CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A one-way ride of 256 km, Manāli to the finish - roughly 3 h 37 in the saddle. The stops in between: Keylong and Sarchu. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 5,150 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 65 km this is Leh–Manali Highway, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
Manāli is where the plains give up and the Himalaya begins in earnest. The town sits in the Kullu valley in Himachal Pradesh, on the banks of the Beas, among deodar forests and apple orchards, with snow peaks rising behind. Old Manali, across the river, is the quieter half, a tangle of lanes, wooden houses and cafes, and in the cedar woods above the town stands the Hadimba temple, a pagoda-like wooden shrine built in the sixteenth century and dedicated to a figure from the Mahabharata. The valley has long been a stopping place for traders, travellers and, more recently, backpackers and motorcyclists.
Read the complete Manali write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Manāli is where the day begins. Next is Keylong.
Keylong is the main town of Lahaul, a high valley beyond the Rohtang Pass, and it sits at roughly three thousand metres above the Chandra and Bhaga rivers. For anyone riding north from Manali, this is the first real settlement after the climb, and the place where the road finally leaves the green side of the Himalaya and enters a drier, starker landscape. The mountains here are bare and brown, topped with snow, and the air is thin and clear.
Read the complete Keylong write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Keylong comes up about 70 km into the recorded legs. Next is Sarchu.
Sarchu is less a town than a seasonal camp, a flat, windswept plain at about four thousand metres on the border between Himachal Pradesh and Ladakh. There are no permanent villages here, only a scattering of tented camps and a few simple dhabas that open in the summer months for travellers on the Manali to Leh road. In the middle of the Himalaya it feels oddly open, ringed by pale mountains and crossed by a stream that comes down from the snow.
Read the complete Sarchu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 191 km into the recorded legs you reach Sarchu. Next is Pang.
Pang is not a village so much as a seasonal camp, a straggle of tents and tea stalls on a bare high plateau in the Himalaya, and it earns its place on the Manali-Leh road by being where everyone wants to stop. The altitude is somewhere above 4,500 metres, which means the air carries about half the oxygen of sea level, and the first thing a rider notices is a thumping head and shortness of breath on any slope. Hot sweet tea and a plate of noodles taste better here than they have any right to.
Read the complete Pang write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pang closes the day.
Manāli → Keylong is 70 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Keylong → Sarchu is 121 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Sarchu → Pang is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.