17-year-old Shiana Kaur Virdi put her books aside to conquer the Himalayas on a gearless scooter
While her classmates are busy preparing for their board exams, Shiana Kaur Virdi, a Class 12 student from Mumbai, rode some of the toughest terrains in the Himalayas on her scooter. “Raid De Himalayas”, which claims to be the world’s highest rally raid, was initiated in 1999. They recently held their 17th edition of the rally that flagged off from Shimla and ended in Srinagar.
The 17-year-old was the youngest of 250 participants in the rally. A commerce student from S.M. Shetty Junior College, she has been regularly participating in several racing events and Raid was her first rallying event. “Last year I participated in three championships and this year, so far in one. Two more are coming up soon in Pune and Bangalore and I’ll be going for them as well,” says Shiana, who is also a regular at the National Supercross Championship.
Being underage, she could only manage a license for gearless scooters. “Initially, no one accepted the idea of me doing a (rally) raid at this age, but then with Mahindra rider Shamim Khan’s reference I got a sponsorship from Mahindra and that helped me a lot.” Bitten by the bikers’ bug: The thrill of wheels lies in the family. Shiana says, “Actually, my dad is very fond of off-roading and cars. My dad taught my younger brother and me how to ride a bike,” she adds. Shiana started riding her Yamaha RX100 about three years ago and it was with her brother that she started racing. Initially it was just an idea of a race between siblings, which grew organically one step at a time. “We used to go to a small racetrack in Mumbai. Later we got to know about the track in Nashik (Kute supercross track). Every weekend we would go there and would meet all the current riders and champions, who taught us how to race. So we started practising over there and then we came to know about the National Championships and so on,” Shiana says.
We are family: She didn’t feel any sense of discomfort being among riders aged between 20 and 30. And that was partially because, “everyone was covered with their helmets, so no one really noticed,” she says. But she did get pampered a lot. “People kept telling me what to do, what not to do and so on,” she says. She also mentioned how a group of bikers are “like family” and everyone supports each other. “Most of the bikers who participated in Raid De Himalayas also take part in the National Championship as well,” she said. Raj Singh Rathore, Amber Udasi, Tsering Lakhpa, Venu Ramesh Kumar, Suresh Rana and Parminder Thakur are some of the participants who are regulars at the several national motor sport events who she met at the Himalayan rally.
The ride: Shiana had a rocky start. In the first leg of the event — the first transport from Hotel Peterhoff in Shimla to Mathiyana — she lost her way. “I had the navigator, but I was completely new to it. So there was a bridge, where I was supposed to go up, but the people standing over there told me to go down. After riding about 10 kilometres, I realised that this was not the way. There were satellite issues too, so the navigator was also not being able to show me the way. Then when I started asking the locals I realised that I had go back 10 kilometres and go above the bridge.” That was not the end of her woes. She also had a fall while taking a turn but since she was fully geared, she remained unscathed by the accident. “The roads were terrible. And since I was on a scooter, with smaller wheels, the shock absorption was a big challenge.”
The road ahead: Even though she couldn’t complete the entire raid, Shiana is more than happy to have participated in the rally. She completed the first two legs of the rally but soon she joined a service team. “From Manali to Dalhousie, I became a part of the service crew that cater to the bikes and cars at several points. Being a part of the service is tough, since you don’t get to sleep at night. You reach the destination where the race is going to end at night and once the bikers reach, you service their bikes,” she explains. She went from Manali to Srinagar this way. She says she enjoyed every moment of the entire experience. Currently, she is balancing her academics and passion really well, preparing for her board exams along with two upcoming rallies —Desert Storm (Rajasthan) and the Indian National Rally Championship. She has plans of joining the Civil Services eventually but she is clear about not giving up on her passion of riding bikes. Shiana says, “If one has a passion, one should follow it with utmost sincerity and I will do that.”
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