Rarely can one ride in the wake of a maharaja. At our courtyard reception, the news flashed through our Cascade- Pedaltours group on tour in India in November: the maharaja would lead our rides through his vast estate for the next two days. With easy manner and gleaming black eyes, Maharaja Rao Saheb Narendra Singh Ji told us not to think of the Castle Bijaipur as simply our hotel: “You are guests in my family home. Enjoy our Rajput hospitality.” Elegantly dressed in a blue silk suit and red turban, he fit our image of a maharaja. He did not look like someone who would ride a bike up these Rajasthani hills.

He modestly explained that the 16th century Castle Bijaipur, where we nearly needed a GPS to find our rooms, had been his family’s home for thirteen generations. Strategically positioned, it had sheltered local warriors defending the Mewari frontier against invading Mughal and Maratha armies. On the stage overlooking our gathering, musicians played sitar and drum, while brightly clad dancers leaped and gestured, telling Indian legends. They could have been court musicians in olden days. We were in a time warp.

Rao Saheb arrived for the morning ride dressed like a forest ranger in a Seattle Sombrero and running shoes. He proudly showed us his aluminum Schwinn with flat pedals, overstuffed seat, and cyclocross tires.  He led out, past the equestrian area for guests and the John Deere tractor for staff who worked the fields, into the rocky hills dotted with jacaranda and flame-of-the-forest trees.

In a short distance we noticed something missing. The road on his estate was not the usual chunks of old pavement between potholes; it was smooth enough to ride at normal speed. Where was all the trash we’d seen on other roads? Village children ran to us, not to beg for money but to ask our names and touch our rented bikes. Cows, water buffalo, and goats walked on rope leashes or stayed behind rock walls. Surrounded by red sandstone fences, fields were tended by women in saris of brilliant reds and yellows, lapis blue, and Pepto-Bismol pink – the latter color all too familiar to us since Delhi.

Rao Saheb rode with ease up the long climbs. He stopped and put down his giant kickstand beside a large field. “Opium poppies,” he said, licensed by the government for medicinal purposes.  

He stopped again in a village, where everyone on the street, young and old, flocked to greet him with respect, even affection. Rao Saheb was our ticket to the village, from the delicately carved Hindu temple to the masala tea he assured us was safe to drink. In another village he took us to a bride’s home on her wedding day, a colorful and joyous all-day event. She and her female relatives wore fine silk and acres of gold; we squirmed in our sweaty cycling clothes. We followed Rao Saheb down the road to an open-air kitchen where several men and women stirred huge cauldrons as they prepared the wedding dinner for 4,000 guests.

At his Pangarh Lake Retreat, Rao Saheb responded to our questions over lunch. He talked about the many changes in India and the need for social responsibility and self-sufficiency. He employs local people, buys local food, electricity and materials, and supports modern agricultural methods. A portion of revenues from his family homes, among the first in India to be converted to hotels, goes for local schools, medical assistance, plant and wildlife conservation. When our local guide tossed our used water bottles in front of a house that morning, several of us had cringed. But Rao Saheb promotes private enterprise; village women bundle plastic trash to sell for recycling.

This maharaja was not a relic of the past. He was out in front, both on and off the bike.
Do we recommend that you pack your bike and head for India? Not so fast. Meeting and riding with Rao Saheb was a special treat, an oasis. But our tour was not just a bike ride. India has a highly complex culture that is both fascinating and maddening. Some rides were physically difficult, not just the terrain but mostly the road conditions. To imagine it for yourself, first jack up the heat, turn the humidifier on high, and brew a pot of Darjeeling tea. Now smell thick diesel exhaust and coal and wood smoke, along with scents of fresh tropical fruits and flowers, wonderful curries and spices, and constant whiffs of cow manure, while traffic moves like a video game with every driver blowing the horn. Nausea, diarrhea and road rash are optional.

The emotional demands were at least equal to the physical ones: sensing at street level the squalor and poverty, dirty children running into chaotic traffic to beg, skinny cows eating plastic and cardboard, the emaciated dog that did not recognize a biscuit as food, old men hobbling on pencil-thin legs, the stifling grip of fatalism. Yet, the glorious forts and castles of India’s past stand side by side with the booming technological development that signals its future.

Experiencing India (and surviving to tell about it) and riding with the Maharaja Rao Saheb made for an incomparable tour. Millions go there to see for themselves. Some take trains; some go on horseback. The tough ones ride bikes.  

“This article reprinted courtesy of Cascade Bicycle Club, Seattle, USA”