lanes which often were not empty. I’m surprised that I didn’t see any head-on collisions, nor, actually, any collisions at all, though I did see some smashed vehicles here and there.)  

As a recent League Cycling Instructor, I’ve been very conscious of the five “must say” principles, which include “follow the law” and “be predictable”.   

From what I’ve read, there actually are rules of the road similar to what we have at home, but compliance, particularly by folks on two wheels, is not great. An example: on divided roadways, we often encountered motor bikes (and an occasional car) riding the wrong way along the right-hand edge of the road. We were instructed by our guide to pull a little to our right to let them get by. (At home, I’ll typically stay at the edge of the road, and let the offending cyclist worry about oncoming motor traffic.).  We commented on this: “Can you believe it - they’re going the wrong way”. Shortly after this, we approached our hotel, which happened to be on the right side of the road. Ironically, rather than ride a quarter mile to the next break in the divider and then turn back (as we would at home) our guide had us shift to the right (wrong) side of the road at an earlier break and ride against traffic for several hundred meters.

However, after a while, the unpredictable became predictable. For example, crossing the street on foot in the cities took a few days to figure out. At first, we’d walk to one of the infrequent traffic signals, but even there, there weren’t dedicated phases for walkers. Plan B was to find a local who looked like they were crossing in the same direction as we were, and when they went, we went.  We finally understood that they looked for a gap in traffic large enough to be visible, and then walked steadily in a straight line. Traffic made room for us, either crossing in front of us or behind. It never became second nature, but eventually it was more comfortable, and we no longer considered taking a 50 cent tuk-tuk ride to get across the street (no, we never actually did that).

We realized that the principle is that everyone watches everyone else, keeps doing what they’re doing, and we all work around each other. The sense I got was that drivers were way more attentive there than they are at home - even people riding motorbikes with one hand and talking on the phone with the other were looking where they were going. Someone explained that the principle is “don’t hit anyone” rather than “drive defensively”. 

The Road(s) Taken

We encountered a wide variety of riding surfaces on the tours:  we spent a day or so on a newly paved and striped highway, smooth with enough room on the shoulder to feel comfortable. We went over long bridges with narrow lanes and heavy but slow traffic.  Some roads were in bad shape (including many on the day we descended 6500 feet - what a waste of a good downhill) and plenty were dirt or gravel.  The bikes that were provided were suitable though - 29-er hardtail mountain bikes on one of the tours, and aluminum hybrids with 40 mm tires and front shocks on the other.  

Overall, we were happy with the trip, learned to manage our way (with a little help from our friendly guides) and saw a lot of cool and interesting things. The experience provided a window on another way of getting around by bike:  order within apparent chaos.  

We’d recommend this trip for the touristing value, as well as a different way to think about cycling. For yet another view, maybe next time we’ll revisit Amsterdam or Copenhagen…