A thank you to Indian Rides

18th February 2019

Back in October last year after watching a TV documentary about Rajasthan I decided that India would be the venue for my winter adventure in 2019; the challenge was then to find a tour operator that could match the good experiences I was used to during the last 4 years trips in the Far East provided by TBB https://www.thailandmotorcycle.tours/ in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

I started Googling and came up with a long list of potential operators: I started to reduce to a short list based on a mix of itinerary, value for money, customer reviews and their ability to respond promptly to my questions by email; this produced a shortlist of 3 companies, all of which on paper could provide what I needed. The final shortlist came down to 2, Indian Rides and a larger and well established, professional French company; both of which had made the investment to exhibit at the UK’s big show Motorcycle Live at the NEC in November 18. I arranged to meet them both face to face; this was my first meeting with Narendra Singh, the CEO and founder of Indian Rides. He came with his wife and young son to man their stand, which was next to the large Royal Enfield stand.. good commitment I thought.

I was pleased to put a face to the name that I had been emailing and I was impressed with the fact that Narendra was, at the end of the day, a biker who would lead the tour personally and who obviously enjoyed riding with his customers and was prepared to customise the tour if I could bring a group of 4 people along. There was also the fact that he was born in Rajasthan and his main office was in the capital Jaipur. The opposition fielded a French marketing person, who assured me that if a problem should happen on route in India they could call the French consul and all would be sorted, whereas the Indian company would just disappear and leave the customer to fend for themselves! I decided that it was better to go with the local company who were well established and could “speak the local language” when it was important to do so. So Indian Rides was chosen https://www.indianrides.com/

I think I can speak on behalf of our whole group of 5 to say it proved to be the right decision 🙂 The organisation, hospitality, service, guiding, quality of bikes and support back up cannot be faulted; also the fact that the whole team were nice guys who knew the Indian back roads well and had very good relationships with every contact along the way; important stuff. When things got difficult, due to the protests which closed the road to Agra, they listened to us and were able to find a solution that enabled us to still visit one of the 7 wonders of the World. Narendra also invited us to his house to drink his rum and eat his food; good guy 🙂

So if anyone reading this is thinking of going on a riding adventure to India, make sure to contact https://www.indianrides.com/ and check them out.. go with the local Indian team, you’ll be pleased you did.