Riding from Chandigarh: three weekend routes
Morni, Kasauli and Chail: short loops from the city for testing new gear before a long trip.
Behind the bench: what comes back from Ladakh
Torn straps, broken zips and cracked visors: what fails on the road, and what we change because of it.
Every September, when riders return from Ladakh and Spiti, our repair bench fills up. Over the years it has taught us more about gear than any catalogue, and it is the reason we change what we sell.
Zips fail most often. Grit from the Pang and More plains gets into jacket zips and wears the teeth. We replace about two hundred zips a season. It is why our own jackets now use larger zips with storm flaps, and why we tell riders to brush and wax their zips every few days on the road.
Luggage straps are next. Straps that rub on a hot exhaust or a sharp rack edge can fray through in a day of rough road. Our saddlebags now carry a heat shield panel, and we sell every tail bag with a spare strap.
Visors crack when riders leave helmets on the mirror, where they fall, or hang them on the handlebar in the sun. We keep spare visors for every helmet we sell.
The bench is also where we decide to stop selling something. In 2019 a glove we liked kept coming back with split seams after one season. We stopped stocking it. Harjot and Kunal run the bench on weekdays; most repairs take two days and are priced before we start.
