Vijay Parmar

The 2022 iteration of the International GS Trophy headed to Albania. Vijay Parmar walks us through the entire process of training the three heroes who were handpicked to represent Team India

The International GS Trophy runs every alternate year and in a separate country. In 2022, it was scheduled for Albania and Team India, handpicked after a qualifying round in Orissa, was raring to go. The qualifiers are a much awaited event and three winners are picked from among over 85 hopefuls to represent the country.

With much gusto everyone attacks the course, depending as much on luck as skill, and when the results are announced the usual denouncements take front stage. The absence of a written rule book is probably the cause for much of the dissatisfaction amongst the non-winners — to use the term ‘losers’ would immediately attract the wrath of several interest groups who think everyone that does not win a competition would be traumatised for life if they were termed ‘losers’, so one avoids using the word.

The deed is done, and three triumphant gladiators emerge victorious after a muddy battle, that involves more slow exercises than speed or stamina. The actual competition will run across 350km of dirt roads daily and will be exhausting, but the choice of winner is based solely on the ability to turn on a dime, turning full-lock circles, all while perched precariously on the high side of the bike with one leg sticking out over the seat into thin air and the other knee jammed into the cylinder head — not unlike the sidecar racers hanging out while taking a fast corner at the Isle of Man!

So when I got a call from Shahnawaz Karim, India’s BMW instructor, who has moved to Canada, that he would like me to train the team that was to go to Albania, I was delighted. That they had mastered slow speed balance and the exercises that would make up the tests on the GS Trophy was very evident. What needed working on was stamina, endurance and all the uncertain surfaces they would encounter in Albania.

Two arduous training sessions ensued, both almost a week long. Albania’s terrain is like that in Himachal. The dirt roads wind a similar curve, the forests of cedar and fir hide treacherous swamps of deep sucking mud, and the trails are often dusty and always rock strewn.

The April training was in the Seraj region of Himachal Pradesh. The dusty trails were sandy, rock strewn and hard. If the sunlight flashing on and off like strobe lights wasn’t bad enough, a root would be growing out of the berm at hand to catch and throw you off your perch!

I was fortunate to be leading the training class but those behind me were covered in the fine talcum powder rising from my rear wheel until their eyebrows and lashes had the full Boris Becker effect.

The August training was another matter altogether. Rain had lashed the mountains for a week. A yellow alert was in effect and we were off on one of the most taxing trails one could lock horns with — the Bijli Mahadev Trail. The initial parts are beguiling. The trail starts hard packed, smooth and fast. But quickly, it turns into a deep, swampy bog that threatens to suck in anything on two wheels and keep the hapless machine captive forever! It took us five hours to cover 20km! The gladiators helped each other out of the mess, not once, but innumerable times ― they were beginning to evolve from a group of individuals to a team.

Endurance training was complete. Strength training was to begin. Enter another challenger, probably the toughest invisible enemy ever ― high altitude. The arena was moved to Zanskar. Shahnawaz took over and we found an unrelenting slope of shale at 15,500ft for the ‘test training’. Pushing the bike up the slope, in reverse, was a Herculean task. The course required them to do 30ft and they were completely destroyed in 10ft. Three young, grown men, fully fit, saw their pulse rates cross 170bpm. Recovery was not so quick. Albania had nothing on them when they went. Riding 250km at high altitudes every day fixed cardio in three days. The team was ready and I was exhausted.

More on the fourth man standing ― Vir Nakai

― who was to be the media rep on the event. Armed with extra long legs and a GS 850 shod with road-spec tyres, Vir was thrown into the training inferno and the ladder pulled out of the molten lava. No place to go but through. If a rider went down, the team played on with two riders, not three. Vir could not replace the fallen hero. He would have to ride with the team and document the effort, but not take up the gauntlet. The ride up Bijli Mahadev and the subsequent mad dash through Zanskar did more than its share to prepare him for the oncoming battle.

In the end, the team stayed together, played an up and down game and emerged 12th on the final day. In certain tests they even finished first, fourth in others, and until the last day, were in 10th spot.

Incredible for a country that has banned the import and sale of the world’s finest helmets and tyres! Incredible for a country where extreme sport means an arranged marriage. Incredible for a country that associates rallies with political parties.

In a country of couch potatoes, four of us had the courage and audacity to go and do battle in an international arena, without that critical emotional, govermental, support — the ‘saree guard’!

Well done Team India. Hats off to you!